The final blow for real gaming on the Mac, or the beginning of a new era?

[ipponrg]

Which is sad. Blizzard ought to have sufficient in-house expertise and tools available to develop games for Mac. The fact that Overwatch has been ported to Switch but not to macOS makes me expect the worst for Blizzard’s Mac support in the future. Given the Switch port, I doubt that the Mac hardware was the only reason why they ditched macOS.

I think these actions are good indicators that Blizzard doesn't have a high regard of Mac as a sufficient gaming platform. In another thread, people believe the ARM architecture will change game developers' perspective. My gut says it's no different, if not worse, than pre-x86 days.

There are a lot of game developers (also those who make so called AAA games) already having games on Apple's silicon in the form of games for iOS/iPadOS. If they can their game ”for free” onto a more powerful device in the shape of a desktop Mac – why not?

Believe it or not, it's just another source of revenue. Much of it is built around the micro transaction model. Take for example Diablo
3. Netease is loosely skinning another of its game with Diablo skins.

In addition, the user experience on a desktop vs mobile vs tablet is different. Why would they convert a mobile game to a desktop? They use completely different peripherals and paradigms. Will that user who has been playing CoC on mobile/tablet care to play it on their desktop?

 

[Tech198]

Intel Mac, developers were more open and willingly to port their games.. Not sure about how much now...

Not that games won't exist...just may not be done as many as before... It'll defiantly loose ground. ANyone's guess would be all the oldest games to be left n the dust..

Goodbye Doom Resurrection

 

[throAU]

Except that you'll not be playing Outer Worlds on your apple watch. You're counting every ARM device that device apple produces and its quite evident that apple won't be selling several hundred million Macs. No matter how you slice it, Apple only has a 10% market share for computers (give or take a percentage point) and out of that small number, a tiny niche is only interested in gaming.

Sure. But the ATV4k and any recent iPad is still more powerful than a switch and is only a first party controller away from being a legit gaming platform.

I was deliberately not just counting Macs, because they're not the core market.

As far as ARM ports go - hell, the Switch already IS ARM. Plus, most people aren't writing in assembly these days, that's left to the ENGINE developer.

Most games will be a recompile and asset (graphics/levels/sound) re-sizing to the platform as appropriate, if required.

People ported Witcher 3 (and Doom 2016) to the Switch for example. Those games would easily fit far more easily on the iPad due to its larger storage, memory, cpu/gpu power, etc.

Architecture as in terms of instruction set compatibility is NOWHERE NEAR as much of a hurdle as some people here think.

We simply aren't writing much code in assembler anymore (it's not the 1990s or early 2000s), and the major 3d/sound/etc. libraries that are, are ALREADY cross-platform.

The reason the Mac has sucked as a game platform even with the x86 chip has been nothing to do with the CPU for example - it's been API support. And Metal is now on hundreds of millions of devices where it is already used. the GPU hardware that the Apple silicon brings will be much more power efficient and (I would wager) outright more powerful than anything apple has shipped to date in each category of device as it is switched.
[automerge]1593473370[/automerge]

And beyond that, the limitations imposed on apps for iPhones/iPads/tvOS regarding installation size and support for control methods

PS4/xbox controllers work fine? Where I say "first party apple controller" I mean apple could do better and make the pairing experience way better. But you can play on ATV/iPad/Mac with a controller via bluetooth right now.

 

[diamond.g]

Sure. But the ATV4k and any recent iPad is still more powerful than a switch and is only a first party controller away from being a legit gaming platform.

I was deliberately not just counting Macs, because they're not the core market.

As far as ARM ports go - hell, the Switch already IS ARM. Plus, most people aren't writing in assembly these days, that's left to the ENGINE developer.

Most games will be a recompile and asset (graphics/levels/sound) re-sizing to the platform as appropriate, if required.

