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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Game On: Apple’s new Game Porting Toolkit could incentivize video game development for Mac

Promotional image from Apple flexing its latest computers’ ability to run Resident Evil Village at high settings.  ( Apple Inc.)
By Riordan Zentler For The Spokesman-Review

Amid all the new game announcements at Summer Game Fest and the Xbox Games Showcase, it might have been easy to miss the announcements Apple made June 5-9 at its Worldwide Developers Conference about gaming on macOS.

Apple has created its own “Game Porting Toolkit” powered by source code from CrossOver, a Wine-based application that’s long been used to run – or attempt to run – Windows games on macOS. The tool allows developers and hobbyists alike to instantly launch an unmodified version of a Windows game on a Mac.

In the vast majority of cases, the game will run well enough, but need additional optimization. Several hobbyists have already been tinkering with the Game Porting Toolkit, with promising results – on Apple’s latest M2 processor, people were able to get even a graphically intensive game like Cyberpunk 2077 running at 4K resolution and a respectable 30 frames per second.

To clear up misconceptions – the hardware powering Mac computers has always been beefy enough to handle most video games. But between the difficulty of porting games to different platforms and the relatively low user base of Mac versus Windows, developers have rarely been incentivized to put in the necessary work to release games on Mac.

The process typically involves recompiling source code, converting audio, input, and HDR rendering, converting custom shaders and reimplementing graphics subsystems. If a developer plans on it from the start, they can use a cross-platform game engine to make matters more simple, but even then they have to debug the game and optimize the performance for each individual platform.

Apple also flexed its new game mode for the upcoming macOS Sonoma upgrade. The game mode will give video games top priority on the CPU and GPU, lowering usage for background tasks – something Apple should’ve implemented ages ago – and reducing latency with wireless accessories like game controllers and headsets.

To be clear, there’s no chance the Game Porting Toolkit will suddenly shoot Macs to the forefront of gaming – but I’m all for people having more options. While Windows PCs make up the vast majority of personal computers, Macs currently account for around 18.8% of them according to StatCounter.

Video game distribution platform Steam reported that in December 2022, 96.15% of its users were running Windows compared to 2.48% on Mac and 1.38% on Linux. Despite this, Valve themselves chose to have its own Steam Deck hardware run Linux by using Proton, a utility that accomplishes feats very similar to Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit. Proton has been a surprising success, and I can confirm firsthand that most games I’ve thrown at it perform near-flawlessly.

I’ll admit to having a soft spot for this type of thing – growing up I used whatever computer was available to me, and my parents were Apple loyalists through and through. In their defense, they were very early computer owners and up until the mid-90s, gaming on a Mac wasn’t uncommon.

Spokane’s best-known developer, Cyan, built its games for Mac first and foremost for many years. Even Myst debuted on Macintosh in 1993, six months before it was ported to Windows, and nevertheless became the best-selling PC game until 2002.

Over in Bellevue, Bungie developed critically acclaimed Mac-exclusive games like Pathways into Darkness and the Marathon trilogy before the breakout success of Halo – which was initially planned as a Mac title before Bill Gates himself directed Microsoft to strike a deal and make it the Xbox’ critical app.

Steve Jobs openly disliked video games and when he rejoined Apple in 1997, he seemingly did everything he could to make gaming the last priority for the company. Following his death in 2011, Tim Cook succeeded him as CEO of Apple, and while I don’t see the company ever putting games first – nor should it – it’s certainly become more open to them.

My only concern is that Apple won’t continue supporting the Game Portking Toolkit in the years to come. The company has a history of putting out exciting applications and unceremoniously dropping support not long after. Ultimately, however, the tool’s usefulness will depend almost entirely on whether or not game developers choose to use it.

I wouldn’t hedge bets either way just yet, but accessibility is always good – I’ll consider it a win if Macs become capable of running more games over the coming years.