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Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

gridsagegames.com

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Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#31

Post by olliej »

Seriously, OS X went 64bit 12 years ago. X86 has been 64bit for longer.

Maybe, just maybe, the problem is developers refusing to actually move forward.

It’s especially galling given game devs are the group that most prominently complains about OS X being behind the times.

As for “needlessly” dropping 32bit: if your poorly written 32bit app starts up you necessarily force OS X (and the user’s machine) to pull in 32bit variants of almost the entire platform. Thanks for that. It also means Apple has to maintain 32bit versions of every framework. I can speak from experience here: maintaining a 32bit version of javascriptcore was a massive amount of work. Every new JS feature needs duplicated JIT work, and needlessly complicates the entire JSC codebase.

That aside, Apple manages to do this - and I can’t imagine your game approaches the complexity of an entire OS -so if you can’t make your software work on a 64bit system then the problem is your code, not Apple.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#32

Post by gridspy »

gok wrote: post #23

Yikes. If you can't figure out how to make your code 64-bit safe, or how to make code signing work, you are effective requiring your users to give you root access. Completely unacceptable for a game.

1. You also need to pay apple a subscription, update your hardware, change your build process. I think there is also a review step during the build.

2. All the existing tooling (not the game, but the build process) will need to be 64 bit to run on this new hardware. So the build needs to be re-worked

3. People on Mac require more support, which is harder because dev is not a Mac user.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#33

Post by ldrndll »

kunai wrote: post #22
rufius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mojave and Catalina added more restrictions around non-App Store programs where you need to sign and notarize. I know I’ll probably catch downvotes for it but I think this is a good thing for the average user as someone in security. I know it makes it more of a walled garden but I also know that the harder it is to run untrusted code, the better for the average user. The “terrible burden” is a couple of extra button…

Letting megacorporations decide what you do and do not get to do with your personal property isn't really what I would count as a "good thing" in any circumstance. Apple has gotten away with eliminating user freedoms time and time again under the guise of security. In many scenarios Apple's attitude towards its end-users increases perceived security while causing significant hurdles for actual security, such as how i…

You are still able to run unsigned (and now unnotarized) software. It requires holding down a single key when first launching it. I’m pretty sure the trade off here - to prevent the average, relatively uninformed user - from downloading and running random software is very much a worthwhile trade off for malware protection etc.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#34

Post by povertyworld »

delfinom wrote: post #29
gok wrote: post #23

Yikes. If you can't figure out how to make your code 64-bit safe, or how to make code signing work, you are effective requiring your users to give you root access. Completely unacceptable for a game.

> you are effective requiring your users to give you root access Wait, it's either code sign and you don't get root or don't code sign and get root? How retarded is macOS? Why is there no "no code sign and no root, just run as the user"?

I'm pretty sure on Linux if you wanted to run Quake3 you had to run as root due to needing direct access to the GPU. Is Linux "retarded" too?

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#35

Post by DizzyDoo »

the first commercial downloadable game I released back in 2015, that let me become a full-time indie developer, has done roughly 25% of its revenue over the last four years on Mac. This is adding together the % of copies sold on Steam for Mac users, and the Apple Mac Store, where my game was featured on the main page for three months. Notarization, and 64-bit support, and all that aside, the audience on Mac that you can sell to is massive, especially since a lot of developers just ignore the platform - I'm fully expecting to support as many macOS devices as I can for my next game.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#36

Post by pastastickers »

> Of course Mac support request ratios will vary by game due to architecture and player base, but there’s little question that they’re higher in general, ...

Why? What is the nature of these support requests? Are they specific to your game? Could it be because your game was not properly made for macOS to begin with?

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#37

Post by olliej »

delfinom wrote: post #29
gok wrote: post #23

Yikes. If you can't figure out how to make your code 64-bit safe, or how to make code signing work, you are effective requiring your users to give you root access. Completely unacceptable for a game.

> you are effective requiring your users to give you root access Wait, it's either code sign and you don't get root or don't code sign and get root? How retarded is macOS? Why is there no "no code sign and no root, just run as the user"?

Or: you don’t codesign and users ignore your app in favor of the one that doesn’t require rebooting to recovery mode to disable core platform security features, so that chrome, etc can break your machine.

Longer term I imagine that OS X will simply have an non-overridable sandbox that tightly restricts what any unnotarized app can do. Eg if you aren’t notarized you get access to your own container and no other part of the file system.

Alternatively you could just sign your code properly and update it to hardware that’s existed for 15 years.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#39

Post by povertyworld »

gridspy wrote: post #32
gok wrote: post #23

Yikes. If you can't figure out how to make your code 64-bit safe, or how to make code signing work, you are effective requiring your users to give you root access. Completely unacceptable for a game.

1. You also need to pay apple a subscription, update your hardware, change your build process. I think there is also a review step during the build. 2. All the existing tooling (not the game, but the build process) will need to be 64 bit to run on this new hardware. So the build needs to be re-worked 3. People on Mac require more support, which is harder because dev is not a Mac user.

Do these guys complain this much about releasing games on consoles too?

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#40

Post by judge2020 »

kunai wrote: post #22
rufius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mojave and Catalina added more restrictions around non-App Store programs where you need to sign and notarize. I know I’ll probably catch downvotes for it but I think this is a good thing for the average user as someone in security. I know it makes it more of a walled garden but I also know that the harder it is to run untrusted code, the better for the average user. The “terrible burden” is a couple of extra button…

Letting megacorporations decide what you do and do not get to do with your personal property isn't really what I would count as a "good thing" in any circumstance. Apple has gotten away with eliminating user freedoms time and time again under the guise of security. In many scenarios Apple's attitude towards its end-users increases perceived security while causing significant hurdles for actual security, such as how i…

You can still bypass gatekeeper with Ctrl-click, it's less Apple deciding what users do with their property and more Apple making it less likely users get mad that their Mac got some malware (assuming notarization means it catches a good amount of malware before it's sent into the wild)
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