Because porting to other platforms has never, ever been a thing in coding, right?
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Diablo 2 Resurrected - not for macOS?
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Because porting to other platforms has never, ever been a thing in coding, right?
This is not about coding but about the hardware. Smartphone and tablets have limited storage and and lacks physical buttons that may be required by some games.
Even if users can add peripherals, this is not something we can expect from many of them.
But the issue of storage is more problematic.
Because loading in portions of a game because the system couldn't handle the game in its entirety has never, ever been a thing, right?
I know it's possible, but I actually don't know any game that does this.
I've spoken with a developer from Feral Interactive, and he said that the main issue with porting games to iOS is making all the game assets fit on much less storage. AFAIK, they haven't considered loading part of a game from the internet if the whole game cannot fit.
While porting "big" PC games to tablets and smartphones can be done, and Feral has done so a few times, there is no evidence that these ports have met huge success. I'm sure that the sales are way being those on consoles.
If the vast majority AAA games are missing from smartphones and tablets, there are good reasons for that. You cannot just insinuate that game developers are stupid, you must consider these caveats:
- Device storage space. People don't want to be constantly streaming content from the internet, wait for assets to download etc. Nor do they want a game to take most of their storage on a device that is supposed to do other things than gaming.
- On-screen buttons are often clunky and people don't want to buy a peripheral to play games.
- Most smartphone/tablet users may simply be not interested in non-casual gaming. Most aren't gamers.
- Most smartphone/tablet users are not used to paying more than a few bucks upfront for a game
- ...
One just needs to look at history....
The Mac platform has gotten progressively stronger over the years...
The number of game developers on the Mac platform (desktop) has gotten progressively smaller over the years...
Using the argument that the M1 is so much faster than INTEL proves nothing when history shows it's never been a question about power... but desire.
They have no desire to do so... and have been saying it loudly for well over two decades now.
Square peg meets round hole. Just because you choose not to see it doesn't make it so.
The Mac platform has gotten progressively stronger over the years...
The number of game developers on the Mac platform (desktop) has gotten progressively smaller over the years...
Using the argument that the M1 is so much faster than INTEL proves nothing when history shows it's never been a question about power... but desire.
They have no desire to do so... and have been saying it loudly for well over two decades now.
Square peg meets round hole. Just because you choose not to see it doesn't make it so.
Almost every console game ever written does exactly this.
Oh. So you are saying because it's difficult nobody should try and find a way for it to work?
It's funny you should take that position, because literally every engineer recruited to be on the team that created GSM said exactly the same thing on day one : it's impossible. It can't be done. Yet, here we are today using GSM and technologies built on GSM.
I guess we shouldn't be trying to go to Mars, either.
Ummm... whut?
I did not say anyone was stupid - that is YOUR take, and your take alone. I merely stated there is a market with ONE BILLION devices being willfully ignored. It is my position MANAGEMENT of those corporations should be fired.
Have you informed the Stadia team of this?
Netflix?
Disney+?
I am curious what they stated when you inquired...
Do you seriously believe the vast majority of America is still on dial-up? Have you never heard of high-speed internet.
If so, you had better call up Elon Musk and tell him that STARLINK thing is going to be a total bust.
Now you had better let Sony know that whole Playstation thing is going to go bust. Why did they ever waste their time on a device that can do things other than gaming?
Really? Because there was a poster above talking about the *many* peripherals he has personally purchased just for playing WoW.
You want to know how I know you are wrong? The App Store gaming section, not to mention Apple Arcade, exists. Also, many of these games need third-party controllers. If you are right, please explain how any of that exists. . .
Ima go with you having never, ever heard of a little game called "The Walking Dead".
It only follows people don't pay as much, because they are not receiving as much. The Walking Dead shows that trend is no longer. I give it perhaps two years before AAA games will start launching on iOS instead of consoles or PCs, because the market is already provably larger than consoles and PC gaming combined.
Explain. If I take you literally, it means that PS1 games did this.
Apparently, you can't install RDR2 on PS4 if you don't have more than 105 BG of free space on the HDD. Why?
Can't Download PS4 Games and Updates Error - Why Does Your PS4 Say There's Not Enough Free Space in System Storage?
