[monocasa]

I mean, my day job is supporting an application across Win/Mac/Linux. Even ignoring the graphics, Apple is easily the hardest to support. I don't really care if you haven't read a magazine article on it.

And to pretend like FrostBite doesn't matter is ridiculous.

[pjmlp]

It doesn't matter for developers that want to support OS X, as it is mostly focused on game consoles and Windows.

Whereas the ones I listed do support those systems, Apple platforms, Android and GNU/Linux.

[monocasa]

So wait, the AAA developers not supporting don't count against your argument? Even in the case of Blizzard who has famously been one of the biggest Mac supporters? Isn't "all AAA support Mac... except all the ones that don't support Mac" a tautology?

Also, just noticed that you lumped in Unity with AAA, lolz. What's next libgdx?

[pjmlp]

Because their focus is clearly PlayStation, Xbox and PC, not even Nintendo hardware.

There are plenty of other AAA studios using Unreal, Unity, CryEngine.

Maybe you should check again the names of some studios using Unity, ever heard of Nintendo and Microsoft?

[monocasa]

> Because their focus is clearly PlayStation, Xbox and PC, not even Nintendo hardware.

> There are plenty of other AAA studios using Unreal, Unity, CryEngine.

Blizzard's focus had been on Mac in addition to Windows. With the switch to Metal, they're probably abandoning it. FrostBite means that EA AAA games probably won't either. Ubisoft didn't release Assassin's Creed Odessey on Mac. And even looking at Unreal Engine 4 games, only Fortnite and a twoer defense game have been released for Mac. Looking at CryEngine, no games have ever been released for Mac. So where is all this AAA support for Metal that you're talking about?

To lead you to water, Mac support is a nice to have so that their in house tools work with the artists' platforms they're used to. But they don't care enough to finish out the QA, or put in any work to make the game actually shippable on that platform. The switch to Metal means that you can't justify it with "well we can just support OpenGL and get Mac for free" like they used to.

> Maybe you should check again the names of some studios using Unity, ever heard of Nintendo and Microsoft?

AAA is about the games, not the studios. Name a single AAA game on Unity.

[monocasa]

Responding because I can't edit:

It was about three years ago, that through pseudo public channels, that Apple started messaging that OpenGL was on it's way out. Oh, look what Blizzard game came out (Overwatch) which has pretty flagrantly disregarded the idea of Mac support, even entertaining the idea of possible switch support.

[pjmlp]

Yet OpenGL doesn't make them support Linux any better.

So support or not for Metal is not the real reason why they don't want to focus on the Mac.

As for games, Nascar Heat 3, for example.

[monocasa]

> Yet OpenGL doesn't make them support Linux any better.

> So support or not for Metal is not the real reason why they don't want to focus on the Mac.

"But they don't care enough to finish out the QA, or put in any work to make the game actually shippable on that platform.". Mac was a fixed platform, and you used to be able to justify the engineering because the work ultimately helped make your Windows port better ("the end user will have a way out if there's a bunch in their DirectX drivers"), and let your artists do all the work on the tools they were used to. Then if you're running your tooling on Mac, you've been supporting it the whole time and there's very little QA overhead for release since it's a relatively fixed platform. That last part doesn't apply to Linux. This whole time I've been saying it's not just OpenGL->Metal, it's a Nexus of several things all coming together to break the camel's back.

> As for games, Nascar Heat 3, for example.

You know that a game that's less than $50 at release isn't a AAA game, right?