gatorguy said: It's somewhat irritating to go to the AppStore and find recommended apps since every single one now is a game and I'm definitely so gamer. Not even one minute a month spent playing them, yet what Apple "suggests" for me is nothing but. Well OK, one out of a total 17 suggestions wasn't a game.
?? The iOS/iPadOS App Store is split into Today/Games/Apps/Arcade/Search. The Mac App Store is split into Discover/Arcade/Create/Work/Play/Develop/Search. In other words, it's really easy to immediately go to a section that is guaranteed to not involve gaming.
Why are games the default? I have no interest in them and zero history of even searching for one.
FWIW even though I sometimes get odd recommendations on Google Play too, it's not focused on games, and in fact they're rarely "suggested" for me. EDIT: Checking just now there's not one game "recommended for me" or even "suggested for me". They're all either personal interest-based (ie, photography, nature, and health) or productivity. I wish you could see the difference for yourself since it would be far easier for you to understand the point.
I could be wrong but I suspect Apple isn't recommending anything for you specifically, they are just general recommendations everyone sees. What you refer to is targeted advertising using your personal information as done by Google and FaceBook.
According to court documents revealed during the trial, about 70% of all App Store revenue comes from gaming apps.
I’d believe it. I know that I bought my productivity apps once, Procreate, Designer, Pages. I buy one or two games a month. the productivity apps may have cost more but over time I’ve paid way more for games.
It's somewhat irritating to go to the AppStore and find recommended apps since every single one now is a game and I'm definitely so gamer. Not even one minute a month spent playing them, yet what Apple "suggests" for me is nothing but. Well OK, one out of a total 17 suggestions wasn't a game.
IMO Apple is doing what's best for them, not me, and that's not the Apple I expected.
Out of curiosity does Google have a new person writing the Gatorguy blog posts? The Gatorguy I used to have fun arguing with a few years ago didn't own any Apple products, by his own admission.
chadbag said: His point is not that you can't find other apps. It's that that is mostly what the app store recommends, even when he has little or no history of buying games.
I agree with him. Apple recommendations have nothing to do with me. Their Apple Music bombards me with "curated" lists and "recommendations" that I find to be crap. No interest. But it never recommends anything that I would find interesting despite having my history.
The mistake you're making is thinking that Today (iOS/iPadOS) and Discover (MacOS) are actually making recommendations to you personally. Today/Discover are the store front. The primary purpose of the store front is to feature various apps/games/services to a general audience. They want you to see things that you might not necessarily be aware of or looking for. They're also heavy on "trending" lists for both apps and games, which have nothing to do with personal tastes either. It's just to show what's the most popular at the moment.
MacPro said: I could be wrong but I suspect Apple isn't recommending anything for you specifically, they are just general recommendations everyone sees. What you refer to is targeted advertising using your personal information as done by Google and FaceBook.
It's like the 'Coming Attractions' when you go see a movie in a theater: they aren't specifically chosen for you and they might contain content you have no interest in. But they also might make you interested in a film that you had either known nothing about or would have ignored without the preview.
Hmm, imagine an Apple M1Max based gaming console. Bam!!
I asked for this before M1 had a name. I gave up on Apple TV. It’s a fu**ing joke. I’ve been waiting for a decent Apple console since 2014. No more.
The M1 doesn't guarantee that an Apple console will succeed. Just look at Nintendo, the weakest console in the market. The sales numbers they have is because the excellent library of the games they have. A console without games is useless, and that's what we would have today if Apple had one. Apple have not developed a single game (maybe one, the Chess game included in macOS) They don't even have a controller for games. So Apple have a lot of work to do if they want to be a serious contender in the gaming market. And maybe the M1 is the first of many steps.
gatorguy said: It's somewhat irritating to go to the AppStore and find recommended apps since every single one now is a game and I'm definitely so gamer. Not even one minute a month spent playing them, yet what Apple "suggests" for me is nothing but. Well OK, one out of a total 17 suggestions wasn't a game.
?? The iOS/iPadOS App Store is split into Today/Games/Apps/Arcade/Search. The Mac App Store is split into Discover/Arcade/Create/Work/Play/Develop/Search. In other words, it's really easy to immediately go to a section that is guaranteed to not involve gaming.
Why are games the default? I have no interest in them and zero history of even searching for one.
FWIW even though I sometimes get odd recommendations on Google Play too, it's not focused on games, and in fact they're rarely "suggested" for me. EDIT: Checking just now there's not one game "recommended for me" or even "suggested for me". They're all either personal interest-based (ie, photography, nature, and health) or productivity. I wish you could see the difference for yourself since it would be far easier for you to understand the point.