Why can't you download games and updates on PS4?
www.pushsquare.com
Would you drop the straw men? I never said it cannot be done, I said that I didn't know games that do it.
What is your evidence that games ported by Feral to iOS/Android have generated sales that are anywhere close to those on consoles? I don't have the numbers either, but the fact that very few AAA games have been ported to iOS/Android (the only true AAA game that comes to my mind is Civ VI, ported by Aspyr) should tell you that there are many challenges with this task.
We're talking about porting houses. They know how to port games and they don't need shareholders to tell them that porting can be profitable. That's their damn job. Yet, they have ported only a couple of AAA games to iOS/Android. Why is that?
You may not have said anyone was stupid, but you're implying that management is incompetent, which isn't that much different.
Stadia isn't exactly successful, and streaming services don't suffer the issue we're discussing. You can play a streamed video content right away. For a game, you'd have to wait for all the level's assets to download and install before playing. You cannot stream game assets from the internet on the fly.
Can we have a discussion without you caricaturing arguments? Thank you.
I have a 500Gbps fibre connection, I know what high-speed internet is. I also know that not anyone is willing to download GBs of data each time they go to another location in a game's world. I am not.
Consoles are primary sold as gaming devices, smartphones aren't. People are not ready to sacrifice their storage for just a couple of AAA games.
Anecdote. Do you know the proportion users who've purchased a gaming controller to go with their smartphone? None of the people I know has done so.
Yes, many have a gaming controller that came with their console, but these people will be installing AAA games on their console, not on their smartphone.
Apple Arcade has about zero game that could be considered triple-A.
Some iOS games require controllers yes. This just shows that some smartphone/tablet users have game controllers. I didn't say that no such users exist , I said that the market was not as big as what you imply.
I didn't say that there was not market at all for AAA games on tablet or smartphones, I said the market may not be that big. I also said that a few major games have been ported to iOS/Android. So these games exists, and people are willing to pay for them. I just don't see any evidence that a large percentage iOS/Android users are interested in installing AAA games on their devices.
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Talk about reading. 😂 We're talking about iOS apps.
Also, a keyboard and mouse is not a game controller. It's not going to fly. I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. I keep telling this to my computer science students I actually teach development to and some of them ended up at Apple... go figure. But that's ok, given you never went through the process of developing software for iOS or talked to Apple about this, otherwise you'd know.
And then you store 100GB+ on a iPad? Or in the cloud? When did that ever happen for a game? Right, never. This isn't a streaming service. If you want play games in the cloud, there's always GeForce NOW. There's always local storage involved for games. We're not talking about asset loading at runtime.
So first we're talking about worldwide Apple device sales and now we're talking about internet access in America? Is that the US or North America including Canada? Or South America?
Actually the US is behind when it comes to ISPs and internet. Speed is pretty bad and availability too, if you look outside of major cities. https://www.theverge.com/22177154/us-internet-speed-maps-competition-availability-fcc, https://www.dailydot.com/debug/microsoft-high-speed-internet-rural-areas/.
But hey, I guess you'd have to read about it.
Going by his logic, they should be fired. The problem is, his logic is wrong. I wouldn't care how many billion or trillion devices are out there. I'd only care about how many sales I could make on that platform. Not everyone is playing Diablo. In 2020 over 275 million PCs were sold. That's only in one year. How many copies of Diablo 3 sold since release? Blizzard says around 30 million. Given that iOS users are usually not hardcore gamers (those are PC and Console), make a wild guess on how many iPhones/iPads it would be installed on. Now is it worth it to port it over? That depends on how much work has to be put into it and the costs for porting games varies a lot.
After the release of Starcraft 2 Blizzard have been going down hill fast. But I have a bad feeling for this remaster given how reforged was handled. I would be happy if they just patched the old version to work as is on MacOS.
Lol, guys come on, the writing is on the wall, Blizzard is not what it was, sure, but Apple couldn't care less about gaming (unless cartoonish crap which fits their mobile arcade model).
Most talented game studios are done with Apple.
Most talented game studios are done with Apple.
It made sense to port WoW, there is a solid community for it on the Mac still. It does work very well on the M1, was playing it earlier. But that said, the time, effort and cost of developing new titles for PC and Console, now you need more effort again to make it happen on Mx chips, I just can't see that the money is there from Mac users for Blizzard and many others for it to be worth their while.
