I am interested in seeing how the price will be received, 60 USD for a game that also has other in app purchases seems like a big ask on iOS.
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Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games
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Can't fight in person ... so have to do it virtually ... bwa ha ha ha ha ha ...
Edit: Typo
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I feel like you’re leaving out the fact that the GameCube was Nintendo’s worst selling console until the WiiU. And the PS2 was the most successful console of all time, and a smash success on launch big enough to kill Sega’s console business.
Not really comparable to the most lucrative platform on the most lucrative market in gaming. Really, the Mac is at best a sideshow to iOS.
I feel like the freemium model would’ve happened with any mobile device store, but Apple basically is a rent-seeker in many regards.
However “nothing” is a stretch when they build the devices down to the circuitry on the processors, and provide the development software for free to anyone (provided you own a Mac, granted).
Some argument to be had for sure.
iOS being a serious target for AAA games is a stretch, but I think it could be a middle ground with ports coming to it.
I also feel like I should point out that kids today are growing up with iPads more readily available than traditional PCs. Already colleges are having to teach many new students to use file systems because they’re so used to mobile.
To us it seems pointless, but that’s no guarantee it will be true for younger generations.
Apple explains Game Mode.
Game Mode optimizes your gaming experience by giving your game the highest priority access to your CPU and GPU, lowering usage for background tasks. And it doubles the Bluetooth sampling rate, which reduces input latency and audio latency for wireless accessories like game controllers and AirPods.
Also Crossover 23.5 is released:
"This release offers an alternate way to run DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games through CrossOver, using components from the Apple game porting toolkit. It can be enabled by toggling on “D3DMetal” in the right bottle sidebar. We are happy to report that this new D3DMetal option improves quality, compatibility, and performance for many games on Macs with the M1 chip or later, including Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon, Mortal Kombat 1, Deep Rock Galactic, Satisfactory, Monster Hunter Rise, God of War and Batman Arkham Knight. Note that Elden Ring and Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon default to launching with Easy Anti-Cheat disabled."
"The excitement does not stop there! We are also happy to report that Baldur’s Gate 3 is working out of the box, and we recommend enabling D3DMetal or DXVK for the best experience. Denuvo games are now playable, and this release also includes support for GStreamer for multimedia decoding. CrossOver 23.5 is the first CrossOver release with support for macOS Sonoma with optimizations from thorough compatibility testing. CrossOver 23.5 also boasts better compatibility for a variety of distros, including Debian 13, openSUSE Leap 15.1 and the upcoming Ubuntu 23.10 release. Lastly CrossOver 23.5 includes a handful of fixes, including special characters not rendering in certain apps and components not loading with MetaTrader 4."
Game Mode optimizes your gaming experience by giving your game the highest priority access to your CPU and GPU, lowering usage for background tasks. And it doubles the Bluetooth sampling rate, which reduces input latency and audio latency for wireless accessories like game controllers and AirPods.
- Move your pointer over the green button in the upper-left corner of the game window.
- Choose Enter Full Screen from the menu that appears.
Also Crossover 23.5 is released:
"This release offers an alternate way to run DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games through CrossOver, using components from the Apple game porting toolkit. It can be enabled by toggling on “D3DMetal” in the right bottle sidebar. We are happy to report that this new D3DMetal option improves quality, compatibility, and performance for many games on Macs with the M1 chip or later, including Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon, Mortal Kombat 1, Deep Rock Galactic, Satisfactory, Monster Hunter Rise, God of War and Batman Arkham Knight. Note that Elden Ring and Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon default to launching with Easy Anti-Cheat disabled."
"The excitement does not stop there! We are also happy to report that Baldur’s Gate 3 is working out of the box, and we recommend enabling D3DMetal or DXVK for the best experience. Denuvo games are now playable, and this release also includes support for GStreamer for multimedia decoding. CrossOver 23.5 is the first CrossOver release with support for macOS Sonoma with optimizations from thorough compatibility testing. CrossOver 23.5 also boasts better compatibility for a variety of distros, including Debian 13, openSUSE Leap 15.1 and the upcoming Ubuntu 23.10 release. Lastly CrossOver 23.5 includes a handful of fixes, including special characters not rendering in certain apps and components not loading with MetaTrader 4."
