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If Apple wants to be successful in gaming will they have to acquire a decent sized gaming studio?

dmccloud said:
Apple shouldn't be expected to compromise the built in security of its operating systems to accommodate third-party anti-cheat tools which are effectively rootkits. When games are refusing to run unless certain motherboard features are present due to the anticheat measures, something's gone wrong on the studio side.
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How do Mac game developers deal with cheating in multiplayer games?
 
maflynn said:
They could, is there a large demand to play AAA games on iOs and iPadOS? I know there's a handful of games but I don't know how popular AAA gaming is on the iPhone and iPad.
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Was thinking more about the user base size. Sadly I don’t think iOS gamers buy full priced games like console players do. So there is that to consider.
 
lapstags said:
I think the answer ultimately is yes. They obviously don't want to do this but I think they will have to in order to highest optimized most cost effective games for iPad, iPhone, Mac. I think that they will also have to do the same thing on the Apple TV side of the business and acquire a studio. Metro Exodus IP and 4A games would be a good entity to acquire because it would have synergies on all Apple platforms. They could make a show for Apple TV and bring the games to iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro.
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cbum said:
So they won't...
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Kimbie said:
If they want to be successful in gaming then they need to support all gfx features, as believe Apple does not support the full options of Unreal engine, nor does it support Vulkan.

If Apple did that then would make it a lot easier for dev I think to bring games to Mac
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maflynn said:
Mobile gaming - they're incredibly successful.



I'm not so sure 4A games would be a good purchase for apple. The studio is a one hit wonder, that is they only have one successful IP. Spending hundreds of millions on a studio that just publishes one game will not move the needle for macos gaming. They also have a post-apocolyptic show, that has some similarities to the metro, i.e., the silo. As for iphone/ipad, I'm unsure AAA games are well suited for phones and tablet.
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iOS is their only game in town for a variety of reasons. Just started MetalStorm, a PvP multiplayer game, iOS, Android, PC, but as far as I know, No Mac. Possibly, Apple lives in its own world, not willing to make the effort to expand on any other than their own terms. So be it. I’ll play MetalStorm on iOS only when PC is not available.
 
In full fledged gaming Apple will never be successful but that is ok. They do not want to be.

Mobile gaming is key for them and like others already said do very well in.
 
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diamond.g said:
I'm not sure if anything will. I saw it posed as a question on the macgaming subreddit.
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I think overall its too soon in all honesty. Given that Cook will not be stepping down until September, and in all likelihood Ternus will take some time to get up to speed and layout his plan as a leader, we'll not see anything different.

The big question is, in my mind - Does apple see gaming on MacOS as a means to make a profit, or increase sales of Macs?

We can't ignore the fact that both Google, and amazon tried their hand in gaming. While the numbers were never published, it seems both of them spent billions of dollars only to cancel the gaming initiative. Apple has to see this, and also the contraction occurring in gaming with developers and publishers losing millions and/or laying off thousands of people.
 
maflynn said:
I think overall its too soon in all honesty. Given that Cook will not be stepping down until September, and in all likelihood Ternus will take some time to get up to speed and layout his plan as a leader, we'll not see anything different.

The big question is, in my mind - Does apple see gaming on MacOS as a means to make a profit, or increase sales of Macs?

We can't ignore the fact that both Google, and amazon tried their hand in gaming. While the numbers were never published, it seems both of them spent billions of dollars only to cancel the gaming initiative. Apple has to see this, and also the contraction occurring in gaming with developers and publishers losing millions and/or laying off thousands of people.
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Amazon Luna is still a thing. As far as I know Google never tried game development/publishing. Amazon has, but their issue was trying to jump into live service games. They seem to be doing alright with the games publishing side (the new Tomb Raider games are being published by them). I think Apple could be a good games publisher.
 