The money is there.
The issue is that people keep on buying windows PCs for 2 reasons
1. They’re used to Windows and are “afraid//(think that they)don’t want to switch”
2. They’re gamers.
The number 2 issue is a problem because it’s the fault of the game developers. They mostly make games for Windows only Which enforces people to buy ONLY windows. This is creating a gaming monopoly on windows PC. And I would not be surprised if Microsoft has some under-the-table deals with gaming companies to keep it this way. MicroSoft is in the business of monopoly powers (they have always tried to have a monopoly power since at least the 90s with internet explorer and Microsoft word)
Why would anyone ever switch to macOS when windows does almost just as much as macOS but has more games to play (provided the person is a gamer). They wouldn’t unless they really wanted macOS (like me) but that’s rare because it’s rare that people will just know that they prefer an OS before trying and owning a macOS device themselves. The lazy game developers who call themselves “coders” are nothing like the coders back in the early 2000s. Coders today all take the easy way out by “following the code” i.e. taking other peoples codes instead of making their own. This makes sense in the grand scheme of things but it also means coders today are too specialized and not good at coding in general which means it’s no wonder they don’t want to code for Metal/macOS gaming. They’re so used to the easy engines that are used to ”make games” today that, why would they want to learn new tricks? They’re spoiled rotten because we pay them our money without even a second thought.
When was the last unique game released? I think Nintendo is the only gaming company that doesn’t use the unreal engine which basically means all games aside from Nintendo games are ”the same game” just with different “rules“ ticked on or off. No one knows how to actually code themselves anymore. Windows has a monopoly again and no one cares because “it’s just games”
Before saying they’re not a monopoly because they’re not abusing their position — “they are strongarming the gaming community, since there's a clear cartel between M$, hardware devs and game devs. M$ pushes proprietary frameworks like .NET and DX by making them a non-replaceable part of their OS; devs have to use those because they are required by the OS that houses 95% of the playerbase; gaming hardware devs have no reason to support any other OS with drivers since 95% of the consumers are using the one OS. So you end up having a gaming industry that produces games requiring proprietary software that is not easily deconstructed and replaced, while the hardware industry complicates it further by only making good drivers for a single OS. “
The issue is that people keep on buying windows PCs for 2 reasons
1. They’re used to Windows and are “afraid//(think that they)don’t want to switch”
2. They’re gamers.
The number 2 issue is a problem because it’s the fault of the game developers. They mostly make games for Windows only Which enforces people to buy ONLY windows. This is creating a gaming monopoly on windows PC. And I would not be surprised if Microsoft has some under-the-table deals with gaming companies to keep it this way. MicroSoft is in the business of monopoly powers (they have always tried to have a monopoly power since at least the 90s with internet explorer and Microsoft word)
Why would anyone ever switch to macOS when windows does almost just as much as macOS but has more games to play (provided the person is a gamer). They wouldn’t unless they really wanted macOS (like me) but that’s rare because it’s rare that people will just know that they prefer an OS before trying and owning a macOS device themselves. The lazy game developers who call themselves “coders” are nothing like the coders back in the early 2000s. Coders today all take the easy way out by “following the code” i.e. taking other peoples codes instead of making their own. This makes sense in the grand scheme of things but it also means coders today are too specialized and not good at coding in general which means it’s no wonder they don’t want to code for Metal/macOS gaming. They’re so used to the easy engines that are used to ”make games” today that, why would they want to learn new tricks? They’re spoiled rotten because we pay them our money without even a second thought.
When was the last unique game released? I think Nintendo is the only gaming company that doesn’t use the unreal engine which basically means all games aside from Nintendo games are ”the same game” just with different “rules“ ticked on or off. No one knows how to actually code themselves anymore. Windows has a monopoly again and no one cares because “it’s just games”
Before saying they’re not a monopoly because they’re not abusing their position — “they are strongarming the gaming community, since there's a clear cartel between M$, hardware devs and game devs. M$ pushes proprietary frameworks like .NET and DX by making them a non-replaceable part of their OS; devs have to use those because they are required by the OS that houses 95% of the playerbase; gaming hardware devs have no reason to support any other OS with drivers since 95% of the consumers are using the one OS. So you end up having a gaming industry that produces games requiring proprietary software that is not easily deconstructed and replaced, while the hardware industry complicates it further by only making good drivers for a single OS. “
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Food for thought, but have you considered the amount of resources it takes to create a proper game engine?
