Major gaming news at WWDC: Metal and New games

[Homy]

MarineVerse Cup - Sailboat Racing is now available for Mac and Apple Silicon.

MarineVerse Cup - Sailboat Racing on Steam

Try sailing, learn & race in iconic sailing locations. Master various sailboats. Join a community and connect with other sailors. When you are ready, test your skills in a competitive setting. After the race, enjoy Free Sailing mode and watch a sunset in VR. Happy Sailing!

store.steampowered.com

 

[Homy]

Out of the Park Baseball 25 is out for Apple Silicon.

Out of the Park Baseball 25 on Steam

Out of the Park Baseball 25 marks a milestone - 25 years of sports gaming excellence! Officially licensed by MLB, the MLB Players Inc. and KBO, this year's Anniversary Edition puts you in charge of your favorite baseball franchise. Your team, your legacy, your dynasty. Play what the pros play!

store.steampowered.com

 

[dmccloud]

I blame nvidia for "being greedy" to the detriment of pc gamers. 10-Series pricing was normal, and from there things got out of hand.

nVidia used the combination of the pandemic in 2020 and the run on GPUs for crypto mining to jack up their prices for no reason other than they could. While AMD followed suit to some degree, they have also had more GPUs in the low to mid price range over the years. It also doesn't help when people can sell cards on eBay/Newegg/Amazon and mark them up to 2-3x MSRP and people will be gullible enough to pay those inflated prices.

 

[goro123]

Hi, does anyone have info on the impact of the GPU enhancements of the M3 (Apple had announced : Dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and hardware-accelerated mesh shading).

Seems like Ray tracing and mesh shading require specific implementation. I wonder if any games are planning to use these new capabilities.

PS: kind of reminds me of the Velocity Engine on the G4, where it all seemed very impressive through Apple's marketing but IIRC few developers were actually taking advantage of it.

 

[leman]

Hi, does anyone have info on the impact of the GPU enhancements of the M3 (Apple had announced : Dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and hardware-accelerated mesh shading).

Seems like Ray tracing and mesh shading require specific implementation. I wonder if any games are planning to use these new capabilities.

This will take a while. Mesh shading support is still fairly lackluster in the industry and barely anyone will use them on Macs if they are not even used much on Windows side. RT is still performance-limited on commodity hardware.

These are still very important features and it’s good that Apple invests in them. It’s good to be ready when the software industry catches up.

 

[Nugat Trailers]

This will take a while. Mesh shading support is still fairly lackluster in the industry and barely anyone will use them on Macs if they are not even used much on Windows side. RT is still performance-limited on commodity hardware.

These are still very important features and it’s good that Apple invests in them. It’s good to be ready when the software industry catches up.

There's some that have ray tracing, but honestly atm, it's no more than 5 titles.

War Thunder received it in December, and did a day one launch of it for iOS.
Myst and Firmament have been announced to get it, but I'm not sure if that's happened yet.

There might be a couple of other titles announced to get it, but it's still relatively early days, I'd say.

 

[goro123]

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Apple to invest in the development of a mac-only game using these feature 😇 it would fit Apple's narrative of "mac is different/better".

Unless this first implementation on M3 (Pro, Max, etc…) is only useful for developers to begin testing on, but not powerful enough for actual gaming ; and that would need to wait for the M4 or something.


Wishful dreaming ahead :

Just imagine a Marathon, Halo like game they could promote that could be M3 Only. Of course it would not sell lots but it would attract attention.

Or Apple could ask the developers of Stray or Lies of Pi to make a game with a pre-release only Mac a few months before the full release on other platforms.

Or they could release some more casual games Apple Arcade games that would use these features.

Bah… won't happen 🙄

End

 

[diamond.g]

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Apple to invest in the development of a mac-only game using these feature 😇 it would fit Apple's narrative of "mac is different/better".

Unless this first implementation on M3 (Pro, Max, etc…) is only useful for developers to begin testing on, but not powerful enough for actual gaming ; and that would need to wait for the M4 or something.


Wishful dreaming ahead :

Just imagine a Marathon, Halo like game they could promote that could be M3 Only. Of course it would not sell lots but it would attract attention.

