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> [...] yet multi-billon dollar studios claim supporting anything beyond x86_64 Windows is an impossible feat. Who actually claims that? The issue is more that

by tpush 4y ago

> [...] yet multi-billon dollar studios claim supporting anything beyond x86_64 Windows is an impossible feat. Who actually claims that? The issue is more that the ROI just isn't there. Remember that porting to a platform incurs additional support costs that need to be payed.

Forgeties79 4y ago
>the ROI just isn’t there Blizzard seems to disagree, as I mentioned in another comment. I’m just not sold on this argument tbh. It makes sense at face value but that’s not enough reason for me. Especially given how many games played on both PC and Mac from 2010-2020 and continue to do so. It’s not the empty desert for gamers it was in the 2000’s.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  And Blizzard also stopped trying to port more advanced titles like Overwatch. Even Diablo 2 Resurrected didn't get an Apple Silicon release (despite the fact that they already made an ARM version for Switch). Maybe you're right, and the technical hurdle is fairly small relative to the money they stand to make from it. Whatever the case is though, Apple's current offerings are not really attractive to developers. People would rather target the APIs they already know than do Apple's dirty work for them. Maybe Apple should take a page out of Sony's book and actually compensate or assist the studios building on top of their technology.
  - bluesign 4y ago
    Anticheat unfortunately
  - comex 4y ago
    Specifically, those two titles don’t have Mac releases for any architecture. Apple Silicon support is somewhat orthogonal, since there weren’t any major API removals between x86_64 and arm64. (Unlike in the old days, when, say, Carbon was removed in the transition from x86 to x86_64.)
- daveoc64 4y ago
  Overwatch isn't on macOS. Older games released by Blizzard might have a macOS release, but not the franchise they are pushing the most right now.
Dylan16807 4y ago
These games have huge budgets and player bases, which means the R skyrockets while the I barely budges. ROI should not be a problem.
- nolok 4y ago
  Actually it does. Everytime someone bothered to give actual numbers for games released on windows vs linux on equal footing, sales numbers represented barely a few percent while support requests represented 50+%
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    1. I was trying to focus on the development cost, but a few percent of 50 million dollars can get you a good support team. 2. Isn't the topic at hand mac? 3. Are you sure you want to cite that kind of number? The most prominent one says this: "Though only 5.8% of his game's buyers were playing on Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. Not because the Linux platform was buggier, either. Only 3 of the roughly 400 bug reports submitted by Linux users were platform specific, that is, would only happen on Linux." "The bug reports themselves were also pretty high quality, he said, including software and OS versions, logs, and steps for replication." That's free QA, not a burden.
    - counttheforks 4y ago
      > That's free QA, not a burden Unfortunately this is not how many managers see it. They just see it as more work because people are "discovering" more issues that they now have to fix. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, or in this case, the squeaky community is considered annoying and gets neglected.
  - dimitrios1 4y ago
    I could be wrong, but maybe Linux users are more persistent (by necessity), and thus more likely to file bug reports, where your average Windows user is more likely to just go "F this" and stop playing your game.
  - 4y ago
solatic 4y ago
> ROI Behold, the actual reason AAA studios can't. Engineering excellence is not something you buy or otherwise invest in. It is your culture. It is who you hire. It is what kind of expectation you set internally for yourself and your peers. That is only marginally related to budget spent on salaries. If you actually practice engineering excellence, the investment is small. If you don't, the investment is nonsensical.
- jayd16 4y ago
  Have you actually worked at a AAA? You have 500 devs tuning AAA games for the launch hardware and then the team is dissolved to work on other things. It's not about "engineering excellence" unless you think exploiting hardware quirks for perf is poor engineering.

by tpush 4y ago

Forgeties79 4y ago

>the ROI just isn’t there Blizzard seems to disagree, as I mentioned in another comment. I’m just not sold on this argument tbh. It makes sense at face value but that’s not enough reason for me. Especially given how many games played on both PC and Mac from 2010-2020 and continue to do so. It’s not the empty desert for gamers it was in the 2000’s.

smoldesu 4y ago
And Blizzard also stopped trying to port more advanced titles like Overwatch. Even Diablo 2 Resurrected didn't get an Apple Silicon release (despite the fact that they already made an ARM version for Switch). Maybe you're right, and the technical hurdle is fairly small relative to the money they stand to make from it. Whatever the case is though, Apple's current offerings are not really attractive to developers. People would rather target the APIs they already know than do Apple's dirty work for them. Maybe Apple should take a page out of Sony's book and actually compensate or assist the studios building on top of their technology.
- bluesign 4y ago
  Anticheat unfortunately
- comex 4y ago
  Specifically, those two titles don’t have Mac releases for any architecture. Apple Silicon support is somewhat orthogonal, since there weren’t any major API removals between x86_64 and arm64. (Unlike in the old days, when, say, Carbon was removed in the transition from x86 to x86_64.)
daveoc64 4y ago
Overwatch isn't on macOS. Older games released by Blizzard might have a macOS release, but not the franchise they are pushing the most right now.

Dylan16807 4y ago

These games have huge budgets and player bases, which means the R skyrockets while the I barely budges. ROI should not be a problem.

nolok 4y ago
Actually it does. Everytime someone bothered to give actual numbers for games released on windows vs linux on equal footing, sales numbers represented barely a few percent while support requests represented 50+%
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  1. I was trying to focus on the development cost, but a few percent of 50 million dollars can get you a good support team. 2. Isn't the topic at hand mac? 3. Are you sure you want to cite that kind of number? The most prominent one says this: "Though only 5.8% of his game's buyers were playing on Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. Not because the Linux platform was buggier, either. Only 3 of the roughly 400 bug reports submitted by Linux users were platform specific, that is, would only happen on Linux." "The bug reports themselves were also pretty high quality, he said, including software and OS versions, logs, and steps for replication." That's free QA, not a burden.
  - counttheforks 4y ago
    > That's free QA, not a burden Unfortunately this is not how many managers see it. They just see it as more work because people are "discovering" more issues that they now have to fix. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, or in this case, the squeaky community is considered annoying and gets neglected.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  I could be wrong, but maybe Linux users are more persistent (by necessity), and thus more likely to file bug reports, where your average Windows user is more likely to just go "F this" and stop playing your game.
- 4y ago

solatic 4y ago

> ROI Behold, the actual reason AAA studios can't. Engineering excellence is not something you buy or otherwise invest in. It is your culture. It is who you hire. It is what kind of expectation you set internally for yourself and your peers. That is only marginally related to budget spent on salaries. If you actually practice engineering excellence, the investment is small. If you don't, the investment is nonsensical.

jayd16 4y ago
Have you actually worked at a AAA? You have 500 devs tuning AAA games for the launch hardware and then the team is dissolved to work on other things. It's not about "engineering excellence" unless you think exploiting hardware quirks for perf is poor engineering.