If you code, you would not want to spend time on a platform that doesn’t have a comparative audience.
Developers can choose to develop games for Mac. They don’t because it’s not a good gaming platform, and with M1 there are now going to be some impedances. Even if Microsoft can cut deals under the table, you should ask Apple why don’t they do the same with their large cash pile? I think a large part of the issue is Apple doesn’t really care about the Mac gaming sector.
Why would anyone want to buy a Mac for gaming?
The problem is the large enormous of existing titles. No matter how great the M1 processor is, no M1 Mac is going to play Resident Evil 2 natively. Heck, all of the 32-bit Mac titles are unplayable since Crapalina. I think OpenGL-based games rode off into the sunset earlier.
There is little justification from a business standpoint for most developers to bother with the Mac. For iOS, absolutely there is a reason.
It has to do with REALISTIC revenue opportunities, not some bizarre pie-in-the-sky dreamworld of every Mac on this planet playing games. Not going to happen.
And it's not "try it because it might work out". There are EXISTING macOS game developers who are backing away from the platform because it has proven to not be sufficiently lucrative. There are EXISTING iOS game developers who have stayed on the mobile platform and not delved into the Mac side.
All of the big game developer studios have developed for Mac at some point. They already have a damn good idea of how many players they will get on the Mac platform.
AND THAT'S WHY MOST OF THEM NO LONGER DEVELOP FOR MACS.
Exhibit A: Doom. Yes, iD Software released the original game for Macs as well as DOS and Windows. Last year's Doom Eternal? Windows only. Trust me, iD Software made a deliberate decision based on prior experience.
Exhibit B: Grand Theft Auto. Yes, Rockstar Games included the Mac platform through the third game (released in 2002). That was a loooong time before the deprecation of OpenGL, the 32-bit application support sunsetting, and the introduction of Apple Silicon. GTA IV and GTA V are Windows only games. GTA has been a Windows-only franchise since 2008.
You are giving scant credit to game developers. Every year there are a handful of games that stand out above the rest due to gameplay, storyline, etc.
I'd say Disco Elysium is one. For sure Half-Life: Alyx is another. VR game developers will be studying the latter for years to come concerning Valve's aptitude in handling the idiosyncrasies of VR user interface. In my mind, Alyx is the gold standard for VR games and is a deserving representative of perhaps videogaming's most clever franchise.
In Other Waters. Paradise Killer. Manifold Garden. Untitled Goose Game (this one can be played on Mac).
With its unusual story and superb use of RTX ray-tracing and Nvidia DLSS, I'd also put Control as a very worthy title.
Remember that uniqueness doesn't necessarily generate huge dollars. People are going to play the next Doom/Grand Theft Auto/Halo title despite the relative sameness of the game's theme.
Most of the games at the top of the revenue charts have been there for years. It's not about a single sale, it's about ongoing game play: World of Warcraft, GTA 5, League of Legends, CS:GO, whatever.
If you are playing with friends, the wisest choice is to probably play what they are playing rather than obsessing about uniqueness: Fortnite, Overwatch, The Division, Among Us, Fall Guys, whatever.
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Or they simply buy systems that are cheaper and/or have better performance for the price.
They don't need it. Apple cut of Nvidia or at least both companies didn't try to solve a problem and work together. If you do gaming, you usually have Nvidia or AMD GPUs. Nvidia is the company that happily will have someone fly in to a AAA game project to offer support for optimization. Nvidia regularly offers me free help to parallelize code to run on their GPUs. Guess where people are going to go? I go where I get support. I don't like Nvidia business model, I think they're a terrible company overall, but they're damn good offering tools and support for it. AMD (or anyone else) will never be able to do this at this point. Nvidia is over a decade ahead of everyone else, no matter how much money anyone is throwing at this.
The days of Apple support are over. There used to be a time back in the PPC days when Apple wasn't big. I could just pick up the phone and call someone who worked on the OS at Apple and get my problem solved. There used to be a time when as a development team we were invited over to the campus in Cuppertino, speak to the people, learn new tricks. Long gone are these days and we're at a point where you have to play the ticket lottery to attend WWDC.
