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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

#101

Post by ohithereyou »

dantondwa wrote: post #94
rs23296008n1 wrote: post #79

As someone who recently worked in game dev I'm not sure why 32 bit was even a factor as 64 bit is likely your default target anyway - has been for awhile. So, killing 32 bit is not a real issue. Notorizing can be seen as just another cost of targeting a platform. So do it. You will need at least one machine anyway to do basic testing on. So use that. Get the cheapest imac or whatever you require. So, mac hardware isn…

What surprises me is the fact that the author doesn't talk about the craziest of Apple's recent choices: the deprecation of OpenGL. This is much worse than the deprecation of 32 bit and, IMHO, it's just Apple giving up on being a relevant gaming platform. This, plus the lack of nvidia drivers and of support for Vulkan. All the small issues here show, together, that indeed Apple doesn't give a shit about gaming and ab…

> All the small issues here show, together, that indeed Apple doesn't give a shit about gaming and about interoperability with other platforms. They want developers to be faithful to their locked garden and their technologies.

Especially if it's only 4% of your sales. If 4% of your sales doesn't cover the cost of a Mac, code signing, and the cost of support on the Mac then it's a _net negative_ - you'll make more money not being on the Mac.

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

#102

Post by ohithereyou »

crooked-v wrote: post #48
DizzyDoo wrote: post #35

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…

I feel like there's also something of a snowball effect here because in certain genres the available set of games are good enough to rarely need to reboot into Windows. All the Paradox strategy games, X-COM, a variety of indie games built on Unity, etc. It feels like the only thing I'm ever consistently missing out on is FPS games, and even then there's been workable ports of stuff like Deus Ex.

Anything requiring more than Intel integrated graphics tends to not work well on the Mac. The vast majority of Mac models can't even take a dedicated GPU upgrade, so you're stuck with whatever Apple soldered to your motherboard and at their mercy for graphics driver upgrades.

The only time I've seen anyone try to seriously game on the Mac was a friend of mine that built a Hackintosh with a (brand new at the time) nVidia GeForce 1080ti. He couldn't even maintain 60+ FPS on Rocket League. So there's no wonder why games that require that level of GPU performance don't sell well on the Mac.

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

#103

Post by ohithereyou »

pastastickers wrote: post #36

> 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?

In the minds of Apple, anything not programmed solely for the Mac is 'not properly made for macOS'. It's shades of "you're holding it wrong" again.

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

#104

Post by dickeytk »

her_tummy_hurts wrote: post #85
dickeytk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. Apple prevents unsigned binaries from being executed at all.

That’s not true. You can bypass that.

Well of course it can be bypassed, but it certainly doesn’t “step in” at some point either as was suggested. It blocks all unsigned binaries regardless of any damage they’ve caused.

Though this morning I realized I misunderstood the point of the grandparent here. He was saying you can have a signed binary that is still malicious. I thought they were talking about what apple does in the case of unsigned.

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

#105

Post by unicornfinder »

olliej wrote: post #76
cwyers wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Windows game. People are asking him about the possibility of a Mac port.

Ok, but if the game is only a few years old why didn’t it compile for 64bit? I recognize MS insisted on screwing the market by selling 32 vs 64 bit as separate versions of Windows for many years, but even then surely most windows machines have been running 64 by default for a decade? But seriously: if you make a new piece of software in the last 15 years that only works in 32bit, then you made a choice to target an o…

I mean, I agree with you completely but what I've found is that a lot of games, whilst are 64-bit themselves, often have a lot of dependencies that, for whatever reason, still have 32-bit binaries in there somewhere.

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

#106

Post by anoncake »

rs23296008n1 wrote: post #79

As someone who recently worked in game dev I'm not sure why 32 bit was even a factor as 64 bit is likely your default target anyway - has been for awhile. So, killing 32 bit is not a real issue. Notorizing can be seen as just another cost of targeting a platform. So do it. You will need at least one machine anyway to do basic testing on. So use that. Get the cheapest imac or whatever you require. So, mac hardware isn…

> You will need at least one machine anyway to do basic testing on.

You wouldn't if Apple didn't prohibit using VMs. If you want to test compatibility with the actual hardware you probably should have more than one machine anyway.

> This suggests linux is more problematic per sale than mac.

Or that Linux users are more likely to report their problems. IIRC there recently was an article on HN by a game developer who supported Linux in part to get quality bug reports.

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

#107

Post by Someone »

anoncake wrote: post #106
rs23296008n1 wrote: post #79

As someone who recently worked in game dev I'm not sure why 32 bit was even a factor as 64 bit is likely your default target anyway - has been for awhile. So, killing 32 bit is not a real issue. Notorizing can be seen as just another cost of targeting a platform. So do it. You will need at least one machine anyway to do basic testing on. So use that. Get the cheapest imac or whatever you require. So, mac hardware isn…

> You will need at least one machine anyway to do basic testing on. You wouldn't if Apple didn't prohibit using VMs. If you want to test compatibility with the actual hardware you probably should have more than one machine anyway. > This suggests linux is more problematic per sale than mac. Or that Linux users are more likely to report their problems. IIRC there recently was an article on HN by a game developer who s…

”You wouldn't if Apple didn't prohibit using VMs.”

Nitpick: Apple doesn’t completely prohibit VMs; it prohibits VMs not running on Apple hardware running the OS, and puts restriction on why you can run them. https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOS1014.pdf:

”to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using macOS Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use.”

I think one intended use for that is for testing your software with older or beta OSes, but “already running the Apple Software” to me, implies running the same version in the VM as on the host.

I also think they don’t just allow running in a VM because it would make running hackintoshes perfectly feasible, losing them significant hardware sales.

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

#108

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

povertyworld wrote: post #39
gridspy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Consoles have a user base large enough to be worth the effort.
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