"Few users" also describes Linux, but Linux (gaming) usershare is growing and recently passed MacOS usershare (as measured by Steam).
I would argue that Apple's indifferent (if not hostile) attitude towards gaming has driven away many game developers.
And having picked up a Steam Deck about a year ago now, going into it with the expectation that it would run maybe half my games and tending away from the AAA releases, I can say they have a very credible option. Valve can run almost everything without Microsoft now. Pretty much everything I have runs on my Deck just fine, since I don't do the multiplayer games that have aggressive anticheat on them. I almost don't even think about compatibility any more because it's just there, for what I do. This has spilled over to my Linux desktop, too; I switched it due to having my fill of Microsoft's belief they own my system, own my users, and can do whatever they like with them, and if that cut off all gaming it would have been fine with me, but in reality the spillover of Valve's efforts is that it works just fine.
Apple has chosen to make themselves strategically unimportant to Valve by making it probably even more difficult to support them well than to just give up and submit to Microsoft entirely. They could have played this role but have chosen not to, because in their world, this is relatively minor compared to what they want out of their platform.
So even if the user count is roughly the same, Valve is going to support Linux much more, and is pushing it harder.
Couldn't Apple do the same? Why isn't it working? You don't realize it but you are proving the counter-argument many are making. Apple refuses to contribute to an open platform for gaming, so they have to rely on converting game developers to work within their walled garden.
That strat will never win for PC gaming.
Also apple is fucking swimming in games, I'm willing to bet more gaming is done on ios than windows. It's just not games that represent 'the gamer'. No modern warfare 5000 on ios. I know that most days, even as I could be identified as 'a gamer' for the last 30-40 years, I spend more times playing games on my phone than I do on consoles or my pc. Part of that is just 'I always have my iphone' part of it is the games are often designed around short session length, part of that is most AAA game releases these days are wildly uninspired. Every once and awhile I can black-out a whole sunday just to soak in a big release (I imagine spiderman will eat a day or two whole in a few weeks, I know Baldurs Gate ate more than a few sundays since it was released)
It's sad not to see many games on macos, though the ones we get are generally ones I want. Aforementioned baldurs gate 3, mid tier 'indies' that are frankly amazing like Hades and Slay the Spire. I could care less if assassins creed 326 makes it to macos, or mordern warfare 754: even more jingoism. It hurt a little to see blizzard abandon macos with diablo 4 .. then I played it and well ... not so hurt anymore.
Because the games are there. In large part because Valve is making it happen.
> Apple's indifferent (if not hostile) attitude towards gaming
They’ve been touting the abilities of Apple Silicon for gaming on their events. Their platforms support modern gaming controllers with zero setup. They had Hideo Kojima (and others) at WWDC. There are two separate sections on the App Stores just for games. They developed multiple technologies specifically for games: https://developer.apple.com/games/
We can argue if Apple’s gaming strategy is any good, but calling them indifferent or hostile to games does not align with reality.
That's a pretty huge difference, and things like the yearly fees (even if they aren't expensive in practice) only make the switch less attractive.
But having proprietary APIs on Macs isn't going to get other desktop games to Apple, when Macs aren't nearly as numerous as people would like to believe.
No, everything I mentioned is applicable to the Mac.
> But having proprietary APIs on Macs isn't going to get other desktop games to Apple
Neither was that the argument. The explicit point was that Apple is not indifferent or hostile to games, not that their gaming strategy is good.
Their strategy is "my way or highway", which is what I would consider "hostile" on desktops.
Apple told game devs on Macs to GTFO, and this is the result.
Did anyone else expect any other outcome?
Especially DX12 giving so much more control has actually backfired in a lot of instances, because game developers don't treat PCs with the same optimization care as they do consoles. Consoles have standards (and reject bad builds), for PC you can always pull a Todd Howard and tell users to upgrade to compensate for their misuse of the APIs.
Windows has traction by market saturation, not the technical merit of their Graphics API.
I'm not sure if you realized it but you are arguing the same point many others have been in this post. Apple is not investing in gaming, especially relative to their market cap compared to valve. Valve is making gaming on linux a reality because they are investing in it.
Apple has the money, they don't have the motivation to make it happen, because they don't want to participate on an open platform. That would be counter-productive to their goals of a walled garden.
If you buy into Apple, you cannot leave their walled garden and that's by design, with no plans on changing.
If so, then dual booting a mac into Linux for gaming purposes might be a workable option at some point.
Though it is possible to use FEX-EMU to run it on Linux on a Mac: https://youtu.be/_tG3kfgqPhc