And Apple isn't? Why is Apple not staying with OpenGL/Vulkan? Why are they going to proprietary Metal which only works on their system?
Why does Nvidia not opening up Cuda for everyone? Why did they refuse to go the "Metal-way" with Apple? Everyone wants the biggest piece of the cake, which doesn't work.
Coders today have to be specialized, because modern systems are so complex, that it's impossible to optimize whatever you do for every system. That's why companies usually have Windows/Linux/Mac/etc. teams for each project.
You could ask the same question for medical doctors. Why not "one doctor", why bother with radiologists, dentists, pulmonologists, neurosurgeons, oncologists, etc.? Libraries have always been a thing, there's no way to get things done without it. No-one is going to replace, say STL functionality with their own code. Never going to happen.
I think you're simplifying things. Making a AAA game isn't clicking around in a game engine. Using game engines is for the creative folks, designing level layouts, etc. There's a significant amount of coding involved in a game, with or without game engines. A 3rd party game engine is just bringing costs down for "standard" functionality. So instead of 200 million $, the costs comes down to 120-150 million $ for development of a AAA game.
What is a unique game? That doesn't depend on the game engine but on the game concept. An engine has nothing to do with it. Unreal, Unity, etc. are general engines. You can make a simple 2D game with it, a complex RPG or a FPS.
When companies use their own engine, they do this for a very specific reason, specialization for certain functionality for a single or series of games. You will never see a FPS game with the Diablo engine, it's just not going to work. Same for Nintendo, they use specialized engines for some of their games and general engines for other. Here's an article for Nintendo and their use of the Unreal engine: https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/7/14533324/nintendo-switch-unreal-engine-miyamoto. So that means Nintendo games are not unique anymore?
Many people know how to code. But prices have skyrocketed in the past decade or so. When I started making small games just for fun back in the C64/Amiga days, three people were more than enough. Things were simple, things were very similar. Modern games and technology are not. If you really want to make a AAA game, you can't do this in your garage or basement anymore. Start by grabbing 100 million $ and hire people. Have a look at the history of Tell-Tale games, speaks volumes on how the industry works. Or have a look at how Valve operates, very different form other companies. Then again, they don't make money from their own games anymore, besides selling skins.
And Apple does the same for Metal, now their own hardware. Nvidia does it too for Cuda.
The reality is, nothing of this matters. Apple is making it hard to port things over. They do this for performance/convenience of Apple-only software. That's ok, this approach brought macOS and iOS to where it's now.
Porting things is a question of money and if it's worth it. Blizzard says Diablo 3 sold around 30M copies over its lifetime. It started of expensive, as low as under $10 per copy now or through discounts. Just guessing, let's say $30 per copy sold. So that's 900M over every system. No idea on initial development costs, maybe 150M? So that's 750M made... not working on constant updates/leagues/bugfixing, not counting console ports, running the servers, etc.
macOS has a limited market share, let's say ~10%. Not everyone is a gamer. I'm sure Blizzard knows the numbers, we don't. Let's assume it's similar for custom servers vs Steam. Under 3% of players on Steam are on a Mac. Looking at the $900M they might have made selling the game (not counting servers, updates, etc.). That's $27M for the Mac. That probably doesn't even cover the costs to port the game over to the Mac. While it's sad they abandon the Mac, I fully understand it from a financial point of view. I'd probably do the same.
Apple's philosophy is a supremely arrogant scorched earth "take it or leave it" approach from a videogamer's perspective.
It's a wonderfully progressive, forward-thinking approach for Apple-only software. iOS has gone through their own purges from time to time (32-bit anyone?) and for Joe Consumer it has been for the better.