People ported Witcher 3 (and Doom 2016) to the Switch for example. Those games would easily fit far more easily on the iPad due to its larger storage, memory, cpu/gpu power, etc.

Architecture as in terms of instruction set compatibility is NOWHERE NEAR as much of a hurdle as some people here think.

We simply aren't writing much code in assembler anymore (it's not the 1990s or early 2000s), and the major 3d/sound/etc. libraries that are, are ALREADY cross-platform.

The reason the Mac has sucked as a game platform even with the x86 chip has been nothing to do with the CPU for example - it's been API support. And Metal is now on hundreds of millions of devices where it is already used. the GPU hardware that the Apple silicon brings will be much more power efficient and (I would wager) outright more powerful than anything apple has shipped to date in each category of device as it is switched.
[automerge]1593473370[/automerge]


PS4/xbox controllers work fine? Where I say "first party apple controller" I mean apple could do better and make the pairing experience way better. But you can play on ATV/iPad/Mac with a controller via bluetooth right now.

How many people would pay 59.99 for said port (specifically for Witcher 3)?

 

[Bustycat]

Most of people only saw one transition (PowerPC to Intel), but game developers also saw these:

• OpenGL to Metal
• 32-bit to 64-bit
• Objective-C to Swift

As the new transition of Intel to Apple Silicon just initiated, don’t game developers think enough is enough?

 

[star-affinity]

I think these actions are good indicators that Blizzard doesn't have a high regard of Mac as a sufficient gaming platform. In another thread, people believe the ARM architecture will change game developers' perspective. My gut says it's no different, if not worse, than pre-x86 days.

Right now it might be no different or even worse, but I think it could change down the lane when all Apple devices are on their silicon and the user base of those Macs starts to increase.

Believe it or not, it's just another source of revenue. Much of it is built around the micro transaction model. Take for example Diablo
3. Netease is loosely skinning another of its game with Diablo skins.

In addition, the user experience on a desktop vs mobile vs tablet is different. Why would they convert a mobile game to a desktop? They use completely different peripherals and paradigms. Will that user who has been playing CoC on mobile/tablet care to play it on their desktop?

I think you have some good points here. But another point is that at least Apple already has a lot of game developers on their platform in the form of games for iOS/iPadOS. If those games are easily transfered to macOS I think that will benefit gaming on the Mac. But I agree there's a big difference between the big AAA titles on Windows and consoles and many of the micro transaction games on Apple's mobile platforms. But like I said I think Apple has shown some gaming focus for quite some time now. I mean adding mouse and keyboard support for gaming on an iPad is quite a big thing in my opinion.

There are games without micro-transactions on the App Store, the problem is they are difficult to filter out outside Apple Arcade.

 

[Janichsan]

• Objective-C to Swift

Objective-C is not gone and won't be for at least a very long time, if not ever. Games (or rather game engines) are usually written in pure C++ anyway, with the Mac specific ObjC/Swift only providing a small framework around these parts.

 

[ipponrg]

If those games are easily transfered to macOS I think that will benefit gaming on the Mac

My point being mobile gaming UX paradigms dont translate well to traditional desktop UX paradigms. I don’t think game studios would do it just because it’s easier than before. It would still require some effort to translate UX and support updates

 

[star-affinity]

My point being mobile gaming UX paradigms dont translate well to traditional desktop UX paradigms. I don’t think game studios would do it just because it’s easier than before. It would still require some effort to translate UX and support updates

I guess that's why Apple wants developers to do this (look at the video - I think Apple understands what you're talking about):

Bring keyboard and mouse gaming to iPad - WWDC20 - Videos - Apple Developer

Level up your iPad games and add in keyboard, mouse, and trackpad controls. Discover how to use the Game Controller framework to augment...

developer.apple.com

While that's not so much about the UI I think the UI for an iPad game should translate pretty well to a computer screen. Except maybe the fact that iPad displays have an aspect ratio of 4:3 instead of the more common 16:9 for most TV's and computer displays.

