Even during the height of Boot Camp compatibility, featuring performance Intel CPUs and AMD graphics, the Mac has never been a good gaming platform compared to what a hand-built Windows PC would offer. Often times, the experience and value is better with an AMD CPU and Nvidia GPU, which weren't options that Apple made available.
The best gaming Macs have also had a poor value proposition. The best x86 gaming experience is the 2019 Mac Pro paired with a 6900XT AMD GPU. Even when purchasing used from Ebay, that's easily a $5,000+ expenditure, which most likely involves purchasing the graphics card separately and replacing the older GPU inside the used Mac Pro. I should know, I've researched this heavily, and always came to the same conclusion. For the price of a used base model Mac Pro, you can build roughly three mid-range gaming PCs.
Even when doing the "budget build" on the Mac side, it's less than ideal. My primary computer is a base model 2018 Mac mini with a speed demon 3.6Ghz quad-core i3 and a spacious 128GB internal SSD. I bought the base model four years ago because, at the time, the rumors of Arm Macs were strong, so I purchased this to tide me over. Instead of being a stopgap, it's become a crutch. Since my initial purchase, I scrounged used markets to upgrade it with 64GB of system memory, supplemented it with a 500GB external Samsung T5 SSD, added a BlackMagic RX 580 eGPU, and somehow managed to get an brand-new 21.5-inch LG UltraFine off of Ebay for half the original MSRP.
Doing the math, I saved about 50% off of the original cost of these components, but even then, it's been a poor value for gaming. I like to say that my Mac is held together with sticks and bubble gum and will fall apart if looked at the wrong way. Getting Boot Camp working properly has been a nightmare, because eGPUs aren't officially supported by either Apple or Microsoft on the Mac, so that makes the situation even more challenging. Plus, a random update from Microsoft or Apple can deep six your eGPU working within Windows, thus making every update from Microsoft or Apple becoming fraught with anxiety.
My point being is that, even when you do your absolute best to cobble together a gaming Mac to play PC games using Boot Camp, it's not necessarily worth it. Honestly, the sooner the Mac moves over as a platform to Apple Silicon, leaving Intel behind entirely, the better, simply because it won't feel like a half-baked effort.
Just as
@Nermal alluded to, in the past, game developers could tell Mac users to "just use Boot Camp" and have an easy out, even though most Intel Macs can't run intensive games, and even if they can, it often involves much more than just installing Windows. The time and financial investments aren't easily dismissed.
Also,
@casperes1996 has rightly pointed out that VMs like Parallels, and compatibility layers like CrossOver, are less than ideal solutions. For every PC game that functions, there are ten that won't even launch. Even then, you have to sacrifice a small woodland creature to the computing gods, on a Saturday night at 9:31pm GMT during a leap year, under a full moon, to even have a chance of properly playing a specific title. I appreciate the work that Parallels and CodeWeavers have put into their products; they have allowed many games to work on machines that they clearly were not designed for. However, I see neither virtualization nor compatibility layers as solutions for anything other than older or less demanding titles.
For instance, I very much want to play Alan Wake II when it is released around the middle of next year. Remedy doesn't have a history of releasing their games on the Mac. It doesn't even appear to be on their radar. This is one of the few game franchises that I would crawl across broken glass to play, but there is no reason to think that there will be a Mac version, nor will it likely work well with Parallels or CrossOver. It may be available through GeForce Now, but that has its own issues; game streaming uses massive bandwidth, has added costs, and there's a good chance of incurring overage charges, and I refuse to pay Comcast with its extortionist pricing.
Once my Mac mini ages out, which it will likely do soon, I'll either have to be satisfied with the computer games available for the Mac, or build a side PC. I can't see myself ever going back to Windows, I've only owned Macs since I switched in 2005, but a supplemental gaming PC may be the only realistic alternative, if things stay the same as they currently are. I don't want to spend $1,500+ or whatever the going price is to build a mid-range gaming PC with inflation, when I could instead put those funds into a better Mac purchase, whenever I do need to replace my anemic 2018 Intel Mac mini.
