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So you know how Blizzard wasn’t planning on putting Overwatch on Mac computers because of their graphics or whatever?
By looking at people using Overwatch on Mac it looks to me as how it is on the PC
Which I don’t get how Overwatch can’t be on Mac
I know people are gonna be pissed and start saying “get a pc” and stuff like that but I mean Overwatch should be on Mac
Im not against Blizzard or anything its just that their games can be downloaded on mac too but not overwatch
Anyway just say whatever you want
Moderation Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to language: Blizzard Support - Forum Code of Conduct
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I was stuck using a Mac for 6 months when the game first launched. I just used bootcamp and it worked fine.
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Quite a bit of Mac hardware is perfectly capable of running Overwatch. The problem comes in the developers having to support the native client for another OS that won’t generate a lot of additional revenue. Most gamers either use a console or PC, so it doesn’t make financial sense to have to support the Mac version for many game developers.
Most of the problem now is mac deciding to go proprietary on everything. Sure they could port easily to OpenGL, but now OpenGL is going out. To move overwatch to metal would require a complete recode, making it extremely difficult to do.
I have OpenGl
but I’m stuck on the waitlist
Opengl is on the way out though. If it were on opengl it would be useless in 2 months
Overwatch is developed with a Microsoft technology called DirectX, a graphics API that allows the computer to leverage more precise control and raw power out of a graphics card.
Microsoft and Apple are direct rivals in the computing space. In order for Overwatch to run on Mac, it either has to be developed on Apple’s graphics API “Metal”, or they have to use an open-source API like OpenGL.
Apple dropped support for OpenGL a long time ago, the last update they rolled out was in 2011.
While Overwatch does run on OpenGL – the PS4 uses an exclusive customized version of OpenGL, all of the shaders, lighting, texture processing features come from a 2014-2016 version of OpenGL, which is 3 versions newer than the last version that Apple supports.
These features are not backwards compatible, Blizzard would effectively have to do all of the work in rewriting those shaders/lighting/texture processing so that it’s in a format that OpenGL from 2011 can understand.
That’s not worth the labor for them. They’re patiently waiting for Apple to just roll out an update to Metal that properly supports the same features that 2014-2016 OpenGL supports.
And Apple has not shown indication that they will do any such thing, they’re currently marketing eGPU support instead of porting the necessary graphics technologies. They want customers to spend more money to brute force the graphical divide, instead of natively supporting the technology.
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This is false. Mac gaming is very popular.
Based on Steam’s Hardware Survey, expanding to the Mac market could potentially open up between 5 million and 17 million players that can run the game on low or medium settings, or on high with an eGPU that Apple has been pushing.
That’s just shy of a potential $680 million in just game sales alone, not to mention ongoing revenue provided by lootboxes.
Those are just numbers from confirmed through Steam. Not every single Mac user uses Steam, they get their games from developer-specific launchers or native app launches, meaning there’s several million more out there that can meet the minimum spec of the game.
This issue has always been a graphics API issue, not a marketshare issue.
Blizzard has already ported to OpenGL, through PS4’s port. It’s running on PSGL (OpenGL ES) with a DirectX wrapper.
They just can’t (don’t feel like putting in the effort to) backport it to an earlier version of OpenGL.
Apple only supported OpenGL up to the 2011 release. It’s ancient.
Vulkan is literally a rebranded name for the latest release of OpenGL. It’s not on its way out, they’re just changing the name.
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Using the same steam survey you are talking about. 96.3% of computer gamers use a version of Windows. Only 3.07% use Mac. And 0.57% use Linux.
3% of non-console gamers is not “very popular”.
You’re looking at the wrong numbers.
3% seems low when you compare numbers, but when it’s a completely untapped market, and given the fact that Mac users typically don’t leave the Apple ecosystem, it’s actually very valuable.
$680 million dollars in sales, and an ongoing $12 million of yearly revenue if even just 1% of that Mac population decides to buy the $2 two loot box microtransaction, just once a year.
And given the fact that a large portion of Mac gamers have not bought Overwatch for their computer before (chances are they aren’t rocking both a gaming PC and a Mac), they’re a fresh slate. They have absolutely zero loot. The influx of microtransactions for the Mac launch date would skyrocket because all of these previous non-players want to build up skins and sprays.
Nevermind their Gear store, where suddenly all of the Mac WoW, D3, SC2, and Hearthstone will all finally get to play Overwatch and that fatal attraction/honeymoon period will drive merch sales.
There’s a reason why Valve decided to port all of their Source games to Mac, and why Blizzard has a long history of supporting Mac throughout most of their games.
From a financial aspect though, they’d be better off porting to the Switch. Paladins just did.
Wait for the console playerbase to die off, which it will when the next shinny thing comes out. The game is probably already dead on console. Blizzard probably don’t want to maintain 4 codebases, they’d probably have it on mac if the consoles did not have it.
Blame Activi$ion for chasing the $'s rather than trying to make the best game possible. OW is the best shooter on the go and it would be even better and sell far more if Activi$ion weren’t obsessed with money.