They aren't really. Gaming laptops in the ~$1000-$1200 region are pretty similar in performance to the M2 Pro and significantly better than the base M1/M2. And god forbid you want an internal SSD that can store more than Baldur's Gate 3 and a web browser.
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Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games
- Thread starter Homy
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Tough to say. Certainly the higher it gets the more attention it will get. To get more attention vs Windows? More marketshare than Windows. To get the same level of attention? Maybe a close 50/50 (60/40 type of distribution).
Marketshare is the entire debate. Nintendo Switch gets good games, and it's not "4090 quality" or "ray tracing" goodness that these threads turn into. Wii U was FAR WORSE than the Wii and Switch.....due to marketshare.
Sure, and you posted NOTHING to back it up. So it sounds like you are just arguing to argue. If you honestly think a macOS port of a windows game of anything is only 10% effort, then you don't know how complex games can be. Even indie games. I know Indies that were ported by third party because it was more effort than they could handle. And then to scale that up to a completed AAA game, yeah it's way more than 10%.
Especially if you are an indie and a one person shop that developed the entire game on Windows. Now you need to do the following:
1. Buy a Mac to port it
2. Spend time learning how to code on the Mac if the engine doesn't directly support it (MOST CASES HERE)
3. If the engine supports a macOS port easily, you still need to work out the bugs
4. While you are working on the Mac port, this delays any additional bug fixes or features you want to add to the Windows version, which causes a domino effect for your roadmap.
5. Once you got your game ported without any errors or MAJOR and OBVIOUS bugs, you still need to perform a thorough testing of the entire game again to make sure you don't randomly find another major bug.
Significant time to port is just common sense. Going from Direct X shaders to OpenGL/Metal causes some significant glitches that need to be resolved. Which sometimes means re-writing the majority of some shaders. Heck even on Windows I have had to re-write 200-line shaders just from going from a Direct X shader to OpenGL or vice versa. And on that same topic, even on Windows I have re-written one of my game engines when I went from OpenGL to DirectX. From a lines of code perspective, I had to re-write around 25 thousand lines out of the entire game of 35 thousand. It is not 10% effort here.
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Yes, but those gaming laptops do sacrifice things that Apple has advantages of. Better quality screen, better resolution, better build quality, better speakers, etc.
I have used those gaming laptops recently, and unless you want to spend ~$2,500+ its still cheap plastic feeling.
For my current game I am using Unity. I built my own engine a while back for some games using C++ and DirectX/OpenGL. I am not using that one as it is a 15+ year old engine now.
That's not performance per dollar though...
And you can get similarly performing PCs with better screens and metal build for similar amounts if that's what you want like an Asus Zenbook. And when you factor in what Apple asks for a usable config like 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM...
More market share than Windows doesn't matter if 0.01% of users buys games. For game consoles market share is almost 1:1 people who own one buy games. Not true on computers.
That is precisely the point. 0.01% of a large pool of users (Windows) is a better platform for starting a business than 0.01% of a very small pool of users (Mac). There are a lot of Mac users out there, but a small percentage of them buys games. So Windows vs macOS marketshare is even worse in that regard.
I am not expecting 80/90 percent of all PC users who use windows to buy my game, that is very unrealistic. HOWEVER, I get a pool of that many users to increase my potential audience.
This is similar to making sure you build a restaurant at the right place to maximize the potential buyers. Its basic things you learn during my business school when I was in college.
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I’m a dev….
I must say I have not read an accurate comment by you yet.
Also, it’s the TAM Total addressable market we’re talking about. Not market share.
It’s very easy to calculate profit based on the raw numbers we know. It’s what analysts do for a living.
You build GameX for Window for $1Million.
You’ve targeted the PC market which has a growth of >15% but the PC portion of that market is in decline. (But you obviously don’t care by your comments)
Then there’s a porting kit for your weirdo (proprietary?) gaming engine to tap Metal’s API with your own data (eg. DX)
If I was an investor and heard your arguments I’d pull.
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Your outlook is weird. This isn't about buying a Mac TO GAME, this is about selling games to people who already own a Mac and would like to game.
?????? Did you read the post I was replying to? Which was talking about Apple being being in a good place to "grow marketshare" because of price to performance?
The porting kit just got announced for cripes sake. It didn’t exist when I set up my business plan. And it’s not 100%. The M1 Ultra performs worse than the M1 Max from it. So you need to *gasp* spend time to optimize your code.
If you honestly believe Mac will give me more potential buyers than Windows I don’t know what you are thinking. I have a business degree here and have crunched the numbers. My game can run on an old 2013 laptop with integrated graphics. That means my grandma can play it on her 2021 $300 Dell she has.
You also know M2 Macs had a significant decline too right? Enough where Apple halted production a while back. Not sure why your statements are geared to PC decline fear when Macs had a large decline too.
If I had an investor and was saying what you were that I should focus on Mac instead I’d pull.
I’m not targeting 4090 gamers here. So since there are far more Windows users out there that gives me more to work with. I’m not alone in this. I have many local software firms that I know the CEO and asked for their thoughts on creating a Mac version of their program. Same views. I emailed some of my favorite game devs and asked for their plans for Mac ports. Same views.
It’s why consoles get stuff priority and then PCs.
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Over 2 bln Windows/Linux PCs that are actively working.
Around 80-100 mil Macs active.
PORTING GAME FROM WINDOWS TO MAC IS EQUALLY PROFITABLE, DO IT, DO IT QUICK!@!!
Around 80-100 mil Macs active.
PORTING GAME FROM WINDOWS TO MAC IS EQUALLY PROFITABLE, DO IT, DO IT QUICK!@!!
Good news everyone! VMWare Fusion now finally supports 3D Acceleration!
The Medium has now a Mac depot on Steam so it may be released there.