I could be wrong but I suspect Apple isn't recommending anything for you specifically, they are just general recommendations everyone sees. What you refer to is targeted advertising using your personal information as done by Google and FaceBook.
We use your interactions with the App Store to help you discover the content that’s most relevant to you. For example, we recommend content that we think will be of interest to you based on what you’ve previously searched for, viewed, downloaded, updated, or reviewed in the App Store. We also use your purchase history, including in-app purchases, subscriptions, and payment methods together with account information derived from your Apple ID. To make better recommendations, we also use aggregate information about app launches, installs, and deletions from users who choose to share device analytics with Apple and aggregate information about app ratings.
...
You can turn off personalization features in the App Store, Books Store, and iTunes Store by turning off Personalized Recommendations for your Apple ID.
...
"
So these personalization features are ON by default... would be interesting to see what proportion of users just leave this as is....
Hmm, imagine an Apple M1Max based gaming console. Bam!!
Yes priced at only 2X-3X (scalper-priced) PS5 and the latest Xbox and maybe 4X-5X a pretty well equipped PC that can also cover computing needs too. I would guess an Apple console would be specially engineered so that there would be no way to get native macOS or iOS on it for more utility either. Put the gamer in a situation where they can either buy this Apple MAX console or a PS5 + Xbox + Windows PC and see what all but the fan-niest choose.
Never-the-less, this MIGHT be (sort of) coming if the rumored Mac Mini "Pro" rumor pans out. Or if that gets only M2, perhaps the Mac Pro Jr rumor? I can't see either being remotely price competitive with the latest gaming consoles though... and since both of the console makers spend/subsidize big for big games, I don't see the big games coming due to a simple lack of financial incentive: we can make a lot of money here or little there- which should we choose?
If Apple wants to be a gaming company, they need to compete in more ways than great hardware. Else, perhaps the word "lite" should be applied here... a lite gaming company? They are already that in a big & successful way. Building next gen hardware doesn't bring the programming investments. See countless next-gen consoles in the past that never got the traction.
If they really want a serious bite of this space, they might want to do what the others did: spend a big pile of cash to buy some game programming studios, stop waging "our way or the highway" war on independent gaming companies, show gaming companies how they can make MORE money coding for Apple Silicon than they can for Windows/PS5/Xbox (especially tricky with the first cut of all revenue being 15%-30% right off the top) and probably throw some money at good gaming companies on top of that. It seems they need a "billions" investment pool for quality games much like the "billions" investment pool for AppleTV+ programming.
Else programming businesses face a simple decision: we can spend countless hours and dollars coding for this incredible MAX chip that is in a fraction of only new Apple laptops, which is a fraction of all Silicon Macs, which is a tiny fraction of all Macs AND give Apple a first big cut of any revenue we can get right off the top...
...or we can put those same resources towards a market that is at least 10X larger (near infinitely larger if compared only to MAX-based Macs) and/or to a console markets proven to pay much more than a $1 or maybe $5 for games and likely get great games subsidized and/or exclusive money to boot. Hmmmm, what should we do?
This is basically a "put your money where you mouth is" situation. Will Apple do that? If so, then this could actually go somewhere. If no, then Mac gaming remains largely as it has been for decades.
Hmm, imagine an Apple M1Max based gaming console. Bam!!
I asked for this before M1 had a name. I gave up on Apple TV. It’s a fu**ing joke. I’ve been waiting for a decent Apple console since 2014. No more.
The M1 doesn't guarantee that an Apple console will succeed. Just look at Nintendo, the weakest console in the market. The sales numbers they have is because the excellent library of the games they have. A console without games is useless, and that's what we would have today if Apple had one. Apple have not developed a single game (maybe one, the Chess game included in macOS) They don't even have a controller for games. So Apple have a lot of work to do if they want to be a serious contender in the gaming market. And maybe the M1 is the first of many steps.
At the least it could encourage modern ports. But you’re right. I’ve always complained that the Switch is weaker than the 1st gen Apple TV 4K yet the crappiest games on Switch look as good as the best games on Apple TV plus have depth. They’re not mindless runners or Atari-style point collectors with no story.
Hmm, imagine an Apple M1Max based gaming console. Bam!!
