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spam musubi

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,380
www.apple.com

Apple Arcade

Apple Arcade is a game subscription service that anyone can enjoy, with 200+ incredibly fun games — all without ads or in-app purchases.

Where Cards Fall
The Pathless
LEGO Brawls
Hot Lava
Oceanhorn 2
Beyond A Steel Sky (Beneath a steel sky sequel)

Trailers at the site, not sure how to embed them here. I'm super hyped for Beyond A Steel Sky as the first BASS is one of my favorite adventure games of all time.
 

NookSports

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,211
They seem hell bent on trying to kill it.

If the rumors of them switching to ARM are true then it'd probably kill gaming on Macs dead.

Not really, Apple just started a multi-year process to bringing iOS and MacOS on the same codebase. The end result of this will hopefully be a better Mac gaming ecosystem based first on porting existing iOS games, and later creating separate (but similar) iOS and Mac versions of games.
 

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,670
Not really, Apple just started a multi-year process to bringing iOS and MacOS on the same codebase. The end result of this will hopefully be a better Mac gaming ecosystem based first on porting existing iOS games, and later creating separate (but similar) iOS and Mac versions of games.

But that limits you to mobile versions of games.

I'm glad games like Fortnite and PUBG are putting high quality games on mobile again that aren't as exploitive as what's mostly there now, but it would still lock off lots of other types of games.

Doesn't help that Apple refused to support Vulkan and is killing off OpenGl so they can push Metal.

All that makes me think that in the future most PC game companies will just ignore MacOS entirely.
 
Oct 25, 2017
8,276
They seem hell bent on trying to kill it.

If the rumors of them switching to ARM are true then it'd probably kill gaming on Macs dead.

If Macs switch to Arm, it would either not change much about the games picture on Mac or it would drastically increase the amount of games on Mac. I lean towards thinking it would create a noticeable increase. I really don't see it lowering the amount or quality of games available on the platform.

I do think that Apple has been historically cold on gaming and has passed up opportunity after opportunity to help games flourish on their platforms in healthy ways. I am quite curious how Apple Arcade will turn out, but I think a certain level of skepticism is warranted.
 

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,670
If Macs switch to Arm, it would either not change much about the games picture on Mac or it would drastically increase the amount of games on Mac. I lean towards thinking it would create a noticeable increase. I really don't see it lowering the amount or quality of games available on the platform.

I do think that Apple has been historically cold on gaming and has passed up opportunity after opportunity to help games flourish on their platforms in healthy ways. I am quite curious how Apple Arcade will turn out, but I think a certain level of skepticism is warranted.

It would break pretty much every Mac game on Steam, Origin, and the Epic Store. Sure it could give you access to what good games exist on iOS but devs would have to optimize for the change in form factor and I don't know how many would be willing to do that. Plenty don't even bother for the iPad despite it being much less work.

I doubt most AAA or indie devs see enough of a market on MacOS to see recompiling their games for ARM be worth it.
 
Oct 25, 2017
8,276
It would break pretty much every Mac game on Steam, Origin, and the Epic Store. Sure it could give you access to what good games exist on iOS but devs would have to optimize for the change in form factor and I don't know how many would be willing to do that. Plenty don't even bother for the iPad despite it being much less work.

I doubt most AAA or indie devs see enough of a market on MacOS to see recompiling their games for ARM be worth it.

I am an Indie Dev so I am definitely only seeing this from my perspective. Games on Steam would be lost (or at least heavily disrupted) But that isn't so bad because those weren't driving much revenue to begin with. If Macs switched to ARM the main benefit would be that lower end Macs would all ship with substantially better graphics performance than they have now. It would create a new open space to push games into which would help with visibility and it would create a much better performance baseline. The transition would be a little rough, but I think the final effect would be worth it. As far as recompiling goes, the middleware that most Indies use these days makes that a pretty low-cost affair. It's actually the larger studios that might have a larger problem with porting their stuff.

Instead of the Mac being a small odd attachment to the PC market, it would be a more naturally integrated attachment to the mobile market. I think that provides a more natural way to create a pool of users who would be interested in playing games on Macs in the first place. Apple Arcade's cross-platform nature seems to be an attempt to start bridging that gap and creating a market of people who consider their Macs as a thing they would play games on. For me personally, right now that is something I never think of doing on my Mac. I game on my PC, my consoles and my mobile devices, but I don't even look at my Mac as something to play games on.

Of course all of this depends on Apple actually treating games with a level of respect that they have never really done constantly.