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Apple CAN’T do AAA gaming [Merged Megathread]
- Thread starter Admiralbison
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You pc people are for sure masters of double binding and suppression techniques. First complaining that Apple is doing nothing and don't understand gaming, then when they do something saying it's absurd and still worth nothing. I think it's absurd of you and other devs on this forum to say porting games to Mac is not profitable just because they haven't had success or are too small to be able to afford the porting.
I as a casual gamer just have to take a look at Feral’s all AAA games to understand that it can be profitable to port games to Mac. We have all these famous franchises (like Alien Isolation, Bioshock trilogy, Borderlands trilogy, Desperados 3, Deus Ex MKD, Dying Light, Metro trilogy, Tomb Raider trilogy, Total War Saga: Troy, Total War: Warhammer 3, Total War: Warhammer 40K and XCOM 2 Collection) being ported and you still say it’s not profitable? It’s especially interesting when you look at those trilogies. If number 1 or 2 wasn’t successful why they kept porting number 3? It's absurd that you and other devs say all those games were failures and were made with the intention of making huge losses.
I guess you people won't stop whining until Apple one day announce they suddenly have bought all the gaming studios and pc manufactures around the world over the night and shut down all production for pc in order to be believable. Then I'm sure you'll be complaining about Apple's monopoly.
AND AND AND AND AND...this is also with being able to figuratively "flip a switch" to make it work for both iOS and macOS. One would think more game developers would flip that switch, but do you see it? NOPE!
Yes, I know it's harder than just flipping a switch, so don't get your knickers in knots over it.
My man, I’m the last person to call a PC gamer. Though I was in that crowd some time ago I’ve left that behind and am much better for it.
Like half my post history is just vitrol for that crowd and (my past self included) ignorance.
My core argument twofold:
1. Apple is not to blame for the lack of games. They’ve made the hardware, frameworks, and ecosystem which nicely integrates with the most profitable section of the gaming market.
The developers are reluctant to release games still.
2. Said developers still say it’s a marketshare issue. We should listen to them.
Thanks for that, man! Are you sure about No Mans Sky being a Vulkan title, instead of a DX12 one?
If so, that’s even better news than if it was all DX12. Might this be the first Vulkan title on Mac?
Iirc grumpycoder mentioned a pathfinding tool he used in Unity being bugged in MacOS, and the developer of said tool not patching it. I can only assume it’s not an isolated issue.
No, like I said, I don't have either AA or TMS. I do however know DLCs were released as "patches".
IKR... mac fanboi's who don't play games keep insisting it will happen, THIS IS THE YEAR FOR MaC GaMeS!!
Meanwhile the gaming industry keeps turning out new games every month with no Mac releases in sight
(I'm sure I will be corrected there will be 1 or 2 titles, which will disprove me)
I would also assume that’s a long way from being anything more than anecdotal. Do you know if that bug has been fixed or if there’s a workaround?
Most bugs are not game-breaking variety, are they? And they’re not unique to MacOS, are they?
It’s just assumptions. Statistical noise with no context.
I am willing to check on my SD but it needs a 7GB update (on DSL) so it will be a while...
Multiple games on Apple Arcade has received DLC, it’s just free DLC.
The hurdle is more than Apple’s GPU’s being able to support certain effects. Apple’s been able to create imagery good enough for GTA, Minecraft, Genshin Impact, Overwatch, COD, since the release of the M1… in some cases, before (GTA isn’t terribly graphically stressful). It’s not enough that Apple’s hardware is capable, publishers have to feel that it’s worth it to release a game for. The vast majority of publishers don’t think that releasing a game simultaneously for macOS is worth the effort, so they don’t. IF they ever even release a Mac version at all.
And, unfortunately, the Mac Studio is quite a bit more graphically capable than the M1 Air that’s the big seller. I doubt there are many that will buy a Mac Studio to run a game they could run pretty much ANYWHERE else at the same level of performance, but cheaper. And if Mac Studio is the system requirement, they’re not going to sell many copies.
I think it’s worth asking WHY Mac games are released months or years later and why anyone would consider that’s a GOOD thing. It’s because Mac sales aren’t important to the publisher. If they were, they’d make sure that game being released on the Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xboxen, was also being released on macOS to take advantage of the advertising blitz. Sell as many macOS copies as possible while the hype is high.