Or Apple could ask the developers of Stray or Lies of Pi to make a game with a pre-release only Mac a few months before the full release on other platforms.

Or they could release some more casual games Apple Arcade games that would use these features.

Bah… won't happen 🙄

End

A PalWorld/Pokemn clone would probably make a bunch of money.

 

[Homy]

The Darkest Files is coming to Apple Silicon this summer. In less than 5 hours they managed to reach their Kickstarter goal of €10,000. The game has a demo.

The Darkest Files on Steam

The Darkest Files is a historical investigation and courtroom game based on true crimes during the Second World War. Investigate cold cases, search for clues, interrogate witnesses, immerse yourself in the crimes and defend your case in court to bring the perpetrators to justice.

store.steampowered.com

 

[dmccloud]

A PalWorld/Pokemn clone would probably make a bunch of money.

Anyone even thinking about making a Pokemon clone would have to tread a VERY fine line to avoid potential litigation from either the Pokemon Company or Nintendo...

 

[diamond.g]

Anyone even thinking about making a Pokemon clone would have to tread a VERY fine line to avoid potential litigation from either the Pokemon Company or Nintendo...

If Pocket Pair can get away with it, I'm sure others could as well.

 

[goro123]

If Pocket Pair can get away with it, I'm sure others could as well.

Yeah, hard to tell that this is "not" Pokemon. The drawing style is exactly the same (minus the machine gun 😅).

 

[diamond.g]

@Homy @leman do we think Apple is going to announce MetalFX Frame Gen and some sort of Reflex equivalent during this years WWDC?

I'm also curious if Apple is working on equivalents to Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction to speed up Path Tracing.

 

[Homy]

@Homy @leman do we think Apple is going to announce MetalFX Frame Gen and some sort of Reflex equivalent during this years WWDC?

I'm also curious if Apple is working on equivalents to Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction to speed up Path Tracing.

No idea but I hope we'll some new features. It took 3 years to develop Metal 2 and 5 years for Metal 3. Now it's been 2 years since Metal 3.

 

[Homy]

According to Steamdb since 2019 the number of Mac releases has increased almost each year. During 2021-2024 we’ve had 16,110 Mac releases. Even compared with Windows that’s an amazing number of releases because Mac only has 1.32% of Steam user base but gets 25-30% of game releases.

2024 21% of Windows releases
2023 24%
2022 27%
2021 24%
2020 31%
2019 30%

So if Mac was such a terrible gaming platform it wouldn’t get 25% of the releases with only 1.32% of the Steam market share. According to Steam survey 70% of Mac gamers also use Apple Silicon. We can see that despite that fact Mac got the highest number of game releases in 2023, 5,407. So Apple Silicon indeed hasn’t made the situation worse.

Remember that there are also both AAA games like Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4 and Death Stranding and smaller games that are not released on Steam but only on MAS so the number of releases is higher.

I’m sure people who can’t accept facts or just don’t like Macs will as usual disagree with this post but numbers don’t lie, people do. The same people will also probably as usual start throwing in other arguments against Mac like price, performance, upgradability and lack of more major titles (due to small gaming market share) but that wasn’t the discussion here. Just like Xcode being described as one of the best game dev tools and ”next gen” by industry people like Sebastian Aaltonen isn’t the subject of discussion either.

 

[salamanderjuice]

According to Steamdb since 2019 the number of Mac releases has increased almost each year. During 2021-2024 we’ve had 16,110 Mac releases. Even compared with Windows that’s an amazing number of releases because Mac only has 1.32% of Steam user base but gets 25-30% of game releases.

2024 21% of Windows releases
2023 24%
2022 27%
2021 24%
2020 31%
2019 30%

View attachment 2361711 View attachment 2361704

So if Mac was such a terrible gaming platform it wouldn’t get 25% of the releases with only 1.32% of the Steam market share. According to Steam survey 70% of Mac gamers also use Apple Silicon. We can see that despite that fact Mac got the highest number of game releases in 2023, 5,407. So Apple Silicon indeed hasn’t made the situation worse.

Remember that there are also both AAA games like Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4 and Death Stranding and smaller games that are not released on Steam but only on MAS so the number of releases is higher.

