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Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

Homy said:
Exactly my thoughts! Apple is a public stock company and has to protect the interests of its shareholders. Buying a game studio to develop exclusive Mac games with huge loss is not in their interest. The Last of US part 2 costed $220 million for Sony to produce. Cyberpunk costed $316 million and Star Citizen $501 million. GTA 6 is expected to cost $2 billion!! In 2022 Apple sold about 27 million Macs worldwide but with 2.5% share of Steam users there are simply not enough Mac gamers to make profit from exclusive titles. They would need to sell millions of copies of each AAA game on Mac to make profit.

If the games were on Apple Arcade it could work in the long run but they wouldn’t sell many more copies since you pay once and can play all the titles on all your Apple devices. They would have to raise the subscription price at least 3-4 times to 15-20 dollars like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. They could also eventually sell their exclusive games on other platforms but again that’s what other developers already do so why not help them bring their games to Mac instead of starting a new studio and develop titles and build up a large catalog that would take many many years and make a big hole in their pocket? Exclusive titles and their own game studio wouldn’t still bring other PC/console titles to Mac and people would still have to buy PC/consoles to play those.

They could start a porting studio instead of developing their own games. That would be more profitable but we already have Feral and some others so I’m not sure if Apple would be more successful. They have a large war chest and wouldn’t need much profit to start things rolling though.

The cheapest current strategy is to help developers bring their game engines to Mac and give technical or financial help to port games. Once that problem is solved and the devs are more familiar with the Mac platform it’s easier for them to port their future games.
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They should commission games to be made with the IP they hold. Like a Football Manager version of Ted Lasso. Or a RTS for Foundation.
 
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Rnd-chars said:
Are you saying “make games for non-Apple platforms” or “make games for Apple platforms beyond the Mac?”

Apple doesn’t have it in them to make games period. All their apps are designed for *other* people to make things, whether it’s presentations, videos, or music. Making games is simply not in Apple’s DNA. Making the *tools* to make games might be.

But say for the sake of argument they’re dying to burn cash and enter a highly competitive, high cost market. Making games for anything other than Apple devices would be anathema to them. They want to grow Apple’s customer set (providing incremental hardware sales and ongoing service revenue), not make a trivial amount of money developing a game for their competitor.

Even if Apple had a dedicated gaming console (effectively an AppleTV Ultra), they’d still focus on making it as easy for devs to bring their games to every Apple platform. Write once, run many and all that.

Personally, I’d much rather see Apple cozy up with Nintendo or Sony and see what type of opportunities there are for collaboration. Sony’s kinda/sorta trying to get back into mobile, but that could be a huge endeavor to do well. What if PlayStation games were available on Apple devices (either with a smaller App Store commission fee or as part of ongoing Apple Arcade Plus subscription)? Sony gains revenue and mindshare without cannibalizing hardware sales while also potentially slowing Nintendo’s dominance, Apple gains gaming cred and shows devs “real” games can run on Apple Silicon, and gamers get some of those AAA games they’ve been dying for.

That, to me, is far more interesting and likely to succeed than Apple buying somebody or starting their own studio.
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This is the only thing that I will write on this topic.

Apple is working on their own game controller.

They have a platform that can be used as a console, and as computers, with the same hardware which simplifies optimization.

Think about the consequences of it.
 
MRMSFC said:
“Buying a studio” is the most ridiculous assertion honestly. If one does a little critical thinking, it makes zero sense.

Let’s say hypothetically, Apple buys a game dev studio, and makes AAA level games for the Mac only.

Realistically, how much would that increase sales of Macs vs the money put in? It costs millions of dollars and at least a year or two to make a single AAA game, even one that’s buggy and unfinished. (And Apple wouldn’t want something as buggy as say, Cyberpunk or Fallout 76)

Sure, Apple could sell those games on PC as well to shore up the costs, but then it’s back to square one.
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Agreed thank you. You know how many posts on this site people have said Apple just needs to buy studios. Also, it would be a major waste of money. Shareholders won’t go for it. Which is probably why Apple doesn’t do it! People need to understand how public companies work. Shareholders would rather have Apple focus on Vision Pro than make things better for the customer by making the 2023 Mac Pro better. This is why I do not like big companies that are public.
 
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koyoot said:
This is the only thing that I will write on this topic.

Apple is working on their own game controller.

They have a platform that can be used as a console, and as computers, with the same hardware which simplifies optimization.

Think about the consequences of it.
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So they are taking the Microsoft Xbox route you say?
Spaceboi Scaphandre said:
Ted Lasso is available in FIFA 23. You have the ability to play as the entire AFC Richmond team.

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Oh cool, see now Apple needs to have this game on macOS...
 
Ethosik said:
Agreed thank you. You know how many posts on this site people have said Apple just needs to buy studios. Also, it would be a major waste of money. Shareholders won’t go for it. Which is probably why Apple doesn’t do it! People need to understand how public companies work. Shareholders would rather have Apple focus on Vision Pro than make things better for the customer by making the 2023 Mac Pro better. This is why I do not like big companies that are public.
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By this logic Sony and Microsoft should have never spent millions and billions on gaming studios. Or Amazon, or Meta.

Why is Vision Pro a better play than a gaming studio? It's a device for a hyper niche market that costs over ten times it's competitor and has no real clear use case. How many billions did Apple spend to design it?
 