Do windows can make OpenGL and keep changing it and Dx12 but when apple makes metal no one wants to work with it. and it’s apples fault according to you because they did it after windows basically. So since they werent the first they shouldn’t get any support etc.. why would apple help others like nVidiA does when everyone blames apple and praises windows.. Apple cannot help anyone code for metal if no one wants to code for metal in the first place. You’re saying it’s apples fault but windows is doing the same thin and everyone loves windows
if the aaa games were aaa games then they would be made for macOS as well. Why? because that’s what a aaa pc game is, it’s available to play on PCs not just windows. Otherwise it’s just a aaa windows game.
people are being lazy when they don’t make the aaa games for macOS. Simple as that, not only lazy but extremely greedy.
sorry but blizzard has no excuse to not port to macOS considering tiny indie companies with single people can do it (think super meat boy, stardew valley, etc)
blizzard has no excuse and if they don’t port to macOS they will lose thousands of fans not just macOS users.
if blizzard wants to make money they port it to macOS p, it’s as simple as that. They will end up not losing thousands of fans so those people will actually buy the game whether windows or macOS And the macOS users will be able to buy as well.
you’re giving blizzard too much credit, you assume they know everything and are right about everything they do. Why do you think they’re so smart? Blizzard makes mistakes often. if they don’t release games on macOS anymore many people will stop supporting them entirely and it’s not even a question of owning a windows pc or not, it’s about the principal of the circumstance Ie if blizzard doesn’t care about their 25 year fans then they don’t deserve to be considered aaa anymore, in fact most people don’t consider blizzard a aaa company anymore. They’re more in line with ”has been”.
blizzard has no excuse and if they don’t port to macOS they will lose thousands of fans not just macOS users.
if blizzard wants to make money they port it to macOS p, it’s as simple as that. They will end up not losing thousands of fans so those people will actually buy the game whether windows or macOS And the macOS users will be able to buy as well.
you’re giving blizzard too much credit, you assume they know everything and are right about everything they do. Why do you think they’re so smart? Blizzard makes mistakes often. if they don’t release games on macOS anymore many people will stop supporting them entirely and it’s not even a question of owning a windows pc or not, it’s about the principal of the circumstance Ie if blizzard doesn’t care about their 25 year fans then they don’t deserve to be considered aaa anymore, in fact most people don’t consider blizzard a aaa company anymore. They’re more in line with ”has been”.
Blizzard has been bought out by China by the way, if you don’t know Now you know.
Many American gaming companies actually have been bribed by china — you can research it if you like, but Blizzard is no longer Blizzard NA — it’s Blizzard China.
Many American gaming companies actually have been bribed by china — you can research it if you like, but Blizzard is no longer Blizzard NA — it’s Blizzard China.
Apple can do anything they want. They just have to face the consequences. When I decide to make my own operating system (which I have done for very specific tasks) and possibly my own hardware, I have to live with the fact that I will sell less than if I'd jump on Windows/macOS/Linux because these are established systems. When Apple comes up with a new system, no one else is using, they're facing the same problem on a larger scale. Why would people rush out and throw their time (and money) at Apple developing games when sales are so low because the majority of users is on other platforms?
Why don't we continue this conversation in latin from here on? In fact, let's demand everyone on MacRumors is writing in latin from now on, because it exists and if people don't do it, they're lazy. Does that make sense? I guess not.
When you have the majority of market share, you can dictate the market. You can also come up with your own technology. OpenGL, from a API point of view, has always been a mess. So is Vulkan. The advantage is clear, it's running on pretty much every platform out there, except for Apple. From an portability point of view, it makes much more sense to use OpenGL/Metal. From an API point of view, it makes more sense to use DX or Metal. The difference is one has the majority of market share, so you can make money. The other has about 3% on Steam for games, so there's little money to make. From an objective point of view, it's clear where to go. At least that's true for games.
Look at the research world. OpenGL in combination with Cuda is the standard here. No DX, no Metal. Apple/Nvidia cut of support for Nvidia GPUs, so researchers are abandoning the macOS platform and are going to Linux. Apple never made it easy for game developers, that was the case back in the 80s/90s and it never changed till today. They don't care about the gaming market, they also don't care about the server market. Why do you think they abandoned the Xserve? Why macOS Server? Why do they run Linux for their own services? It's not their target market, not making them enough money.
No one is praising Windows. Windows is a piece of junk software. Fact is, for gaming there's no way around it. I haven't used Windows for anything but games in the past 20 years (and some client projects that were married to Windows by contract). Sometimes in combination with my AI research using games/simulations whenever it's not available on Linux/macOS. Nvidia/Cuda is essential for this, as the whole research world runs on this and you can't do it properly with AMDs for say a cluster of 500 or 1000 GPUs working together, which is no problem at all with Nvidia. Apple cut off that option leaving Nvidia behind. Getting things to run on AMD was a pain. Now they're on their own hardware which makes things even more complicated.