I’ve said several times games have a much higher chance of being ported when it’s easy and trivial to do because it’s cheap. Let me exaggerate, when I create something for $100k (or M or whatever), make $500k off it on a target platform and then someone asks me to port it over to platform B, then it’s simple. I calculate how much it costs me to port to a new platform and how much I can make on that platform B. If I can make $1k on platform B and it costs me $10 to port it, done. If I can make $1k on platform B and it costs me $1k or more for a port, then I’m not doing it. Going back to a real world example, when was the last time you’ve seen a Mac port that due to complexity costs $25M? $20M? $15M? $10M? I’m not even talking about highly complex games with custom libs, engines, etc. where the cost of porting to macOS can be anywhere between 50% to 100% of the original development costs. This came down a bit in the more recent past thanks to Unity, Unreal & Co.
When games are build with features spanning all platforms only and are not highly optimized, things get cheaper. The games you listed are such examples. I’m going to pick Tomb Raider as that is a special case. The game was created for multiple platforms using Foundation engine. Mac support was always there and was never a problem. What happened then is what Nvidia is often doing (same as Apple in some cases), Nvidia threw a ton of money at the studio to integrate RTX support and platform specific optimizations (Apple and Nvidia have done the same in the past for some of my projects). It would have been very expensive going from there to any other platform. But since they went from a base implementation for everyone and then added more features for a specific platform, it was easy to go back to the base and it for a port. The lowest common denominator. That isn’t the best solution, if they would have tailored the whole thing towards a specific platform, it probably could have looked better with even better performance.
Why port? Again, when all it takes is a flip of a switch for simple engines, graphics and games in general plus some testing, then it’s the logical choice. Again, “how much does it cost”, “how much can I make with it”. The very basics of multi platform developments everyone who ever done it knows.
You seem to worry a lot about my apps. Thanks for your concern, you don’t have to worry at all. My apps were very profitable, also thanks to Apple when I worked with them a lot. They even gave me/us full access to the iOS SDK before it launched publicly. Steve Jobs showed software I worked on on stage, two developer awards, visits to Cupertino, features in their press releases and several apps for Mac and iPhone/iPad later, I could have easily bought property and call Tim Cook or Bill Gates my new neighbor (I bought a few smaller ones in several countries instead, because every now and then I like to travel). So I think I managed somewhat well with the apps in the eco system and those I didn’t port over there because I knew it wouldn’t be financially feasible. Thanks for your concern again, but putting words in my mouth doesn’t work so well.
When I speak of games and profits, then I speak about actual projects I’ve worked to varying degrees for larger studios such as EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Nintendo and the like. Some of my former colleagues and students stayed full time in the gaming industry and still have to worry about this. I focus more on Sim2Real gap in robotics and autonomous systems these days and work with Nvidia a lot (for the support and tools that Apple doesn’t have), some of which makes it back into games again. Maybe after this project, I’ll focus a little more on pure gaming again or go back to aerospace applications. I’ll go wherever the fun is. Time will tell.
It’s always better to be open for correction, so golf clap for that.
You say “hopelessly optimistic”, while I self identify as “cautiously optimistic”. Well, we’re getting closer here, so baby steps?
Maybe market share has always been your issue, but there are potentially an infinite number of other issues that are thrown about as being “the issue” but I might agree that one WWDC keynote speech can’t fix or correct Mac gaming on its own.
No, according to yourself and Grumpycoder not even the hottest game demo is enough to help Apple, because you all will exactly say things like below again after seeing that hottest demo:
"The only thing that changed is that Mac gaming fanboys saw a game at a keynote which sparked wishful thinking again and we restart all over with the same thing. Or in other words, what we saw at WWDC is what we’ve always seen in the past to varying degrees since the introduction of SpriteKit. This “iteration” of threads will lead to the exact same results and if Apple would show the version of Tic Tac Toe from 1983 Wargames at the next keynote in fall, it would still be the 2nd coming of Christ for gaming on the Mac for some. 🤷♂️
Not seeing the point here. A guy comes out on stage and is paid for praising the hell out of something. What does that tell us? I’ve been on stage promoting technology I normally wouldn’t work with, for the simple financial reasons. Apple brought out developers in the past who praised the hell out of the TouchBar as the best thing ever and interface of choice. They did the same for the butterfly keyboard and countless other things. All of them had a financial interest only the technology was abandoned and declared a failure later. Don’t forget the great Apple and Nintendo partnership which was supposed to revolutionize gaming. They brought out Miyamoto, the father of the whole gaming industry, who praised the hell out of Apple, introduced a Mario game only for Nintendo to pull the plug later. Any company bringing games to any platform will do the same thing if it turns out to financially not feasible.
And here we are again, nothing changed compared to the past few years. We’ll get a few games here and there, whenever it’s “free” (low cost) to port and no studio will put a ton of money into optimized ports to bring over. Same old, same old."