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diamond.g said:
So they are taking the Microsoft Xbox route you say?

Oh cool, see now Apple needs to have this game on macOS...
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This year FIFA will change its name to EA SPORTS FC, and will become Free-to-Play.

I will not be surprised if it will be on day 1 Mac/iOS native App.
 
salamanderjuice said:
By this logic Sony and Microsoft should have never spent millions and billions on gaming studios. Or Amazon, or Meta.

Why is Vision Pro a better play than a gaming studio? It's a device for a hyper niche market that costs over ten times its competitor and has no real clear use case. How many billions did Apple spend to design it?
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Sony and Microsoft are already in the gaming market. Have been for decades now.
 
koyoot said:
This year FIFA will change its name to EA SPORTS FC, and will become Free-to-Play.

I will not be surprised if it will be on day 1 Mac/iOS native App.
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I can see an iOS game, but will they just allow the same game to run on macOS or will they use the console/pc version?
 
Ethosik said:
Sony and Microsoft are already in the gaming market. Have been for decades now.
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Wow really? How did they get there though? Did they buy game studios? Or did Sony and Microsoft just encourage devs to make things for their platforms for a decade+? Occasionally tossing some developer some money for a port of years old game?
 
salamanderjuice said:
Wow really? How did they get there though? Did they buy game studios? Or did Sony and Microsoft just encourage devs to make things for their platforms for a decade+? Occasionally tossing some developer some money for a port of years old game?
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They got here because they got in the gaming market when it was still growing. Microsoft had Halo which they snagged from Apple.

Microsoft and Sony have $400-$500 boxes that game for 5-7 years with support. Apple doesn’t have a system like this. The gaming market is now too large to just “enter” into.
 
Ethosik said:
They got here because they got in the gaming market when it was still growing. Microsoft had Halo which they snagged from Apple.

Microsoft and Sony have $400-$500 boxes that game for 5-7 years with support. Apple doesn’t have a system like this. The gaming market is now too large to just “enter” into.
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You do realize that Apple ALREADY is in that gaming market, right?

Mobile gaming is by far the largest gaming market. And because of the economies it will be scaling up games from mobile to larger platforms, rather than other way around.
 
koyoot said:
You do realize that Apple ALREADY is in that gaming market, right?

Mobile gaming is by far the largest gaming market. And because of the economies it will be scaling up games from mobile to larger platforms, rather than other way around.
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We are talking about AAA gaming market. Not mobile gaming here. Different markets.
 
Ethosik said:
We are talking about AAA gaming market. Not mobile gaming here. Different markets.
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Entering into console gaming market is way easier if you have other platforms, that are already a major gaming market platforms.

Does Apple have gaming platforms?
 
koyoot said:
Entering into console gaming market is way easier if you have other platforms, that are already a major gaming market platforms.

Does Apple have gaming platforms?
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No it’s not. Mobile games are cheap. AAA games, some of them, are more expensive than a blockbuster movie to produce.
 
Ethosik said:
They got here because they got in the gaming market when it was still growing. Microsoft had Halo which they snagged from Apple.

Microsoft and Sony have $400-$500 boxes that game for 5-7 years with support. Apple doesn’t have a system like this. The gaming market is now too large to just “enter” into.
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Also Microsoft simply had already 90-95% of the PC OS market so even exclusive Windows games have always been able to make large profit thanks to a huge userbase.
 
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Ethosik said:
No it’s not. Mobile games are cheap. AAA games, some of them, are more expensive than a blockbuster movie to produce.
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Not some of them. To create AAA title you need 300-400 people team. Each one of them will earn around 100-120k/year. In previous years it took 18-24 months to create AAA title. Now we have 3-4 year develpment cycles.

That team of people on 4 year development cycle will cost you almost 2 bln USD to create one title.

To create mobile games, it takes 40-80 people team 12-18 months, with MUCH, MUCH larger TAM, and return on investment.

The rule is simple. Follow the money.

Mobile games will scale up, not AAA titles will scale down. And we ALREADY see examples of this.
 
koyoot said:
Not some of them. To create AAA title you need 300-400 people team. Each one of them will earn around 100-120k/year. In previous years it took 18-24 months to create AAA title. Now we have 3-4 year develpment cycles.

That team of people on 4 year development cycle will cost you almost 2 bln USD to create one title.

To create mobile games, it takes 40-80 people team 12-18 months, with MUCH, MUCH larger TAM, and return on investment.

The rule is simple. Follow the money.

Mobile games will scale up, not AAA titles will scale down. And we ALREADY see examples of this.
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You are making the point for me. AAA will not scale down to Apple’s marketshare. And it can’t scale down to work on iPhones.
 
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Ethosik said:
You are making the point for me. AAA will not scale down to Apple’s marketshare. And it can’t scale down to work on iPhones.
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Only the biggest players will soon be able to make AAA games, and vast majority of market will be either E-Sports, Indie, or Mobile games, because of the economics.

Its that simple.
 
koyoot said:
Only the biggest players will soon be able to make AAA games, and vast majority of market will be either E-Sports, Indie, or Mobile games, because of the economics.

Its that simple.
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So then why are we so hung up about Macs not having Call of Duty (one example out of thousands) and other AAA if it doesn’t mean anything?
 
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