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In 3 years, 50% of all computers capable of playing AAA games will be Macs
- Thread starter senttoschool
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MacOS has mouse acceleration permanently on. Windows you can turn it off.
They get offended when I make the claim that Gamers are the biggest whales. Seriously, they'll defend lootboxes if you press them enough.
Game developers can bypass mouse acceleration if they want to, and offer the option to use raw mouse input. I remember a game not allowing mouse acceleration, which I hated (I much prefer keeping it on).
I adjust acceleration on the Mac using Decelerator. I don't remember where I got it, so I can't vouch for this link, but it does give a good description of the product:
Decelerator 1.0 (Mac) - Download
Download Decelerator for Mac - A light and practical application specially designed to help you adjust your mouse and trackpad acceleration settings according to your preferences
And doesn't the software for most gaming mice allow acceleration to be defeated?
Some articles say acceleration can be turned off using the following Terminal command:
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
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Automatic software updates can chew through your company's Internet quota and can also cause a drain on the processing resources of your computers and mobile devices. The Google Chrome Web browser on your Mac is set by default to download and install updates from Google on a daily basis...
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…and the M1 Air has a significantly better CPU, GPU, display, SSD (speed-wise), and battery life. So if you’re trying to prove that Apple makes great value laptops but no cheap laptops then, yes, I agree. Not sure why that would be called a “tax”?
The OP makes some great points. Certainly there is a lot of potential for Apple to break into the AAA games market. I would add that the unified architecture of iOS and MacOS would be additional incentive as Apple’s processors are increasingly capable of blurring the line between mobile and AAA gaming.
I wonder if the biggest barrier isn’t technological but cultural. As others have pointed out, developers and gamers aren’t taking the Apple platforms seriously—even if the should. There are more AAA games for Switch, which is woefully behind any of Apple’s current devices, because Nintendo is a gaming company.
I wonder if the biggest barrier isn’t technological but cultural. As others have pointed out, developers and gamers aren’t taking the Apple platforms seriously—even if the should. There are more AAA games for Switch, which is woefully behind any of Apple’s current devices, because Nintendo is a gaming company.
Apple has time and time again show themselves to be actively hostile towards gamers. It's 100% cultural, and it will take a multi-year effort for Apple to gain any sort of trust.
1000% cultural. It always was. The Mac has a chicken and egg problem in that nobody writes games for Mac because they’re “not for gaming,” and nobody plays games on MacOS because no games are written for it.
Companies are always willing to jump on the latest DirectX library, but the moment Apple says “we won’t support 10-years old OpenGL” they throw a tantrum. There’s probably not enough RoI to do a good port of most games unless they’re wanting to cast a wide of net as possible.
But then the situation never changes.
And aside from the companies releasing AAA garbo, the kiddies who play them are often hostile towards Macs in general. See any comments involving “gaming” and “Apple”.
Lol if you actually believe this. The only thing Apple could do more to cater to them is porting games themselves. And there isn’t a point since gamer kiddies aren’t going to drop their PCs for a Mac anyway.
There seems to be a certain amount of wishful thinking present around this topic. My wishful thinking, on the other hand, would like to see MacOS to run all programs Windows and Linux can, game or not, without any fuss. People don’t have to worry about if they would be forced to use a Windows-exclusive program for work.
The problem is that "gamers" are diverse, and don't just play the latest AAA game that EA spits out. They play games like "Sim City" (1995), Super Mario Brothers (emulated, 1985), Diablo II (1999), etc... This means that even if the games existed for a mac (they don't), gamers aren't going to buy them for a mac when Apple has a history of cutting off support after a decade. The number of games that can't be played on a mac far exceeds the number of games that will run on an M1 mac.
Then, lets talk about why publishers don't make games for the mac. There's a few reasons:
1) Gamers don't buy them (see the above paragraph)
2) Apple doesn't support them beyond a decade or so (again, see above)
3) Apple doesn't bother supporting the latest APIs. For the longest time, Apple was about a decade behind in supporting OpenGL. Now that they're using Metal, there's an entire API that is only supported on a single platform.
4) Apple doesn't support bugfixes. Imagine you're a developer and come across a bug. AMD/Nvidia/Intel all work with a publisher and/or Microsoft to get a bugfix in so that a game is playable. Guess who won't? Apple. So not only is there no reason for a publisher to make a game for the mac, there's actually a disincentive due to a lack of bug fixes.
My god, we can’t use libraries from the stone age, woe is these multi billion dollar companies. How many of them are on dx12 now btw?
And 3 just reiterates what I said. If you lay the blame on Apple for not wiping the ass of these giant companies to program a game then I dunno what to say. Even Adobe, a paragon of not fixing bugs, has managed to move photoshop, illustrator, and indesign to native versions.
You tell me that for example, a company such as actiblizz, who despite making record profits and laying off much of their staff, is so strapped that a Mac port would break them?