Yes priced at only 2X-3X (scalper-priced) PS5 and the latest Xbox and maybe 4X-5X a pretty well equipped PC that can also cover computing needs too. I would guess an Apple console would be specially engineered so that there would be no way to get native macOS or iOS on it for more utility either. Put the gamer in a situation where they can either buy this Apple MAX console or a PS5 + Xbox + Windows PC and see what all but the fan-niest choose.
Never-the-less, this MIGHT be (sort of) coming if the rumored Mac Mini "Pro" rumor pans out. Or if that gets only M2, perhaps the Mac Pro Jr rumor? I can't see either being remotely price competitive with the latest gaming consoles though... and since both of the console makers spend/subsidize big for big games, I don't see the big games coming due to a simple lack of financial incentive: we can make a lot of money here or little there- which should we choose?
If Apple wants to be a gaming company, they need to compete in more ways than great hardware. Else, perhaps the word "lite" should be applied here... a lite gaming company? They are already that in a big & successful way. Building next gen hardware doesn't bring the programming investments. See countless next-gen consoles in the past that never got the traction.
If they really want a serious bite of this space, they might want to do what the others did: spend a big pile of cash to buy some game programming studios, stop waging "our way or the highway" war on independent gaming companies, show gaming companies how they can make MORE money coding for Apple Silicon than they can for Windows/PS5/Xbox (especially tricky with the first cut of all revenue being 15%-30% right off the top) and probably throw some money at good gaming companies on top of that. It seems they need a "billions" investment pool for quality games much like the "billions" investment pool for AppleTV+ programming.
Else programming businesses face a simple decision: we can spend countless hours and dollars coding for this incredible MAX chip that is in a fraction of only new Apple laptops, which is a fraction of all Silicon Macs, which is a tiny fraction of all Macs AND give Apple a first big cut of any revenue we can get right off the top...
...or we can put those same resources towards a market that is at least 10X larger (near infinitely larger if compared only to MAX-based Macs) and/or to a console markets proven to pay much more than a $1 or maybe $5 for games and likely get great games subsidized and/or exclusive money to boot. Hmmmm, what should we do?
This is basically a "put your money where you mouth is" situation. Will Apple do that? If so, then this could actually go somewhere. If no, then Mac gaming remains largely as it has been for decades.
Why would it be that expensive? The MacBooks aren’t even that expensive and they come with a screen and keyboards.
We use your interactions with the App Store to help you discover the content that’s most relevant to you. For example, we recommend content that we think will be of interest to you based on what you’ve previously searched for, viewed, downloaded, updated, or reviewed in the App Store.
For the App Store, personalized content is usually labelled with a 'You' or 'Your' in the title. 'More Stories For You' is an example of personalized content. 'Top Games Right Now' is an example of non-personalized content. 'Shop Stores You Love' is an example of personalized content. 'Must-Have Apps' is an example of non-personalized content.
M1 could be a viable target for games developers. They’re locked into x86/DirectX right now but they know ARM on Windows is inevitable and if they’re entertaining ARM the Vulkan/Android & Metal/AppleOS is also worthwhile. I wonder how many gamers are on mid-spec vs high-spec GPUs. The lack of availability of high-end GPUs may force game devs to diversify.
No. They depend on the sponsorship of consumer grade graphic card makers. Games are written for cards, not for users or platforms,
This is incorrect. Videogames are generally written for platforms, primarily consoles since those are the largest user base.
There are 70+ million Nintendo Switch units and every single one is used to play videogames. Would you like to play The Legend of Zelda: Breathe of the Wild? Guess where you'll be playing it.
Some videogame titles also release on the PC and occasionally Mac. There are very, very few titles that are PC exclusive. Game studios don't do this because they eliminate most of their revenue opportunity.
For sure some PC videogames are optimized for one graphics card architecture than the other (AMD, Nvidia) but that's often because they are sponsored. So a PC videogame sponsored by Nvidia might have hardware raytracing ("RTX") and DLSS options. And AMD-sponsored title wouldn't include DLSS but would highlight AMD FidelityCAS.
For console titles, those would be optimized for the console in question.
Some videogames are published on multiple console platforms, eliminating console exclusivity. Ori - The Will of the Wisps, Hollow Knight and Disco Elysium are three titles on the top of my head.
And take Shadow of the Tomb Raider as another example. This runs on Macs so basically Intel integrated graphics, AMD Radeon, and now Apple M SoC silicon. But on PC this is an Nvidia-sponsored title and the Nvidia logo is prominent in the game's opening credits; both Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow now have Nvidia DLSS.
