Apple CAN’T do AAA gaming [Merged Megathread]

[thedocbwarren]

Businesses drive Windows, not gaming.

this. Very true. gaming is not the driving force of Windows. So many apps are embedded in business that are running on Windows. Now, yes, there are some web alternatives for these in some cases. Macs are special and always will be, and wonderful to use. I say this to friends of mine, be happy this alternate platform is doing well and supported by a thriving company. We do have a lot more support than alternate platforms ever did and can run quite a bit.

 

[BootLoxes]

Really wish xcloud could have been an app. Would have been a great solution for the appletv

 

[turbineseaplane]

Apple has way too much ego and hubris to do what's really necessary

(court developers and do what's needed to make things great for game developers on the hardware AND software side)

 

[ryanmillercg]

Many developers are stuck on windows, and that’s not changing very quickly. They are served quite well there.

Apple Arcade is not AAA, exactly, but it’s a pretty significant effort from apple to bring unique titles to their ecosystem.

Apple does things incrementally. Had apple acrade been a runaway success from day one, perhaps we would have an M1 Apple TV today. I do think things are moving that way, but very slowly.

The rise of Mac friendly game engines (Unity/unreal/Godot/game maker) is helping, little by little. Game developers aren’t anywhere near as technically strained as they once were. At least for smaller developers, they must go where the users and the platform cash are.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

You say they “continue to do nothing” — how do you know what they’re working on this very moment? And for what you’re after, don’t you see this as a developer problem? Because the hardware is more than capable — it is the developer that needs to get onboard. Could Apple do something to incentivize them? Possibly.

 

[nastysailboat]

Because they have the lion’s share of profits from the biggest gaming market, mobile.

And the desktop gaming crowd is actively hostile towards Apple. Console makers have exclusivity deals.

This is a good point, the desktop gaming crowd is pretty hostile. I don’t see why people need apple to game.

 

[nastysailboat]

We all want this. Maybe now with their capable low power GPUs we can see some movement here. Pretty please.

I’m ok without gaming

 

[dtm84]

You are in a bit of an echo chamber. Compare the PC gaming market to the console gaming market to the mobile gaming market. Games do not "basically drives Windows". Office productivity drives Windows sales. Education (historically) and Creative productivity drive Mac sales. Apple is a trillion dollar company, leader in mobiles, they are not interested in trying to wrestle out a minor fraction of desktop gaming market share from Windows when growth in gaming is predominantly in the mobile platform and already a multiple of the desktop market. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-gaming-market

Apple doesn't care about MacOS games because it would not drive a significant number of sales, gamers are fickle/hostile/toxic, and AAA game studios are who make games, not Apple, they require massive cash infusion at high risk compared with mobile gaming studios that can **** out fart apps that make Apple huge cash on the app store with no investment.

 

[ryanmillercg]

You are in a bit of an echo chamber. Compare the PC gaming market to the console gaming market to the mobile gaming market. Games do not "basically drives Windows". Office productivity drives Windows sales. Education (historically) and Creative productivity drive Mac sales. Apple is a trillion dollar company, leader in mobiles, they are not interested in trying to wrestle out a minor fraction of desktop gaming market share from Windows when growth in gaming is predominantly in the mobile platform and already a multiple of the desktop market. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-gaming-market

Apple doesn't care about MacOS games because it would not drive a significant number of sales, gamers are fickle/hostile/toxic, and AAA game studios are who make games, not Apple, they require massive cash infusion at high risk compared with mobile gaming studios that can **** out fart apps that make Apple huge cash on the app store with no investment.

Agree with all of this. Also helps to show why Apple doesn’t care about competing with Nvidia/AMD gaming GPU business. Very competitive, not actually that big.

 

[Boil]

Apple should buy Take Two & release GTAVI as a macOS exclusive for six months or so...

Apple should do a deal like Unity & Weta Digital did, but with Pixar instead, then use that IP to create a comprehensive Apple DCC software suite...

 

[diamond.g]

You are in a bit of an echo chamber. Compare the PC gaming market to the console gaming market to the mobile gaming market. Games do not "basically drives Windows". Office productivity drives Windows sales. Education (historically) and Creative productivity drive Mac sales. Apple is a trillion dollar company, leader in mobiles, they are not interested in trying to wrestle out a minor fraction of desktop gaming market share from Windows when growth in gaming is predominantly in the mobile platform and already a multiple of the desktop market. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-gaming-market

Apple doesn't care about MacOS games because it would not drive a significant number of sales, gamers are fickle/hostile/toxic, and AAA game studios are who make games, not Apple, they require massive cash infusion at high risk compared with mobile gaming studios that can **** out fart apps that make Apple huge cash on the app store with no investment.

Apple doesn't care about the Mac the same way they care about iOS because they cannot force all apps through the Mac App store like they can the iOS App Store.

 

[JMacHack]

Apple should buy Take Two & release GTAVI as a macOS exclusive for six months or so...

I’d support this only for the massive outrage it would cause. The anger would be astounding.

But realistically no “gamers” would decide to buy a Mac over waiting six months for a game to be released on their platform of choice.

Apple should do a deal like Unity & Weta Digital did, but with Pixar instead, then use that IP to create a comprehensive Apple DCC software suite...

Apple is better off supporting existing software behind the scenes, like they’re doing with Blender. It’s easier to say “look your software is compatible and runs better on our hardware!” Than to make an entirely new software suite and convince people to switch.

Gamers seem to think the entire computing world revolves around them and their hobby.

 

[Irishman]

Many developers are stuck on windows, and that’s not changing very quickly. They are served quite well there.

Apple Arcade is not AAA, exactly, but it’s a pretty significant effort from apple to bring unique titles to their ecosystem.

