321–330 of 395 posts
Funny thing about games: most revenue happens soon after release. It's like movies. A game from several years ago usually has low ongoing revenue, so there's little profit in updating it for a new OS. Many Mac games will just die. Especially indies, where the creator might have already moved on. Do you own any nice but not very successful Mac games? They'll die. This move destroys the reputation of Mac as a game plat…
On the hand, most people stop playing most games pretty quickly after purchase, too. And the good ones often get remade. So, while this will disappoint some people, I think "destroys the reputation" is a bit much. Many game buyers don't care that much.
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This is also why all programs should be distributed with source code. If not, you are at the mercy of the platform not to break what you have bought.
Not workable. But the source should be placed in escrow that releases it once the program is no longer supported.
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These are pretty old examples, but Glider (1988) and Escape Velocity (1996) both come to mind.
Yeah the only lost games I really care about here are Crusader Kings, Homeworld remastered, and Escape Velocity/EV Nova. The last ones sting most because the developer is defunct and those games are definitely never getting remade.
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Is it possible to virtualization an older release of OS X and run your app? It might be hard to find an image but it can be done. I have a 2011 MBP that bit the dust and I’ve seen been able to virtualize OS X (not sure about MacOS) and load a back up from Time Machine.
Certainly. Proof, ca. 2017: https://jasomill.at/X×X.jpg
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In that situation I'd be mad at both. But primarily Apple. Apple broke my working software. Emphasis on the working part. Upgrading even with one time payment software would still mean hundreds of dollars forked out because Apple broke it. If it wasn't broken I wouldn't upgrade.
Am I the only one who sees the absurdity of this? If you’re cool using 6+ year old, blurry non-retina software...why do you need to upgrade to Catalina? Just stay on Mojave and you’ll be fine. Did you really plan on using that 2012 edition of Photoshop until 2035?
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> "Microsoft Surface sells are estimated to be 20% of Mac sales." I'd say hardware sales like that are impressive, coming from a software company. Apple's original core competency was creating hardware, with the software existing to drive hardware sales. (That there is a "hack" in "hackintosh" suggests that this should still be true today. They don't want you to buy their OS and run it on your own hardware, but they'…
Apple’s Mac sales are minuscule though in the grand scheme of things and only a small part of their revenue.
Mac sales may be small, but they are important part of the system. Who will write all these apps and on what hardware?
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You don’t have to pay anything to get your code signed....
"Beginning in macOS 10.15, notarization is required by default for all software." https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin... Notarization requires that the software is signed with a certificate obtained from your $100/yr Apple Developer membership.
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8 bit software still works.
So which platform supports 8 bit software?
Just the other day my brother told me he met a really talented graphics designer that still primarily uses some 25 year old sign design software. Never heard of it before, and don't remember the name.
We balk at having to pay monthly for software we bought over 10 years ago and even today we'd not miss any new features offered. Great artists (I'm not one of them) can produce great visuals. Limitation can be better for creativity than no restrictions for some anyway.
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This is also why all programs should be distributed with source code. If not, you are at the mercy of the platform not to break what you have bought.
For games, I think it's feasible to make at least the code that interfaces with the OS into a separate, re-linkable, open-source library. Translations between the APIs (Carbon to Cocoa, OpenGL to DirectX) might be very hard, but at least upgrades would be possible.