Apple wants their own locked down eco system and people abandoning it is part of it. I jumped on the Mac full time back in the G4 days (having used Windows/Linux before and Macs back in the 80s early 90s). I have professionally developed software for the Mac back then in a niche market (medical) when it comes to sales number, but high on revenue. I accepted that I won't have huge sales number, like maybe on Windows. But given the niche market and that a single software license can sell up to $500k, it doesn't matter. I sold full systems, hardware and software, so called system solutions. When I sold a $300k system, I usually walked home with $200k in my own pocket. The time I had to put into this, outside of the initial development, is anywhere between 1 to 6 weeks for such a sale. So here's your solution, if you want to sell to a niche market just raise the price per game to $100k and you get what you want.
Or you simply demand from Apple to raise their market share in the gaming world to 50%.
No one loves Windows. You're thinking emotionally. You want something, but you don't get it, so you're pissed. This is all about money. It's very simple, do I port/develop something for a small amount of people and the development costs more than what I can make from the product? The answer is no, because I'm making a loss. I only port/develop/build things when there's money to be made.
Sorry, this is nonsense. AAA is an informal term referring to a game with a mid to large development budget and possibly some form of software as a service license model. AAA has nothing to do with the platform or technology used.
Of course they're greedy, that's how businesses work! If you're not making money, you're making a loss and ultimately have to close down your business. Why did apple discontinue the Pippin? Because no one wanted it and they didn't make enough money. Why did Apple discontinue the Cube? For the very same reason. Why did Microsoft discontinue the Zune? They didn't sell enough. And why did Blizzard make the decision not to support the Mac anymore? Because they're not selling enough copies. It's very simple, if my development/porting costs to the Mac is about $50M and I can only make about $27M in Mac sales, then I'm not doing it. I'd pay $23M out of my own pocket, making a loss. I'd rather not port it save $50M it would have cost porting it over instead of paying $23M because I can't make enough sales.
Their excuse is money. It costs them more than they can make with it.
As to why others can do it. Super Meat Boy is using their own engine. I'm not sure what it's based on. But Diablo (also own engine) and fundamentally different when you look at the technology behind it. SMB is much simpler. It's a modernized version of a C64 game. There isn't much to such an engine. It's about a month worth of work for a person who's done game engines before, very, very simple. I've seen some of my computer science students in the 4th/5th semester come up with more complex game engines in about two months. You really have to compare something with a similar complexity here.
Stardew Valley is doing what you blame... they're lazy. The game is based on XNA written in C# (hello Microsoft), which is fairly easy to port over. They might have even switched to MonoGame or FNA by now (not sure). The very thing you blame, developers being lazy, is what's helping them to port things over easily and saving a ton of money doing so. Among other things I'm teaching shader development for games at a university. Using Unity makes it as simple as flipping a switch between Windows and Mac. A full game would be a bit more complicated, but far from porting your own engine. So if Blizzard would be (by your definition) lazy and just use Unreal/Unity, porting things to the Mac would be easier and costs them less money.
Nonsense, what Windows user cares about a macOS version? Just go to their support forum or reddit and ask about it. The answer you'll get from Windows users is "buy a real computer". They'd lose Mac users and same of those would probably just install Windows on their Macs, run in a virtual machine or buy a gaming PC. Macs are expensive, you can't get state of art gaming hardware for them (hello Nvidia 3080/3090), so there's little reason not to do it. I hate Windows with a passion, but if things are not available for macOS/Linux, I just use Windows. If a Windows/Linux version comes along later, I can always switch back.
Sorry, you're speaking emotionally and your logic is flawed. At this point, looking at market share, it's costing Blizzard more to port things over than the money they make. In order to make money, Mac sales would have to be much, much larger. Or they'd have "to be lazy" and use a game engine that allows to to flip a switch. That's not the case for Diablo. Funny enough, this is the case of DI as the engine allows simpler ports for Android/iOS.