It can call itself any way it wants. It will never be gaming company until it allows powerful upgrades to their hardware. If you pay attention then you know that custom built gaming stations outperform any type of technology Apple brought to the market, but you really need to dive into this and not scratch surface by looking at primitive gaming consoles.
In the not-too-distant future, much more gaming will be cloud-based. It is creeping that direction every week. Every Thursday Nvidia adds new titles to GeForce NOW.
And GeForce NOW just added a premium RTX 3080 tier for better graphics performance. That's basically Xbox Series X/PS5 performance from Nvidia's servers, no expensive console or PC hardware required.
I expect Apple's strategy for Mac gaming on the M1 will largely be via iOS/iPadOS games.
Which isn't completely terrible – the iPad has a pretty decent library of PC and console ports, indie games, board games, and native games, as well as zillion f2p/"mobile" titles which you may or may not care about. And Apple Arcade.
If Apple sees themselves as a gaming company, then there are a few things they need to do:
- Be game developer friendly, in attitude. - Make it easy to port games to the platform. - Further improve Rosetta 2 to make performance of Intel games well on the M1 processors. - Sponsor or provide code contributions to common frameworks used by game developers. - Demonstrate that games can run at the best settings on an average current generation Mac, otherwise they aren't really competing in any meaningful way.
I am sure there are plenty of other things they can do too.
Just looking at the history of console gaming consoles we can see what business and technical decisions created challenges for games developers. Modern Vintage Gamer covers quite a few aspects here.
According to court documents revealed during the trial, about 70% of all App Store revenue comes from gaming apps.
I’d believe it. I know that I bought my productivity apps once, Procreate, Designer, Pages. I buy one or two games a month. the productivity apps may have cost more but over time I’ve paid way more for games.
It's somewhat irritating to go to the AppStore and find recommended apps since every single one now is a game and I'm definitely so gamer. Not even one minute a month spent playing them, yet what Apple "suggests" for me is nothing but. Well OK, one out of a total 17 suggestions wasn't a game.
IMO Apple is doing what's best for them, not me, and that's not the Apple I expected.
Out of curiosity does Google have a new person writing the Gatorguy blog posts? The Gatorguy I used to have fun arguing with a few years ago didn't own any Apple products, by his own admission.
I've longed owned at least one Apple product and never "admitted I didn't". But until this past year I didn't own an iPhone.
If Apple sees themselves as a gaming company, then there are a few things they need to do:
- Be game developer friendly, in attitude. - Make it easy to port games to the platform. - Further improve Rosetta 2 to make performance of Intel games well on the M1 processors. - Sponsor or provide code contributions to common frameworks used by game developers. - Demonstrate that games can run at the best settings on an average current generation Mac, otherwise they aren't really competing in any meaningful way.
I am sure there are plenty of other things they can do too.
Just looking at the history of console gaming consoles we can see what business and technical decisions created challenges for games developers. Modern Vintage Gamer covers quite a few aspects here.
To put things in the proper perspective, revenue generated by mobile gaming is larger than console and PC gaming combined.
So you can't say Apple isn't already a major player in the gaming market overall or isn't a "gaming company". They're the biggest platform in the largest part of the gaming market. However, you can say that they don't have much of a presence for non-mobile gaming. Part of their strategy with Apple Arcade was to get users more familiar with gaming on non-mobile hardware like Mac desktops/laptops and ATV. That was the point of requiring Apple Arcade games to have Mac/ATV versions.And they've also dipped their toes into providing game franchises that are familiar with console users like Lego and NBA2K (which has turned out to be consistently one of the most popular games in Arcade).
I think Apple’s next big thing is VR, it’s one of the reasons they’re making their own silicon. Apple’s gaming console, whatever form it’s gonna arrive in, will shake another complacent industry.
Comments
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Personalizing the Stores
We use your interactions with the App Store to help you discover the content that’s most relevant to you. For example, we recommend content that we think will be of interest to you based on what you’ve previously searched for, viewed, downloaded, updated, or reviewed in the App Store. We also use your purchase history, including in-app purchases, subscriptions, and payment methods together with account information derived from your Apple ID. To make better recommendations, we also use aggregate information about app launches, installs, and deletions from users who choose to share device analytics with Apple and aggregate information about app ratings.
...
You can turn off personalization features in the App Store, Books Store, and iTunes Store by turning off Personalized Recommendations for your Apple ID.
...
"
So these personalization features are ON by default... would be interesting to see what proportion of users just leave this as is....