Apple does things incrementally. Had apple acrade been a runaway success from day one, perhaps we would have an M1 Apple TV today. I do think things are moving that way, but very slowly.

The rise of Mac friendly game engines (Unity/unreal/Godot/game maker) is helping, little by little. Game developers aren’t anywhere near as technically strained as they once were. At least for smaller developers, they must go where the users and the platform cash are.

Don’t forget the Kex engine. I’m playing Turok Dinosaur Hunter right now, which has been ported by Nightdive Studios, to run on Kex.

 

[Irishman]

You are in a bit of an echo chamber. Compare the PC gaming market to the console gaming market to the mobile gaming market. Games do not "basically drives Windows". Office productivity drives Windows sales. Education (historically) and Creative productivity drive Mac sales. Apple is a trillion dollar company, leader in mobiles, they are not interested in trying to wrestle out a minor fraction of desktop gaming market share from Windows when growth in gaming is predominantly in the mobile platform and already a multiple of the desktop market. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-gaming-market

Apple doesn't care about MacOS games because it would not drive a significant number of sales, gamers are fickle/hostile/toxic, and AAA game studios are who make games, not Apple, they require massive cash infusion at high risk compared with mobile gaming studios that can **** out fart apps that make Apple huge cash on the app store with no investment.

For gamers of a certain age, it’s easy to become accustomed to the idea that the scene that you’ve come up in has always been that way. It’s easy to do that in areas other than gaming, too, such as politics, movies, music, etc.

I personally find that looking for retrospective documentaries and historical perspectives of the same helps to put this current iteration of Apple gaming in better clarity, and I find that fundamentally reassuring. It’s why I’m able to speak optimistically and positive about the future of Mac, because it’s been MUCH better than it is now.

I hope that helps!

 

[diamond.g]

For gamers of a certain age, it’s easy to become accustomed to the idea that the scene that you’ve come up in has always been that way. It’s easy to do that in areas other than gaming, too, such as politics, movies, music, etc.

I personally find that looking for retrospective documentaries and historical perspectives of the same helps to put this current iteration of Apple gaming in better clarity, and I find that fundamentally reassuring. It’s why I’m able to speak optimistically and positive about the future of Mac, because it’s been MUCH better than it is now.

I hope that helps!

The glorious days of Mac Gaming pre-"3d accelerate all the things".

 

[ryanmillercg]

Don’t forget the Kex engine. I’m playing Turok Dinosaur Hunter right now, which has been ported by Nightdive Studios, to run on Kex.

I've worked in game dev for 15 years and never heard of this engine. Thanks for sharing!

 

[mi7chy]

I've worked in game dev for 15 years and never heard of this engine. Thanks for sharing!

Turok is a 24 year old game that's why you probably haven't heard of it.

 

[JMacHack]

Turok is a 24 year old game that's why you probably haven't heard of it.

Doom is a 30 year old game that’s better than all games that came out since 2018.

 

[sunny5]

Well, how many games supporting Apple Silicon natively especially new games? I have to assume that Apple's best interest is mobile gaming, not macOS gaming. Most of them running by Rosetta 2 and eventually, they wont work in near future.

It's def not about hardware, it's about software, platform, and macOS. Apple Silicon chips proven to be very powerful and yet, nobody is willing to support games on Mac. Even iOS games aren't even supporting macOS too. This is because macOS market share is very niche and not profitable. Instead, they made Apple Arcade and their mobile gaming profits is sky rocketing. So why would they want macOS for gaming?

- macOS is a niche market for gaming.
- Mac itself is expensive for gaming.
- Only few people play games on Mac.
- Even major iOS game developers aren't interested in macOS.
- Not a profitable platform.

At this point, I can only conclude that Apple is NOT interested in macOS gaming since they major interest is mobile and mobile games already have high market share than PC+Console market.

As long as Apple care only about mobile gaming, I dont think there is hope for Mac gaming with Apple Silicon.

 

[senttoschool]

How much did Apple care about mobile games when they launched the iPhone in 2007?

Anyways, macOS is an open platform. Developers can and will make games for macOS as long as it makes business sense.

 

[fwmireault]

I agree with your observations, but I want to add that many iOS games are not ported on macOS because the user experience is terrible. I tried to play some Apple Arcade games on Mac, and it's not that nice because these games are developed for touch interfaces. Even if developers have a relatively fast way to port their games to Mac, they would probably need to put a lot more work to make the UI more usable.

Also, I don't believe anybody is buying a Mac for gaming. It's a nice add-on, but it's not gaming-focused now, and I doubt it will ever be.

 

[UBS28]

I agree with your observations, but I want to add that many iOS games are not ported on macOS because the user experience is terrible. I tried to play some Apple Arcade games on Mac, and it's not that nice because these games are developed for touch interfaces. Even if developers have a relatively fast way to port their games to Mac, they would probably need to put a lot more work to make the UI more usable.

Also, I don't believe anybody is buying a Mac for gaming. It's a nice add-on, but it's not gaming-focused now, and I doubt it will ever be.

Intel MAC's were great gaming machines as you had bootcamp. Apple killed gaming switching to AS.

The only Mac's that cannot game are M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / M1 Ultra Mac's.

 

[leman]

Intel MAC's were great gaming machines as you had bootcamp. Apple killed gaming switching to AS.

Hardly. Too expensive for the hardware you get. M1 is a much better value — the base Air has essentially comparable gaming capability to the latest Intel 16" MBP.

The only Mac's that cannot game are M1 / M1 Pro / M1 Max / M1 Ultra Mac's.

What have I been doing all these evenings then?

 

[Xiao_Xi]

What should Apple do to change the status quo and attract more game developers?

 

[senttoschool]

Steam Hardware & Software Survey

A bit interesting that nearly 40% of Mac Steam gamers now use Apple Silicon.