 

[leman]

Which is sad. Blizzard ought to have sufficient in-house expertise and tools available to develop games for Mac. The fact that Overwatch has been ported to Switch but not to macOS makes me expect the worst for Blizzard’s Mac support in the future. Given the Switch port, I doubt that the Mac hardware was the only reason why they ditched macOS.

The most likely reason that Overwatch didn't get a macOS port is because the state of graphics on macOS side was a total mess. You have multiple hardware platforms to support, all with their own idiosyncratic behaviour and buggy drivers. A competitive shooter like Overwatch needs to guarantee certain minimal performance or otherwise the players will get very angry.

This pitiful state of affairs is by the way one of the main reasons why OpenGL was dropped by Apple. Metal made things much better — but there is still issue of driver support. Windows gaming performance is so good because IHVs constantly put additional tweaks and hacks into their drivers to make sure the popular games run well. After all, that is how they get their money. But IHVs have little interest in optimising the Mac drivers.

This will all change however with ARM Macs. Apple GPUs have top-notch driver support. Apple GPUs use a radically different architecture from the traditional forward renderers and because Apple does not have to care about other hardware, they can expose low-level details of this architecture to the developer. You are essentially getting an (almost) console-level control over the platform, with a CPU and GPU performance to match. Not to mention that using the variations of the same GPU architecture gives you that common performance denominator that are so important for developers. Add to it the excellent GPU debugging support and great tooling, and you have an excellent gamedev platform.

The big questions is whether the developers will bite and whether the users will be interested. I can imagine that Apple will try to "bribe" some of the big studios to release native TBDR-enabled ports of their games on the ARM Macs. If some big names come to the Mac and the experience is good, this will potentially open a floodgate. It is a risk, but the situation will certainly not get any worse than it is now. At any rate, Apple's effort in bringing gaming to Mac should be very clear. They have been repeating "gaming" just as often as "pro" in the current WWDC.

 

[Voyageur]

Over the past 2 days, I first tried streaming cloud services for games. For slow games it’s normal. For shooters and everything else that requires reaction, this is not very good, but the main thing is image quality. It's a nightmarish disgrace for me. Blurred Full HD looks disgusting even at 4K 21.5 ", and I'm afraid to imagine what will be at 5K and more. I will not talk about the choice.

Given the transition period, i think we can forget about medium-active native gaming at the AS Macs for the next few years. However, even this period is relevant if everything goes "well and according to plan”, and not as it was with the Trashcan or with the Airpower

 

[iindigo]

Well, in the WoW expansion alpha build that was released today dataminers found references to an ARM64 build and macOS 11. The expansion's pre-patch (which delivers all the technical changes ahead of the expansion release) will probably be coming around September, so it's looking very likely that WoW will be one of the first AAA games to run natively on Apple Silicon.

 

[Ursadorable]

As long as Rimworld gets ported to ARM Mac's, I'll be happy. It's about the only game that holds my attention anymore since Skyrim.

 

[Bustycat]

Well, in the WoW expansion alpha build that was released today dataminers found references to an ARM64 build and macOS 11. The expansion's pre-patch (which delivers all the technical changes ahead of the expansion release) will probably be coming around September, so it's looking very likely that WoW will be one of the first AAA games to run natively on Apple Silicon.

ARM64_BUILD (New) - arm64

Shadowlands Alpha - Build 34972 - MMO-Champion

Shadowlands Alpha - Build 34972

www.mmo-champion.com

 

[UltimateSyn]

Most of people only saw one transition (PowerPC to Intel), but game developers also saw these:

• OpenGL to Metal
• 32-bit to 64-bit
• Objective-C to Swift

As the new transition of Intel to Apple Silicon just initiated, don’t game developers think enough is enough?

Gosh darn technology should stop progressing!