Never-the-less, this MIGHT be (sort of) coming if the rumored Mac Mini "Pro" rumor pans out. Or if that gets only M2, perhaps the Mac Pro Jr rumor? I can't see either being remotely price competitive with the latest gaming consoles though... and since both of the console makers spend/subsidize big for big games, I don't see the big games coming due to a simple lack of financial incentive: we can make a lot of money here or little there- which should we choose?
If Apple wants to be a gaming company, they need to compete in more ways than great hardware. Else, perhaps the word "lite" should be applied here... a lite gaming company? They are already that in a big & successful way. Building next gen hardware doesn't bring the programming investments. See countless next-gen consoles in the past that never got the traction.
If they really want a serious bite of this space, they might want to do what the others did: spend a big pile of cash to buy some game programming studios, stop waging "our way or the highway" war on independent gaming companies, show gaming companies how they can make MORE money coding for Apple Silicon than they can for Windows/PS5/Xbox (especially tricky with the first cut of all revenue being 15%-30% right off the top) and probably throw some money at good gaming companies on top of that. It seems they need a "billions" investment pool for quality games much like the "billions" investment pool for AppleTV+ programming.
Else programming businesses face a simple decision: we can spend countless hours and dollars coding for this incredible MAX chip that is in a fraction of only new Apple laptops, which is a fraction of all Silicon Macs, which is a tiny fraction of all Macs AND give Apple a first big cut of any revenue we can get right off the top...
...or we can put those same resources towards a market that is at least 10X larger (near infinitely larger if compared only to MAX-based Macs) and/or to a console markets proven to pay much more than a $1 or maybe $5 for games and likely get great games subsidized and/or exclusive money to boot. Hmmmm, what should we do?
This is basically a "put your money where you mouth is" situation. Will Apple do that? If so, then this could actually go somewhere. If no, then Mac gaming remains largely as it has been for decades.
There are 70+ million Nintendo Switch units and every single one is used to play videogames. Would you like to play The Legend of Zelda: Breathe of the Wild? Guess where you'll be playing it.
Some videogame titles also release on the PC and occasionally Mac. There are very, very few titles that are PC exclusive. Game studios don't do this because they eliminate most of their revenue opportunity.
For sure some PC videogames are optimized for one graphics card architecture than the other (AMD, Nvidia) but that's often because they are sponsored. So a PC videogame sponsored by Nvidia might have hardware raytracing ("RTX") and DLSS options. And AMD-sponsored title wouldn't include DLSS but would highlight AMD FidelityCAS.
For console titles, those would be optimized for the console in question.
Some videogames are published on multiple console platforms, eliminating console exclusivity. Ori - The Will of the Wisps, Hollow Knight and Disco Elysium are three titles on the top of my head.
And take Shadow of the Tomb Raider as another example. This runs on Macs so basically Intel integrated graphics, AMD Radeon, and now Apple M SoC silicon. But on PC this is an Nvidia-sponsored title and the Nvidia logo is prominent in the game's opening credits; both Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow now have Nvidia DLSS.
And GeForce NOW just added a premium RTX 3080 tier for better graphics performance. That's basically Xbox Series X/PS5 performance from Nvidia's servers, no expensive console or PC hardware required.
Which isn't completely terrible – the iPad has a pretty decent library of PC and console ports, indie games, board games, and native games, as well as zillion f2p/"mobile" titles which you may or may not care about. And Apple Arcade.
- Be game developer friendly, in attitude.
- Make it easy to port games to the platform.
- Further improve Rosetta 2 to make performance of Intel games well on the M1 processors.
- Sponsor or provide code contributions to common frameworks used by game developers.
- Demonstrate that games can run at the best settings on an average current generation Mac, otherwise they aren't really competing in any meaningful way.
I am sure there are plenty of other things they can do too.
Just looking at the history of console gaming consoles we can see what business and technical decisions created challenges for games developers. Modern Vintage Gamer covers quite a few aspects here.
https://kakuchopurei.com/2021/06/25/mobile-games-revenue-is-now-bigger-than-console-pc-combined/
So you can't say Apple isn't already a major player in the gaming market overall or isn't a "gaming company". They're the biggest platform in the largest part of the gaming market. However, you can say that they don't have much of a presence for non-mobile gaming. Part of their strategy with Apple Arcade was to get users more familiar with gaming on non-mobile hardware like Mac desktops/laptops and ATV. That was the point of requiring Apple Arcade games to have Mac/ATV versions.And they've also dipped their toes into providing game franchises that are familiar with console users like Lego and NBA2K (which has turned out to be consistently one of the most popular games in Arcade).