On the other hand let’s look at 2k/Bethesda, who can’t make functional games on a single platform. Same with the creators of cyberpunk 2077, cd projekt red. Maybe they’re just too incompetent to make games for multi platforms, or too lazy because fixing bugs is just too hard
.Emulators already work on Mac, Dolphin is even native. That doesn’t hold water.
Honestly I don’t get the “gamer” mindset. All I ever hear is whining about the price of Macs, and then you turn around and buy an NVidia gpu for 1200. Or you complain about the lack of AAA games when all the new releases are buggy messes or filled out the ass with microtransactions and/or day 1 dlc. Or in fact the latest AAA multiplayer games often are less popular than 5 year old or greater games (according to steams top played games), half of which are available on Mac.
None of it makes sense, I used to play a lot of games myself. Many I hold dear to my heart. But the current idiotic state of “gaming culture” just drives me up the wall.
They did help 4A Games port Metro Exodus, and yet the game still is missing the latest Engine work they did (real time global illumination). Apple, supposedly, has the API support, yet didn't help 4A Games write it in.
I wouldn't say Apple is hostile to gaming, but rather are unwilling to prioritize it over other concerns. But as others have mentioned, AAA gaming is a bit of mess. The cost to produce a AAA title are considerable. Game studios are understandably cautious about trying new things, since they need blockbuster titles to make up for the underperforming ones. Sadly though, games haven't really evolved too much beyond better graphics for some time. So we get lots of remastered nostalgia titles and endless franchise sequels. The ability for many consumers to buy the latest and greatest hardware to run them well is constrained at the moment. I can see why Nvidia is looking to leverage their offerings beyond gaming. Let's not even get into the working conditions and culture in many game studios.
I like checking out indie titles from time to time. They may not have the latest ray traced graphics, but might actually rely on a compelling story, or maybe even some interesting mechanics.
I like checking out indie titles from time to time. They may not have the latest ray traced graphics, but might actually rely on a compelling story, or maybe even some interesting mechanics.
Adobe can port its software to use new APIs, because people are still paying money for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign. Game business works differently, because the sales dry up quickly.
Almost all games are abandoned by their developers a year or two after the release. They no longer sell enough to justify continued support. Porting them to use new APIs would be a waste of money for no benefit at all. A few games are rereleased 10 years or so after the original release, if the publisher assumes there will be enough interest from new players. Most of the time, the only way to play old games is to use a platform that supports the original APIs.
That is usually why they do 'redux' or remaster or remakes of older games, get folks to pay again for the updates. I am curious to see if smart delivery will make that not as common in the future.
Lmao that’s what a “gamer” does, actually. That’s the sole point of video-games
Would you rank playing videos games as more or less of a waste of time compared to watching a movie or tv show?
Still discussing this?
Cost to create a game: $100M, cost to port to Mac: $50M, total: $150M.
Number of sales: 35M copies, average price over lifetime: $30 per copy.
Money made: $30 * 35M copies = $1050M
Out of the $1050M: $1018.5M from Windows, $31.5M from macOS.
Discussion over. And no, we’re not talking cheap Indie games which are usually created by “clicking around in a pre-existing engine” and are ported by flipping a switch.
Cost to create a game: $100M, cost to port to Mac: $50M, total: $150M.
Number of sales: 35M copies, average price over lifetime: $30 per copy.
Money made: $30 * 35M copies = $1050M
Out of the $1050M: $1018.5M from Windows, $31.5M from macOS.
Discussion over. And no, we’re not talking cheap Indie games which are usually created by “clicking around in a pre-existing engine” and are ported by flipping a switch.
Software development is only a small part of game development. Most expenses are platform-independent: design, writing, scripting, textures, 3d models, animations, voice acting, sound effects, music, marketing, administration...
An indie studio can support Mac easily if the game engine they are using already supports it. Same for big studios and their proprietary engines. Supporting Mac is also cheap if you are writing a new engine. The difficult part is supporting new platforms with an existing engine. There are only a few people familiar with the internals of the engine, and they may have better things to do. Even if supporting Mac would be profitable, other things could be even more profitable. Such as adding support for a new console generation or a new DirectX version.
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apple's gaming "industry" is not AAA games. They are your angry birds and words with friends....
I think they’re all the same: their main purpose is to entertain, to literally waste your time.
What's your source for that $50M? That's probably more than it cost to code the game in the first place (if $100M is the total cost for the game, that includes not only the raw coding, but also development, story planning, artwork, marketing, etc.). Also, you don't specify if that's the cost of porting an already-developed PC game to the Mac, as opposed to the added cost of including a Mac port from the start of the development process. The latter should be significantly less that the former.
I'd be interested to hear from someone who's worked for a company that's ported a AAA game to the Mac, and who has an understanding of the business side.
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