 

[leman]

Most of people only saw one transition (PowerPC to Intel), but game developers also saw these:

• OpenGL to Metal
• 32-bit to 64-bit
• Objective-C to Swift

As the new transition of Intel to Apple Silicon just initiated, don’t game developers think enough is enough?

If you game already supports 64 bits and Metal, porting to ARM will be a piece of cake in most cases. Unless you have been randomly spraying x86 intrinsics all over your code, in which case it's your own fault for bad software design.

And why are you even mentioning 32 bits... software had over a decade to migrate to 64 bits. There is no excuse whatsoever to ship 32-bit apps in 2020.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Most of people only saw one transition (PowerPC to Intel), but game developers also saw these:

• OpenGL to Metal
• 32-bit to 64-bit
• Objective-C to Swift

As the new transition of Intel to Apple Silicon just initiated, don’t game developers think enough is enough?

Really depends on the developer. Some will be annoyed at having to do more work on existing properties, others will be excited at the new performance and features they can tap into.

I wouldn't worry too much about gaming on the new Macs. Firstly, all the iOS games will go over. There is a mobile version of Call of Duty but no Mac recent Mac version I know of. There will be now. Big studios are going to want access to those hundreds of millions of users. Some may have been concerned about the way their games looked on small screens, or were controlled by touch only, now it doesn't matter. Make it run on Mac and if users choose to struggle on a phone or iPad that's their business.

Linus Tech Tips did a video or two on the state of gaming for Linux which is coming along nicely these days. I wouldn't be surprised if a Linux based Steam OS was in development. Save $90 on a Windows license for your gaming rig? Why not. And ditch the overhead of Windows while you're at it. Basically like building your own console but with state of the art hardware. But they could look to port it to the new Macs if its Linux based.

 

[Bustycat]

If you game already supports 64 bits and Metal, porting to ARM will be a piece of cake in most cases. Unless you have been randomly spraying x86 intrinsics all over your code, in which case it's your own fault for bad software design.

And why are you even mentioning 32 bits... software had over a decade to migrate to 64 bits. There is no excuse whatsoever to ship 32-bit apps in 2020.

Yes the developers have long time to migrate, but it would be more difficult for old games. Even they want to, is it worth to do?
[automerge]1593860958[/automerge]

Really depends on the developer. Some will be annoyed at having to do more work on existing properties, others will be excited at the new performance and features they can tap into.

I wouldn't worry too much about gaming on the new Macs. Firstly, all the iOS games will go over. There is a mobile version of Call of Duty but no Mac recent Mac version I know of. There will be now. Big studios are going to want access to those hundreds of millions of users. Some may have been concerned about the way their games looked on small screens, or were controlled by touch only, now it doesn't matter. Make it run on Mac and if users choose to struggle on a phone or iPad that's their business.

Linus Tech Tips did a video or two on the state of gaming for Linux which is coming along nicely these days. I wouldn't be surprised if a Linux based Steam OS was in development. Save $90 on a Windows license for your gaming rig? Why not. And ditch the overhead of Windows while you're at it. Basically like building your own console but with state of the art hardware. But they could look to port it to the new Macs if its Linux based.

If the future of gaming on Mac relies on iPadOS games, Macs will be merely just big iPads and less PC gamers would interest in buying a new Mac.

 

[Janichsan]

If you game already supports 64 bits and Metal, porting to ARM will be a piece of cake in most cases. Unless you…

…are depending on third-party libraries and middleware – which almost all cross-platform games do.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Linux based Steam OS was in development.

You are six years to late with that idea. It bombed very hard.

 

[leman]

…are depending on third-party libraries and middleware – which almost all cross-platform games do.

Unity, which is the framework most Mac-compatible games use will be getting ARM Mac support basically from day one according to Apple. I understand that there are some issues with older games that won't be easily able to update to the newest unity version, but newer titles should not be a big deal.

