A few years ago, when the first release of Cogmind was released, I relied on the release of the official version for Mac without prejudice. In the end, Cogmind was my first commercial game, before I only released hobby projects in the status of freeware and only under Windows, so I was not sure what results the support of additional platforms would give. So I decided to wait and see if it was worthwhile to implement official support on a Mac in some form.



In the meantime, I made sure that Cogmind (and my other software) works perfectly through Wine and similar packages. Of course, on Steam I never talked about Mac support, because it was not a separate downloadable file that worked on its own. I was preparing for the release of version 1.0, and was putting off the decision about whether to take measures to implement full platform support for the future.



At the moment, I have already waited enough and saw to come to a meaningful decision: official macOS support is simply unattainable for me.



Why such a decision was made right now: if you follow the developers of indie games , communities or news , you should have heard about the hype associated with Apple. Unfortunately, my voice will also join this chorus.









Twitter developer discussing recent Apple solutions

• wow, every tenth tweet is dedicated to the fact that some developer refuses to work with ios / mac. what happened?
• rejection of 32 bits, but primarily because of curation requirements: now you can’t release Mac applications without first sending them apple
• Several factors:
  
  - decrease in sales
  
  - rejection of 32 bits
  
  - application signing requirement
  
  - permanent requirement $$
  • Plus a really terrible toolchain and expensive hardware; if you do not use it daily, it seems that its price is overvalued by 3 times
  • Plus the general feeling that Apple just stopped caring for its professional users
  • If you are not a noticeable brand promoter sitting daily in an expensive cafe, then why do you need one?
• I have a 2011 Mac that works fine with the latest macOS, but Apple says I need new hardware ONLY to sign the damn iOS app. Well, nafig!
• I don’t even want to know. Apple's business strategy has always scared me.
• Refusal of support for 32 bits, for the sale of applications in the new OS, we need another step, depending on Apple, an annual subscription for developers, expensive equipment with reduced performance and less functionality ... the nuts continue to be tightened.
  • I'm tired of the greed of apple, the "laws" of apple, and the fact that apple controls the decisions of developers. I want to be useful to my users, not Apple's earnings reports. According to my feelings, apple has turned into the Microsoft it was in the 90s and early 2000s. That's when I ended up with Windows.
  • And Microsoft has become a cool leader in technology, copyright, data portability and user experience. Scary, but still cool, right?

Obviously, I had doubts about the Mac before, otherwise it could have happened faster (I took some time researching and testing the potential of the game on Macs, preparing for a possible future release to the public), but during this time Apple again took actions that were certainly hostile to the developers, and continued the tendency to build and strengthen its fenced world.



One of the last steps of the company was the refusal to support 32-bit applications in the new OS version . Because of this optional move, the huge library of software and games will lose Mac compatibility. Compare this with the Microsoft approach, which does a great job of maintaining backward compatibility with Windows, despite the fact that most modern software is usually 64-bit. This makes it easier to maintain a ready-made Cogmind engine and focus on what really matters to players, such as new features.



More importantly, Apple will require developers to register, pay annual fees to oversee every build they want to distribute, thus tying developers even more tightly to the tightly controlled black box in the Apple world.



That is, I not only have to buy, study and update its ridiculously expensive hardware, but also constantly pay the company money, at the same time causing both myself and users to suffer from a slower cycle of publishing assemblies and other problems in order for Apple could further strengthen control over users and developers. Well, I do not.

Exorbitant burden

Creating games is hard work in itself, even without platform owners imposing an additional burden and giving nothing in return for it.



Especially terrible for games with frequent updates (roguelike! Early Access!) The requirement of curation - sometimes in one day I post several assemblies. What does my regular release process look like? I just compile the assembly, copy the files to the Steam backend and bam! - everyone immediately gets access to them - I don’t need to insert someone else's “black box” into this scheme.









A Steam backend that shows frequently downloaded Cogmind builds with updates and fixes for one of this year's releases. And this happens quite often!



(Note: my release process without DRM is more or less similar: I just pack the new build in zip and upload it to the site.)



That is, there are additional obstacles in front of me, but apart from this burden, something more worries me: in fact, I do not trust Apple in that it cares about my interests as a developer.



The company has a long history of hostile actions against developers, pushing professionals away from its ecosystem; It seems to me that this is an inevitable side effect of building a successful business on the foundation of a fenced garden and the desire to lock everyone inside it - someone will stay, others who see better options will leave.



Uncertainty is a huge risk factor in game development, from design problems and technical difficulties to the impact of marketing and life in general. Therefore, we do not want additional pressure of uncertainty to arise “from above”, from those levels that we can’t influence in any way, not to mention that “above” is a company with a bad reputation in this respect.

Other Apple Non-Obstacles

In addition to the Apple aspect, I should also disclose the reasons why I first had doubts. The average Mac user should be familiar with one of them: this is economics.



Naturally, there are irreplaceable additional costs for the development and support of an additional platform, which depend on the technology and experience with it. If you do not take time into account, sufficient sales volumes may be worth investing in support of other platforms, but it is more difficult to implement without the mainstream game ( which sells well! ), In which case the inevitably low proportion * of players on the Mac still remains decent amount. With the niche games that I make, this will not work.



(* According to my data, for the average roguelike this is about 5%.)



But even more important for me is not financial calculations, but the fact that Mac players tend to require more post- release support , and I release the game alone.









Mac players account for 4% of sales, but 50% of support requests is just one of many such examples taken from developers over several years, including those from roguelike developers.



Of course, support requests on a Mac vary greatly and depend on the architecture of the game and the player base. But in general, there will still be more of them, and this is a problem for me, because I really only know Windows really well. Remotely fixing problems is difficult even in a system with which I am familiar, but in it I have at least years of experience and can handle a reasonable number of requests. I would not be able to provide the same level of support for users of other systems, so I should not create such a situation for myself.



It will be easier for the team to provide multi-platform support, and for the most part I do all the design and programming myself (and on my own engine - you can’t “press a button to create an assembly for platform B” on it, as well as marketing and everything else.

What's next?

How will this affect the future? Unfortunately, given the trajectory of Apple’s movement, I don’t see in the future the possibility of releasing something official for macOS. I use both hands for the availability of games and, whenever possible, try so that as many people as possible can enjoy the results of my work, but this is simply not in my power. It’s important to maintain mental health, and with Apple it will not be so easy!



I will continue to ensure compatibility of Cogmind (and other projects) with Wine itself, especially because it works well under Linux (as well as the Steam client Proton), so if the game can be launched in Wine, then playing it on a Mac anyway you can.



Of course, you can also stay on obsolete macOS, although I don’t think it will be for long. However, thanks to this, you will be able to use other software, which will soon become outdated.



Be that as it may, I hope everyone understands my point. It was a difficult choice, but it is important to look at things soberly ...



Addition: I originally wrote this post as a collection of thoughts and data that could be referenced when asked about Mac support, but after posting on Twitter, it caused quite a bit of discussion !