I' didn't put words in your mouth. You've said several times that you stopped porting apps/games to Mac because it's not profitable. At the same time we have all these popular and big games that are and have been profitable enough to get ported. What I said was that because porting Mac games hasn't been profitable for you it doesn't mean it's not profitable for all devs apparently.
2. Well, anyone can call themselves for anything on internet and make statements. For some devs the small market share is a problem for others it's not. As I said before I as a casual gamer just have to take a look at Feral’s all AAA games to understand that it can be profitable to port games to Mac. We have all these famous franchises (like Alien Isolation, Bioshock trilogy, Borderlands trilogy, Desperados 3, Deus Ex MKD, Dying Light, Metro trilogy, Tomb Raider trilogy, Total War Saga: Troy, Total War: Warhammer 3, Total War: Warhammer 40K and XCOM 2 Collection) being ported and people still say it’s not profitable? It’s especially interesting when you look at those trilogies. If number 1 or 2 wasn’t successful why they kept porting number 3? Just because some devs don't find it profitable it doesn't mean it's not profitable at all.
And where exactly does that not describe what I've been saying ever since the first gaming thread started?
Push of a button for a free port -> do it, few copies sold will generate money.
Invest countless hours of porting due to complexity and platform specific optimization -> very likely more expensive to port than what sales can return.
In other words, same old, same old. We'll keep seeing visually simple and easy to port games every now and then for the Mac and we won't see highly optimized Windows or console games for the Mac. Story over.
That is, one day we'll have DirectX 27 and Crossover 45 and those games can be played on a Mac and maybe on any other platform. Or maybe we'll make some progress on automatic AI guided code porting and as soon as we make a breakthrough it will happen. Until then, we'll stick to the same. But maybe I'll dig up the old XCOM for macOS because I'll have to travel again and drag my MBP with me. So there's some change.
So, when I looked into “all these games” awhile back, most weren’t being produced by the company that originally published the game. Someone approached the publisher, asked to license, the publisher provided the license, so now all that licensee has to do is sell enough titles to pay for the licensing cost.
Profitable enough to defray licensing cost and support is a much different picture than making enough to pay for all the initial proof of concept, testing, feedback group sessions, weekly demos, and support. Plus, they’re making something that’s already proven to be somewhat successful, so there’s a good likelihood it will sell good enough (even though, the Mac version still has to cost a bit more to ensure they make their money back.
And that was back when PC or Mac was the only way to play some of these more graphically intense games. Now that folks on a Mac don’t have to wait… they can buy an Xbox or PS4 or an inexpensive PC tower to play, that means the calculation above on “how many titles we can sell SPECIFICALLY on the Mac” is likely to have changed significantly. If I can get a license for $150,000, I’ve got to have sales significantly more than that in order to
1. Be able to pay folks to make and support it and
2. Make enough to make it worth MY effort to produce. If, after paying everyone I clear $100,000, that’s a profit, but I’m not going to go through the effort to produce that game for that payout.
I want to agree with you but your use of “fanboi” and improper use of apostrophe turns my stomach.
If you’re gonna discredit these statements you do you I guess. But it makes logical sense and seems to be echoed by many people in the know.
And I’d argue that Feral’s business model is an example of the low profitability of Mac ports rather than otherwise. If it were just as profitable then games would see launch day releases like many cross platform titles.
Instead the porting job gets farmed out to the only company that will do it (now that Aspyr is out), and months or years after the initial release.
I’m only openly hostile to those arguing in bad faith.
The only thing from the keynote that would make me hopeful is the claim that the M1 Air is the best selling laptop. If that’s true that means a growing userbase and maybe better treatment.
Glad to see you finally get it, and that you already understand the response. Do we really need to rehash this over and over because Apple demo'd a game, again.
These Apple game demo's are like car prototypes, they are great for presentations and wow factor. Let's see how Apple can really back them up, because the rest of the gaming industry isn't.
When REV is released for MacOS later this year will it be the original $59.99 price when it was released May 2021 while current deal is ~$20 for Steam? Hopefully, the MacOS version isn't an Apple Store exclusive and will be on Steam for the benefit of buying once and using on multiplatform. Google had a deal last year to buy REV and get Stadia Premier kit for free but passed up on the offer to wait for the game to hit $15. The other two games don't seem as interesting since NMS has low Metacritic reviews and Grid Legends looks like a mobile game.
NMS now is a different game from launch, so I'd take the Metacritic summary with a grain of salt.
I think we can be cautiously optimistic though, since there's a Game Controllers panel being added to the new System Preferences. If Apple wasn't interested in gaming, there'd be no point in adding that.
I think we can be cautiously optimistic though, since there's a Game Controllers panel being added to the new System Preferences. If Apple wasn't interested in gaming, there'd be no point in adding that.