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I interpret these sorts of statements to be short for "a statistically insignificant number of people play games on macos (or linux)" rather than the literal ca

I interpret these sorts of statements to be short for "a statistically insignificant number of people play games on macos (or linux)" rather than the literal case where as long as a single person does, it is false. According to the steam hardware survey, Windows is 95%, Macos is 4%, and Linux is 1%. And to dig deeper you'd need to see what games that 5% of the non-Windows is playing - are they simpler games that don't need graphics acceleration (e.g. puzzle games, roguelikes, etc) or ones that do? My desktop is an Intel NUC running Ubuntu, and yeah I play games on it. Slay the Spire, Spacechem, even some older MMOs like DDO or LoTRO (which run but at 15-20 fps since that system just has Intel Iris). I'm unable to even start many others (e.g. Grim Dawn) due to not having dedicated graphics. So yeah it's nuanced but lots of games that need a graphics card don't run or even display on that system. That's why I have a windows gaming system too. I'm realistic, the market just isn't there. I used to have a Mac (dropped it in 2018) and if I still did I'd subscribe to Geforce Now or just do console gaming.

proverbialbunny 5y ago
If you want to get a bit more into significant numbers, Apple has the largest number of games for any platform and it has the largest number of gamers. They're mobile games, but on the M1 people can play them on their desktop. What I think you mean is competitive gamers and AAA gamers do not play on Apple hardware. This is mostly true today ofc, but keep in mind that's actually not the majority of the gaming market. Apple is raking it in from its gaming market.
jbluepolarbear 5y ago
Grim Dawn is just poorly implemented. I have a Ryzen 3700x with a 2070 super and Grim Dawn runs like crap.
crmd 5y ago
You’re right but i think there’s an immensely valuable lesson here for people who communicate with engineers as part of their job: be mindful of casual precision mistakes. “no one” and “a statistically insignificant number of” are colloquial synonyms to civilians, but they are black and white to engineers, especially software people. They are the difference for example between a safe code path and a edge case bug. In my experience, people who use casual imprecision in technical conversations are sometimes seen as inexperienced or not fully understanding a problem, which may actually not be the case. Learning to speak with precision without being pedantic is an excellent soft skill that can be developed over time.
the_af 5y ago
I understood it was about statistical significance, but my point remains: Who says Mac users aren't gamers? It's a self perpetuating vicious cycle: gamers use Windows because that's where the majority of games are, so developers keep targeting Windows, so gamers use Windows, and so ad infinitum. But people who use Macs enjoy games as well. They would rather not dual boot to Windows. It's not true that Mac users don't play games. Rather, it's that most games are on Windows, which is a shame.

proverbialbunny 5y ago

If you want to get a bit more into significant numbers, Apple has the largest number of games for any platform and it has the largest number of gamers. They're mobile games, but on the M1 people can play them on their desktop. What I think you mean is competitive gamers and AAA gamers do not play on Apple hardware. This is mostly true today ofc, but keep in mind that's actually not the majority of the gaming market. Apple is raking it in from its gaming market.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

Grim Dawn is just poorly implemented. I have a Ryzen 3700x with a 2070 super and Grim Dawn runs like crap.

crmd 5y ago

You’re right but i think there’s an immensely valuable lesson here for people who communicate with engineers as part of their job: be mindful of casual precision mistakes. “no one” and “a statistically insignificant number of” are colloquial synonyms to civilians, but they are black and white to engineers, especially software people. They are the difference for example between a safe code path and a edge case bug. In my experience, people who use casual imprecision in technical conversations are sometimes seen as inexperienced or not fully understanding a problem, which may actually not be the case. Learning to speak with precision without being pedantic is an excellent soft skill that can be developed over time.

the_af 5y ago

I understood it was about statistical significance, but my point remains: Who says Mac users aren't gamers? It's a self perpetuating vicious cycle: gamers use Windows because that's where the majority of games are, so developers keep targeting Windows, so gamers use Windows, and so ad infinitum. But people who use Macs enjoy games as well. They would rather not dual boot to Windows. It's not true that Mac users don't play games. Rather, it's that most games are on Windows, which is a shame.