- "macOS Sonoma is required for D3DMetal option and Denuvo games."
Forget my previous post because ITS HERE! COUNTER STRIKE 2 HAS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
store.steampowered.com
Unfortunately this is where the bad news comes in: There’s no Mac version like we thought. Windows and Linux only. Mac system requirements have been removed completely so it looks like Valve has dropped Mac support, unless there’s something I’m missing
Counter-Strike 2 on Steam
For over two decades, Counter-Strike has offered an elite competitive experience, one shaped by millions of players from across the globe. And now the next chapter in the CS story is about to begin. This is Counter-Strike 2.
Unfortunately this is where the bad news comes in: There’s no Mac version like we thought. Windows and Linux only. Mac system requirements have been removed completely so it looks like Valve has dropped Mac support, unless there’s something I’m missing
Not on Mac.
EDIT: I can download it, but the Steam Store page doesn't show the Apple logo nor the Mac system requirements.
Disappointing but not surprising given recent history.Forget my previous post because ITS HERE! COUNTER STRIKE 2 HAS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!
Counter-Strike 2 on Steam
For over two decades, Counter-Strike has offered an elite competitive experience, one shaped by millions of players from across the globe. And now the next chapter in the CS story is about to begin. This is Counter-Strike 2.
Unfortunately this is where the bad news comes in: There’s no Mac version like we thought. Windows and Linux only. Mac system requirements have been removed completely so it looks like Valve has dropped Mac support, unless there’s something I’m missing
I downloaded it to, but the game does not work. It's looking for an executable file.
Guess that confirms it. Mac support has been silently dropped.
If Mac support of Counter Strike is gone...oh god what's gonna happen to Steam?
I wouldn't count out a Mac port yet. It's very usual to release a Mac port later like the recent BG 3 and Resident Evil 4. Maybe it's just Valve not bothering as usual to communicate openly about Mac but being busy testing, because Steamdb shows other signs. Steam faq says not right now but the app info and configuration lists Mac. The depot was just created and updated three hours ago and it's larger than the Linux depot.
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I’m sorry man but I think the app info and configs were leftovers Valve forgot about, which would explain why the Mac client of Steam still attempts to install the game but is looking for an executable to launch
Until word from Valve comes it’s safe to assume Mac support has been silently dropped, just as it has with their other games. Even Dota 2 on Mac barely works and is hardly supported anymore. Mac is an afterthought for Valve compared to Windows and Linux, especially with the Steam Deck being a big success for them and the rumored Galileo and Deckard being announced soon they got bigger things to worry about than Mac ports that are a pain to maintain due to Apple’s api shenanigans.
For god sake Steam still isn’t native to Apple Silicon three years later
If they forgot about the depot, they would have left it or removed it. Instead, they just updated it.
These were all 32 bit games that could no longer work.
How? It's updated regularly like the Window and Linux versions.
Valve leaves a lot of stuff in their depots they didn't mean to. It's how we learn a lot about their projects. Half Life Alyx was in depots of CSGO and DOTA for years under the name HLVR.
And who's fault is that? They'd still work if Apple didn't cut 32 bit app support. They didn't even include a compatibility mode like Windows 11 did.
Dota 2 on Mac runs terribly. Framerate drops constantly and the game stutters a lot on Mac, problems the Windows and Linux version do not have. The same performance issues the Mac version of CSGO had when it was forced to move to 64 bit.
But they haven’t left old depots created months ago. They created and updated a new depot just yesterday. They wouldn’t do that on the release day if they weren’t continuing working on the port.
Valve also says ”not available at this time”. So until word from Valve comes it’s safe to assume Mac support hasn’t been silently dropped.
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CSGO was moved to the beta branch, so you could be looking at that instead (which btw also tested that, and it doesn't work, and even if it did matchmaking for CSGO was turned off)
Everything about this launch is just wrong. Half the game is missing. A lot of modes and maps are just gone, including big modes like Danger Zone. Achievements are also gone too, and many Linux users are reporting performance issues. Even accessibility features like left handed mode are gone.
