The mobile games market has exploded hugely, there's definitely a big market there.
- You need to port to ARM (not that bad, but now you're debugging two versions and increasing your dependency graph)
- You need to distribute on MacOS/iPad (not insurmountable, but kowtowing to Apple's ever-changing demands is a different game than jumping through Sony/Nintendo's hoops)
- You need to port to Metal (pretty hard, requires Mac-specific developers and a separate dev branch)
Of course, there are still devs who spend the extra time to make Mac-native games (Factorio and Rimworld), but compared to targeting Linux/Windows the effort doesn't make sense. For Apple to make their platform an attractive gaming platform, they can either a. Allow sideloading < or > b. Welcome third-party graphics APIs to Apple Silicon. Unless they sweeten the deal though, I doubt we'll see many AAA ports in the future.
Rimworld is actually built in Unity, but without using most of Unity's conveniences; I think it just uses it as a sort of platform-independent shim: launch an empty scene and then do everything with userspace render calls rather than Unity's GameObjects. It's certainly not a /typical/ Unity game, but nor is it in any way Mac-native.
Not that that detracts from your point, really.
[0] It was recently announced for Switch, but from what I've heard there aren't plans to release it for ARM on other platforms in the immediate future.
Apple Arcade is helping, but it’s never going to turn the tide. It’s a last bastion with a few games.
Port a recent game, sell it for $10, watch nothing happen. There are a few great ports out there (I just replayed SotN) but I doubt they make their cost back.
Consumable IAPs ruined everything.
And then you still can only charge a single digit (or at most a low 2 digits) amount of dollars.
There's no way you can charge as much as AAA titles with iOS games.
More than AAA? I’m not sure.
But Candy Crush didn’t cost what Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War did either. Not even close. And the game prints money year after year in a way most AAA games don’t.
Unless they IAPs too like GTA Online.
Uh no it isn’t. People who make that claim only think about AAA titles and high profile indies.
If you consider the entire gaming landscape, Apple earns more from gaming than most companies that actually operate in the gaming space.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/05/31/apple-earner-the-...
I’m not saying there are no games. Games could easily be the biggest section of the App Store. I’m saying there are no *good* games, only those designed to force you to make IAPs.
Stand alone titles that cost a few bucks (immediately or as a one time unlock) are basically dead compared to the era before IAPs existed.
There are some very highly regarded mobile games that do quite well.
Overall I agree with you though, this is literally just a single datapoint, and I cannot think of another one. But that seems like a solid start, especially since it is a legitimate AAA game, and they are doing it a year after the (very successful sales-wise) release. So they clearly are doing it for reasons other than just boosting up the initial sales by promising the moon. Looks like they genuinely believe they might make enough money with that M1 port.
To be fair, Eidos and Tomb Raider didn't happen during M1 era, it was just a port for devices that were still using x86. Iirc Resident Evil devs explicitly called out working with M1 an what it brings to the table.
I agree though, we will see how it goes, somewhat impossible to tell how it is going to pan out. Could easily end up being just a one-off.
Realistically, I don't think it is going to usher in a new era of gaming on macOS, but I hope it will slowly move it in that direction. Similar to how it happened with Proton and Linux. It's been out for a while, but only somewhat recently (at some point in the past year or two) has it reached a critical mass on the market.
But, like you've said, there's dozens of allegories for why gaming doesn't work on MacOS. I guess we'll just have to see how (if?) Apple addresses that.
The GPUs on macOS and iOS are incredible for mobile processors, especially in terms of power efficiency, but they don't compete with the GPUs in gaming PCs or current generation consoles.
the mobile game market has exploded, but AAA games are a different dynamic and a different audience to the casual games popular in the mobile market.
and for iPad specifically, apple's 30% cut probably factors into the decision in a big way.
Which services give you the game on any platform? In my experience, you have to buy the game on each platform (and for some games, I have purchased them on multiple platforms because they were that good).
The Microsoft Store generally will, ironically. Buying a game on Xbox will often net you the PC version as well (so long as you get it from the Microsoft Store). I think Sony tried a similar thing with the Vita a while ago, but I'm presuming that was a failure.
Sony has also done some crossbuy stuff in the past. Their PS1 classics used to be generally PS3/PSP/Vita compatible and some titles were cross PS3/Vita/PS4 like Spelunky or PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale. Microsoft has done some cross Xbox/PC stuff too although you have to buy from their store.
iPad native ports are kept back by the small share of users who have a compatible gamepad and AAA games don't work with the touchscreen interface.
I am saying this as someone who has made games for the Macintosh in the 90's and iPhone in 10's. Apple avoids pandering to gamers to make sure they seem adult and serious.
The only mobile platform with any adoption is Switch where the audience is used to paying much more for games than on PC/Consoles (equivalent games tend to be even up to twice the price there after awhile).
The other, potential mobile competitor, is Steam Deck which shares prices and game library with its desktop counterpart.