I’m sure people who can’t accept facts or just don’t like Macs will as usual disagree with this post but numbers don’t lie, people do. The same people will also probably as usual start throwing in other arguments against Mac like price, performance, upgradability and lack of more major titles (due to small gaming market share) but that wasn’t the discussion here. Just like Xcode being described as one of the best game dev tools and ”next gen” by industry people like Sebastian Aaltonen isn’t the subject of discussion either.

I'm not sure a decreasing percentage of games coming to Mac on Steam is the sign of a healthy gaming platform you think it is.

Mac is like 99% interchangeable between Windows and Linux. Getting a third to a quarter of the library with many of the heavy hitters missing is IMO not good enough.

The Wii U had a library of over 700 games, roughly a quarter of the number of Xbox One released. Even more if you adjust for the fact the Wii U was dead by 2017 and Xbox One still sees releases into this year. It was and is widely considered a flop. In contrast to the Mac though the Wii U actually had some unique experiences available no where else.

 

[Homy]

I'm not sure a decreasing percentage of games coming to Mac on Steam is the sign of a healthy gaming platform you think it is.

Getting a third to a quarter of the library

It's clearly not decreasing. It goes up and down from year to year, but revolves around 25%. 21% for 2024 is obviously not for the whole year but under three months. The number of actual Mac releases has increased each year. I'm not either discussing if it's good enough. For those who think it's not there is always Windows or Steam Deck. As said it's very good for a platform having only 1.32% on Steam.

 

[salamanderjuice]

It's clearly not decreasing. It goes up and down from year to year, but revolves around 25%. 21% for 2024 is obviously not for the whole year but under three months. The number of actual Mac releases has increased each year. I'm not either discussing if it's good enough. For those who think it's not there is always Windows or Steam Deck. As said it's very good for a platform having only 1.32% on Steam.

It goes from a peak of over 60% in 2012 down to 21%. And why exactly do you expect the proportion of games releasing on Mac to increase in the remaining months of 2024?

 

[MRMSFC]

It goes from a peak of over 60% in 2012 down to 21%. And why exactly do you expect the proportion of games releasing on Mac to increase in the remaining months of 2024?

Yeah, that statistic is clearly worrying.

It looks like major dips happened roughly around the announcement of 32-bit deprecation and OpenGL deprecation. The switch to Apple Silicon seems to be statistically negligible in comparison.

It makes me think that ports were reliant on old tools and technology.

EDIT: before anyone accuses me of being too negative, I’m going to point out that I don’t know if the trend is a temporary dip as new tools are made or if it’s permanent.

 

[dmccloud]

It goes from a peak of over 60% in 2012 down to 21%. And why exactly do you expect the proportion of games releasing on Mac to increase in the remaining months of 2024?

Yeah, that statistic is clearly worrying.

It looks like major dips happened roughly around the announcement of 32-bit deprecation and OpenGL deprecation. The switch to Apple Silicon seems to be statistically negligible in comparison.

It makes me think that ports were reliant on old tools and technology.

EDIT: before anyone accuses me of being too negative, I’m going to point out that I don’t know if the trend is a temporary dip as new tools are made or if it’s permanent.

Percentages alone mean nothing and can be wholly misleading. How many games OVERALL were released on Steam in 2012 compared to 2022? While 60% may sound like a lot on the surface, if there were only 500 games released that year the total number of Mac releases would be 300 titles. In comparison 24% of the 22321 titles released in 2023 translates into 5357 new releases for the Mac, almost 20X the volume. Even taking 25% of the 2024 titles released so far translates to 1,626 new releases for the Mac in less than three months.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Percentages alone mean nothing and can be wholly misleading. How many games OVERALL were released on Steam in 2012 compared to 2022? While 60% may sound like a lot on the surface, if there were only 500 games released that year the total number of Mac releases would be 300 titles. In comparison 24% of the 22321 titles released in 2023 translates into 5357 new releases for the Mac, almost 20X the volume. Even taking 25% of the 2024 titles released so far translates to 1,626 new releases for the Mac in less than three months.