diamond.g said:
Amazon Luna is still a thing.
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No it isn't
Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service is ending support for game purchases and subscriptions from third-party stores, and users will lose streaming access to purchased third-party games in June

diamond.g said:
As far as I know Google never tried game development/publishing
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Google Stadia

n January 2020, Google announced that it planned to release over 120 games for Stadia during that year, of which 10 were timed exclusives set to release in the first half of the year.[18] Further, Stadia claimed that more than 100 games would arrive in 2021. In December 2020, Ubisoft's gaming subscription, Ubisoft+ arrived on Stadia, letting users play all Ubisoft games available on Stadia. There were 18 Ubisoft games available at launch with later titles added as they released.[19]
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Stadia Exclusive/First-Party Published Titles:
  • Gylt (2019): A narrative horror game, the most prominent exclusive to launch with the platform.
  • Worm Game (2023): A basic "snake" game used for internal testing, released to the public shortly before the service shut down.
  • Get Packed (2020): A chaotic co-op moving game developed by Moonshine Studios, published as a Stadia exclusive, though it later came to other platforms.
  • Crayta (2020): A collaborative game creation sandbox by Unit 2 Games, which was a timed exclusive and major part of the Pro subscription
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maflynn said:
No it isn't
Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service is ending support for game purchases and subscriptions from third-party stores, and users will lose streaming access to purchased third-party games in June


Google Stadia
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Dang I missed seeing that Luna was going away (cloud gaming must be hard, lol). Amazon Games itself seems to be flipping to publishing games though. So my point about Apple being a publisher still stands.


Huh, Stadia published 3 games, developed 1. I was under the impression they were just a storefront (cause you had to buy the games on Stadia to play them), which in the era of Steam is a problem (which is probably why Luna is going away). Apple would need to be a multiplatform publisher for sure.
 
diamond.g said:
Dang I missed seeing that Luna was going away (cloud gaming must be hard, lol). Amazon Games itself seems to be flipping to publishing games though. So my point about Apple being a publisher still stands.


Huh, Stadia published 3 games, developed 1. I was under the impression they were just a storefront (cause you had to buy the games on Stadia to play them), which in the era of Steam is a problem (which is probably why Luna is going away). Apple would need to be a multiplatform publisher for sure.
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The bottom line is that both Amazon and Google spent billions trying to enter the gaming business and failed. Why would it be any different with Apple?
 
maflynn said:
The bottom line is that both Amazon and Google spent billions trying to enter the gaming business and failed. Why would it be any different with Apple?
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Because they wouldn't be (directly) trying to sell dedicated gaming hardware like the other two did?
 
diamond.g said:
Because they wouldn't be (directly) trying to sell dedicated gaming hardware like the other two did?
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True, but the issue still remains, how to get developers/publishers on board to produce or port games, and will that make a profit for apple (either directly or indirectly)?

I asked chatgpt in how much it costs to port an AAA game from windows to macos, and while there isn't a single definitive answer, the AI gave me this estimate: Low end (well-prepared, modern engine like Unreal/Unity 500k to 2 million. Mid range, 2M to 10M and high end 10M+

Take that with a grain of salt, but it shows that in all likelihood the investment to port a game is significant. If the game is available on steam and the mac port is on steam, then apple sees nothing.

If they give a developer 2 million dollars to port a AAA game, and put it on the MAS, Apple will get 30% of the sales.

For the sake of napkin math, lets say the game is priced at 60 dollars (apple's take will be 18 dollars), they will need to sell 111,111 copies of that game to make break even. That seems like a significant amount of copies needed to just break even. Maybe my assumptions are wrong, or I'm missing something but laying out like that is not encouraging
 
The worst thing Apple could do is buy a game studio.

I love the company but they have no clue about gaming and are far far too politically correct and “safe” to make and interesting game.

No. They’re better off paying developers who actually know how to make games to develop for macOS.
 
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Corefile said:
I think it would increase hardware sales.
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Prior to 2026, I would say that's highly unlikely, people long disregarded the mac as a computer capable for gaming, and a handful of game ports would not change that narrative. There were cheaper and better alternatives for anyone to consider buying a mac too play games.

Now with the memory, and SSD prices being what they are the water is a little more muddy. The brainiacs in apple would have to have some serious studies, and insights to spend millions if not billions to make a major push into gaming, all the while the gaming industry is contracting, two major companies (amazon and google) who spent billions are extricating themselves out of gaming. It doesn't look like a high growth industry.
 
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