I'm not giving them any credit at all. They have market analysts looking at their own sales numbers, number of players on platforms, returning players, Windows/Mac users, etc. Those analysts come up with a number that tells Blizzards how much a port can costs so it's profitable for them to port it. If the cost of the port is higher than the expected number of sales for the Mac, it's not worth it. Then you'd have to sell a Mac game for a much (much!) higher price, no one is willing to pay. Why don't you start a fund raiser with a goal of $50M to give that money to Blizzard for a port? Or pay it out of your own pocket? I'd assume $50M is not enough, but start there. You expect Blizzard to make a projected loss, which from a business point of view makes no sense at all.
Please deliver proof for your claim of bribery. Again, from a business point of view, it doesn't matter if it's a NA company or one from China, France, Australia or any other country around the world. Also, Blizzard teamed up with Chinese companies to make money. If they were so successful why did their number of employees shrink over the years? They were looking for new markets, new distribution models to survive. Other companies are doing the same and ignoring the Chinese market would be beyond stupid. If they would not have partnered with Chinese companies, they'd be out of business by now. Why do you thing Apple is making product adjustments specifically for the Chinese market? It's a cash cow and you can make billions there, no sane business person would ever ignore that.
Look at Hollywood formerly the largest movie industry in the world. Only to see China recently over take them. The Chinese movie market is huge, to the point where actors like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, The Rock, Matt Damon etc. joint Chinese movie projects that you've never heard of. It's all about money, that's where people will go and that's what Blizzards market analysts / financial advisers made very clear to the management. If you don't like it, don't buy it. I'll buy Diablo for Windows if I have to and enjoy it there and if it ever comes to the Mac, simply switch over. That's what you'll have to do as well or simply not play it.
I don’t think that Apple wants to pay people like MicroSoft would in order to have a Monopoly. Apple doesn’t need to cheat to be innovative. If Microsoft needs video games for people to buy their PCs for the forseeable future then that’s fine. Windows marketshare has been slowly decreasing while chromeOS and macOS has been increasing. Maybe windows can become the ”gaming OS” if that’s all they have — a lot of people buy PC Only for gaming, it’s not really because they like Windows or need to use windows — I’d wager at least 20% of windows users only use it because they’re forced to for gaming reasons.
Apple wouldn’t do this, this is a MicroSoft kind of thing to do, to abuse power to monopolize a market.
Apple wouldn’t do this, this is a MicroSoft kind of thing to do, to abuse power to monopolize a market.
PS I did go to forums and mentioned that D4 // D2 May not come out on macOS and had people replying with things like “Is that for real? Cause if this is true I will not be supporting blizzard anymore. And I don’t even own a mac”
You only support the windows monopoly by voting with your money.
most people can’t afford both a windows and macOS PC whenever they want and thanks to people who “don’t care about choice” and just buy into it cause they “want” the game. Microsoft monopoly will continue.
Great. And you’re basically saying GCoder, that it’s fine because that’s where the money is.. Oh really? Yeah it’s like that because people just buy windows still in 2021 even though it’s been ripping people off since before I was born— Microsoft is not in the software business, they’re in the monopoly business, their only competition is Google.
Everyone hates on google but most people still use it often... Almost everyone I know hates windows but they still use it because oh right, MicroSoft has a monopoly on PC gaming because people are unwilling to buy macOS so game coders//companies see no reason to make games for macOS because people keep buying Windows.
It isn’t apples fault that everyone keeps buying windows , it’s our fault. People are afraid to switch to macOS for various reasons (almost all are wrong//not true)
most people can’t afford both a windows and macOS PC whenever they want and thanks to people who “don’t care about choice” and just buy into it cause they “want” the game. Microsoft monopoly will continue.
Great. And you’re basically saying GCoder, that it’s fine because that’s where the money is.. Oh really? Yeah it’s like that because people just buy windows still in 2021 even though it’s been ripping people off since before I was born— Microsoft is not in the software business, they’re in the monopoly business, their only competition is Google.
Everyone hates on google but most people still use it often... Almost everyone I know hates windows but they still use it because oh right, MicroSoft has a monopoly on PC gaming because people are unwilling to buy macOS so game coders//companies see no reason to make games for macOS because people keep buying Windows.
It isn’t apples fault that everyone keeps buying windows , it’s our fault. People are afraid to switch to macOS for various reasons (almost all are wrong//not true)