From a newbie: why so few games for Mac?

[MonteChristo]

I'm sure this has been covered many times before but it didn't come up when I ran a search.

Why are there so few games for Apple / Mac OS? Is it due to technical difficulties, a smaller market segment, or some other reason?

Thanks - MC

 

[Philly_Games]

Its mainly due to technical difficulties and devs being unable to test on them. Renpy games allow for an osx version but it still needs to be tested. I use a mac as my secondary system so I am lucky to be able to test with it but other devs can't and since most games are made by a single person it makes it hard. Then the other engines well... On mac that will be an even bigger problem and I wont even try to explain why since I only work with Renpy for visual novels.

 

[MonteChristo]

I guess the existence of Wine, etc, also lessen the need for a Mac version...

 

[novabeaver]

I've rarely run into the situation where there wasn't a mac version for a game I wanted to try... but I mostly play renpy games so that might be why.

Renpy games allow for an osx version but it still needs to be tested. I use a mac as my secondary system so I am lucky to be able to test with it but other devs can't and since most games are made by a single person it makes it hard.

Really naive question probably. Does it always need testing on each desktop platform? I can easily imagine it's needed as soon as there's external dependencies/libraries/tons of custom screens and code, but if I'm writing a simple script in renpy with pictures and using some variables for branching, I'd naively imagine if it works on PC it should work on mac, no?

 

[sillyrobot]

I've rarely run into the situation where there wasn't a mac version for a game I wanted to try... but I mostly play renpy games so that might be why.


Really naive question probably. Does it always need testing on each desktop platform? I can easily imagine it's needed as soon as there's external dependencies/libraries/tons of custom screens and code, but if I'm writing a simple script in renpy with pictures and using some variables for branching, I'd naively imagine if it works on PC it should work on mac, no?

Sure. Right up until you get the first user report that "X doesn't work -- I use a Mac". Now you can't check to see if the package was built wrong / got corrupted or if the user is experiencing a 1D-10T error.

 

[turkler]

there's like three people in the world that use mac anyway so why bother supporting it

 

[sillyrobot]

there's like three people in the world that use mac anyway so why bother supporting it

Because Apple folk are proven marks. They tend to spend a lot more money on apps/games/anything else.

 

[Hadley]

Get a PC, nobody uses a Macintosh. They are not made for Gaming.