Counter-Strike 2 launches without many of Global Offensive’s best features
Counter-Strike 2 released last night and has duly taken over from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as Steam’s most-play…
www.rockpapershotgun.com
The forums and subreddit for the game are a hot mess, especially with a lot of Mac users waking up to find out the game they bought and paid for is gone, replaced with a game they can't even run, making the hundreds of dollars of skins they have now unusable.
CSGO was moved to the beta branch, so you could be looking at that instead (which btw also tested that, and it doesn't work, and even if it did matchmaking for CSGO was turned off)
Everything about this launch is just wrong. Half the game is missing. A lot of modes and maps are just gone, including big modes like Danger Zone. Achievements are also gone too, and many Linux users are reporting performance issues. Even accessibility features like left handed mode are gone.
Counter-Strike 2 launches without many of Global Offensive’s best features
Counter-Strike 2 released last night and has duly taken over from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as Steam’s most-play…
The forums and subreddit for the game are a hot mess, especially with a lot of Mac users waking up to find out the game they bought and paid for is gone, replaced with a game they can't even run, making the hundreds of dollars of skins they have now unusable.
Well, there you go. Valve is a hot mess and seems to have bigger problems to fix than a Mac port right now so no Mac support at the moment. I wonder what these problems mean for all the pro players.
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I don't see how it relates to the current situation. Valve speficially made a Mac depot for CS2 and updated it yesterday. They would have done that if they did not intend to release a Mac version.
So it's Apple fault, not Valve's. It doesn't teach us anything about Valve.
That's because Valve has made clear they won't use private APIs like Metal (though they use DX11). They're on record saying they won't use DX12. Had Apple implemented Vulkan drivers, the game would run better.
Brilliant marketing though, they've learned from their mistakes. When CS:Source came out, 1.6 was still available and migration was slow because people kept playing 1.6. When CS:GO came out, CS:Source was still available and migration was slow. Now CS2 is out and they remove CS:GO to make everyone jump to CS2 immediately. While the CS:GO skins are still available in CS2, they will surely offer new CS2 skins to make people buy more stuff again... and since everyone is on CS2 now, they will sell more skins to people who would have stayed with CS:GO if it'd be still available. 👏
But CS2 is free, so that makes no sense. They still would've sold skins a lot since inventories carried over
Prime status, keys and other stuff is not and people will buy them for CS2 (for whatever reason). That's how Valve cashes in. There are already new CS2 skins and people are going nuts about them. Same for PoE, free game, but stash tabs and skins need to be bought.
We'll probably see more and more of these types of games in the future. A game is only bought once while people keep paying for game content and skins.
Prime Status is paid as an anticheat measure due to Counter Strike's infamy of cheaters even in the professional scene. If you bought CSGO before it became free to play like most of us did you are grandfathered in, so you got Prime in CS2 as well at no additional charge.
Counter Strike 2 was supposed to be just a engine swap from Portal 2's Source to Source 2, but so much is currently missing. For example the map Train is currently not available despite it being in the trailers.
How does it prevent cheating? It's primarily interesting for match making, isn't it? Ignoring gimmicks like XP and dropped items.
It carries over yes, but many who don't have it yet will likely buy it for CS2. Not sure how intensive I ever used it, it's been too long ago. My CS days were largely back in the classic days until 1.6. CS:Source was just random fun for me, with little serious matches every now and then along the way. We played a ladder back then, but I can't remember which. That was almost 20 years ago.
CS:GO was an "interesting" development, but I quit eventually and rather watched people play than playing myself.
I checked it out a while ago, but can't say I'm overly hyped after the initial "wow". I'm too old now for competitive gaming, it just takes up too much time. I might play a little once it's a better experience, but can't see myself getting into it again. I will however watch some tournaments again in the near future.
Train is a bummer, solid map. It will come eventually. But let's not delude ourselves... as with every CS game, the map pool of actively played and popular maps will be rather small.