It's perfectly valid to look at proportions. Looking at the OVERALL number is more misleading because Steam drastically lowered the bar on what can get on the store between now and 2011. In this case it makes way more sense to look at proportions because we don't care about the total number of games but the number relative to the number of Windows titles released.

 

[Homy]

Book of Demons for Mac is free on GOG. It's 64-bit.

Book of Demons

Book of Demons is a Hack & Slash Deck-building hybrid in which YOU decide the length of

www.gog.com

 

[dmccloud]

It's perfectly valid to look at proportions. Looking at the OVERALL number is more misleading because Steam drastically lowered the bar on what can get on the store between now and 2011. In this case it makes way more sense to look at proportions because we don't care about the total number of games but the number relative to the number of Windows titles released.

Yet looking at the proportions paints a far different picture than looking at the actual numbers. This feels like a situation in which you're cherry picking the numbers that fit your narrative rather than looking at the gaming market in totality. The fact is that DESPITE the percentage going down on Steam (in part due to more titles being released through MAS or third party services such as GOG, Origin, Battle.net, etc.), there are more games overall available for the Mac as a platform in 2024 than there were in 2011-2012.

To expect a majority of games to be released on both the PC and Mac platforms is a fool's errand, especially given the overall market share of the Mac. Some developers simply do not have the resources to develop two versions of a game, and some developers just choose to focus on one of the two major OSes, whether based on personal biases, resources, or even laziness.

 

[Homy]

It goes from a peak of over 60% in 2012 down to 21%. And why exactly do you expect the proportion of games releasing on Mac to increase in the remaining months of 2024?

It's perfectly valid to look at proportions. Looking at the OVERALL number is more misleading because Steam drastically lowered the bar on what can get on the store between now and 2011. In this case it makes way more sense to look at proportions because we don't care about the total number of games but the number relative to the number of Windows titles released.

Down 2021, up 2022, down 2023. As said there are still over 9 months left in 2024. Why wouldn’t the percentage increase? Most people know that developing and releasing games is a dynamic process, not static. Games can get delayed and released later. One year can many releases happen early and the next year games can be planned for late release. Multiple releases can happen at once or it can be single releases over the whole year. A valid result can only be summarised at the end of the year, not after only 3 months.

Also those numbers only show that fewer Windows releases come to Mac in relation to the total number of games released for Windows. It can be a valid and interesting comparison but only to a certain point. After that it gets pointless. You could have 100,000 new Windows releases next year and 6000 new Mac releases would be only 6% of that, very unhealthy, worrying and a huge decline from 60%, but that would actually mean another 11% increase in the number of Mac releases.

If Steam has lowered the bar for the quality of the published games then we can be sure that the amount of junk games and failed releases is far larger on Windows than on Mac. I don’t think I have to mention all the disappointing PC releases even from famous developers and publishers the past few years but none of such devs with failures on the huge PC market would even consider to bring their games to the small Mac market. That’s why I have to disagree and again say that such comparisons while interesting can be misleading and the most important number is actual releases. Who are ”we” btw? People who always try to find something negative to say about Mac gaming? We do care about the total number of releases for the simple reason that we want Mac games and we want more of them each year, which is what the numbers show.

Again the fact remains that Mac releases grow each year, just not as much as Windows, despite the fact that the Mac user base on Steam is shrinking, again compared to the total number of users . It doesn’t mean the number of releases is decreasing or stagnating.The reason why fewer Windows releases are ported to Mac is the huge number of games released for Windows. Last year the number of Windows releases increased by 18% to 22,319. To expect all or most of those games being ported to Mac is just unrealistic considering the 1.32% Mac market share on Steam. Yet Mac releases increased by 7% to 5,407 games.

It’s as if a small company would compare its earnings/profit with Apple’s and say its earnings/profit are decreasing each year and it’s very worrying while they in fact are making more money each year, just not as much as Apple.

 

[goro123]

Ha, the conflicting exercice of choosing effective Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

That exercise could be interesting though, what are the indicators necessary to evaluate the health of the mac gaming scene?

• Number of games releases
• Number of AAA games
• Number of user playing games on Mac
• Proportion against Windows, Consoles… ?
• …

And then the methodology to calculate these number has to be agreed upon also.