Fortunately, the situation is fluid and Apple appears to be working to improve Mac gaming behind closed doors. Metal 3 and mainstream games getting substantial attention during Apple's last event highlight this. Cliff Maier, a former Opteron architect who wrote the draft for x86-64 that is used in billions of PCs every day, who knows the Apple Silicon engineers from his days at AMD and Exponential, has been
saying for months that, according to his contacts within Apple, they are serious about gaming, are aware of the deficiencies in this area, and are actively working to improve gaming on the Mac. The difference between now and previous efforts that Apple has undertaken is that, according to him, Apple is willing to "do it themselves" if they can't convince major game developers to support the Mac. What we are seeing with Metal 3, GRID Legends, No Man's Sky, and Resident Evil Village are just the tip of the iceberg, assuming Apple follows through with the plans that they currently have.
Finally, as you mentioned
@tubuliferous, Apple Silicon is very impressive in regards to providing a baseline of performance. In that respect, it's similar to consoles, in that every game developer will have a minimum set of specifications to target. Unlike the experience suffered with Intel's pathetic iGPUs, the base model M1 is a performant, capable SoC that allows for quality gaming. During Apple's presentation, it was said that Resident Evil Village has no problems running on a standard M1 Mac. Compare that to the hodgepodge mess that have to be catered to with x86 systems, both Mac and PC.
On top of this, the Mac continues to gain marketshare, and there appears to be no reason for that to not continue. Tim Cook specifically said that the 10% shortfall in Mac revenue last quarter was due to the shutdowns in Shanghai because of lockdowns implemented by the CCP. In fact, Apple was impressed that they only took a 10% revenue hit, considering how restrictive government controls were during that time period. Those pressures are alleviating, most Macs ship within a reasonable time frame, and even the Apple Studio Display is no longer facing major delays. Couple that with a successful launch of the M2, the expected announcements of the more advanced M2 Pro/Max/Ultra/Extreme in the coming months, completely finishing the transition from Intel to Apple Silicon, then the picture should be more clear. Apple's appeal to quality over quantity appears to be paying off and they may be the only major computer manufacturer to experience shipment growth in the coming quarters, as they are finally able to meet demand. PC makers are interchangeable, and can only compete on price, whereas Apple offers value with the Mac that goes beyond dollar signs and the race to the bottom of the value proposition.
So, between an increase in market share, a renewed push into the gaming market both publicly and privately, and a strong baseline performance with Apple Silicon, I see reason for optimism. Of course, healthy skepticism is warranted, but the prognosis is better than it has been in years; in fact, perhaps better than it has ever been for the Mac.
Mac gamers don't need access to every PC title, just enough games to make the Mac a more enticing gaming platform. The hardware and software pieces are falling into place, now we just need more gaming studios to take notice. The Mac platform may be attractive as an underserved market, particularly since there isn't much competition among "AAA" gaming studios, which means they could potentially grab a large slice of a small but growing market (Mac), rather than a small slice of a gigantic declining market (PC).
Once developers are familiar with Metal 3 and Apple Silicon, they won't need to worry about every edge case that is a result of some revenant lurking within an old Nvidia driver implemented to supplement poorly written code from the 1990s, the cruft leftover from the 1980s buried within Microsoft Windows' ancient bloated registry, or some barnacle still lurking within an Intel CPU built upon a foundation laid in the 1970s.
There's still a lot of work to be done. I've been hanging on to my 2018 Intel Mac mini for much longer than I had anticipated, mainly because it's taking games a long time to finally switch to native Apple Silicon. However, once the transition is complete, I'm hoping that a good number of quality games will become available for the the Mac, leaving behind the hacks I have had to use with Intel Macs, not to mention the entire kludge that is the Windows PC ecosystem.