 

[ipponrg]

Big studios are going to want access to those hundreds of millions of users. Some may have been concerned about the way their games looked on small screens, or were controlled by touch only, now it doesn't matter. Make it run on Mac and if users choose to struggle on a phone or iPad that's their business.

Big studios won't care about accessing users that don't do a lot of gaming on that platform. Most Apple gamers are gaming on iOS. I think there is a very small subset that also game on iPadOS. MacOS gamers are few, and when they're seriously gaming, they're going to be running bootcamp even if there is a native MacOS version of it.

Even if the tools are available for this kind of development (e.g. graphics engine support and easy cross platform compilation), I suspect that big studios will still not want to even put the effort even if it were small given the Mac gamer sample size. With every release on Mac means they also have to support it, which you can debate about the return on investment on that.

newer titles should not be a big deal.

If it were just "a deal", it could be enough to discourage game studios from tackling

 

[Janichsan]

Unity, which is the framework most Mac-compatible games use …

I'm already putting the claim that "most" Mac compatible games use Unity in question, but it's definitely not the majority of the most popular or most interesting games: of the top 30 best-selling Mac games on Steam, only 6 are based on Unity. The rest use other, often custom engines.

 

[iindigo]

I wouldn't worry too much about gaming on the new Macs. Firstly, all the iOS games will go over. There is a mobile version of Call of Duty but no Mac recent Mac version I know of. There will be now. Big studios are going to want access to those hundreds of millions of users. Some may have been concerned about the way their games looked on small screens, or were controlled by touch only, now it doesn't matter. Make it run on Mac and if users choose to struggle on a phone or iPad that's their business.

Yeah, that's the thing. Apple is trying really hard to shift it from "port it to macOS" to "port it to Apple platforms". In other words, if you port it to macOS, you're a few minor changes away from having an iOS/iPadOS version too. That won't be a draw for some types of games (competitive shooters for example), but RPGs and the like would be a perfect fit for iPad — just look at the success of Breath of the Wild on the vastly-less-powerful Switch (which uses the same hardware as the 2016 Nvidia Shield Android tablet, which was mediocre even back then).

 

[jinnyman]

Well I'm not sure. iOS is full of pay to win kinda of games already, and nobody is really offering a true AAA title games nowadays. Intel Mac has been with us for almost 20 years, but we still don't see that many mac games (much better than PPC era, but still). So I'm skeptical. Is Mac with Arm really an attractive market segment for developer? I doubt it.

Also, what about gpu capability? It all depends on what Apple's planning to offer eventually. PS5 and new xBox is about to go on sale. Many major developers will expect that kind of performance when developing AAA title games.
I see ios like casual games fairing better than before though.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Yes the developers have long time to migrate, but it would be more difficult for old games. Even they want to, is it worth to do?
[automerge]1593860958[/automerge]

If the future of gaming on Mac relies on iPadOS games, Macs will be merely just big iPads and less PC gamers would interest in buying a new Mac.

Games are made to make money. Game devs will go where the players are. Players will go where the best games are.
[automerge]1593897470[/automerge]

exactly.
As a software engineer specialized in machine learning, nobody uses Apple CoreML. Anyway, you don’t train a model on Apple’s hardware. You train on Linux servers.

Until the Apple Silicon servers do it better/faster.

You are six years to late with that idea. It bombed very hard.

I think I'm right in saying Linux has come a long way since then. Maybe they'll try again.

Yeah, that's the thing. Apple is trying really hard to shift it from "port it to macOS" to "port it to Apple platforms". In other words, if you port it to macOS, you're a few minor changes away from having an iOS/iPadOS version too. That won't be a draw for some types of games (competitive shooters for example), but RPGs and the like would be a perfect fit for iPad — just look at the success of Breath of the Wild on the vastly-less-powerful Switch (which uses the same hardware as the 2016 Nvidia Shield Android tablet, which was mediocre even back then).

Theres a version of Call of Duty for iOS. Its pretty good actually.