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Valve Says Counter-Strike 2 for macOS Not Happening Because There Aren't Enough Players on Mac To Justify It (macrumors.com) 246

Posted by msmash from the ghost-town dept.
Valve says it has no plans for a macOS version of the recently released game Counter-Strike 2, the follow-up title replacing the hugely popular FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. From a report: Valve confirmed its decision and gave its reasons in a newly published Steam support FAQ: "As technology advances, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems. Similarly, we will no longer support macOS. Combined, these represented less than one percent of active CS:GO players. Moving forward, Counter-Strike 2 will exclusively support 64-bit Windows and Linux."
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Valve Says Counter-Strike 2 for macOS Not Happening Because There Aren't Enough Players on Mac To Justify It More

Valve Says Counter-Strike 2 for macOS Not Happening Because There Aren't Enough Players on Mac To Justify It

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  • Question I am too lazy to look up (Score:3)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @01:08PM (#63915865)
    Is CS2 Linux native, or a really good job by Proton with the Windows EXE?

  • MacOS gaming is kinda of catch-22 (Score:4, Informative)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @01:12PM (#63915879) Homepage Journal

    There are no games on MacOS so one one plays them. No one plays them because they are not there.

    The only way gaming will ever be a thing on MacOS is for Apple to invest in it, just like they did for the iOS App store. Someone has to go first, and then second, etc. Apple will have to fund that at a loss until its big enough to sustain itself. That means incentivizing game companies.

    • There were plenty of games on MacOS (Score:4, Informative)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @01:20PM (#63915907)
      they don't sell all that well. But I've been gaming on PC one way or another since 1998 or so (1996 if you count scavenged 286 and 386s and really old DOS games). Go back that far and there were plenty of Mac games. Sales kept dropping for all but the biggest titles, so that's all we got. Even then the weak support for GPUs on most Macs made 3d games a hard sell.

      The problem is it's a niche inside a niche. You have "Mac gamer who has a desecrate GPU Mac & who won't just go buy a gaming laptop or PC". There just aren't a lot of those. The move away from Intel was just the final nail in that coffin.

      • Re:There were plenty of games on MacOS (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @01:36PM (#63915983) Homepage

        When it comes to gaming, the bang for your buck that you get out of Mac hardware is terrible. I still remember trying to run Descent on one of those old garishly-colored CRT iMacs back in the day, and it was damn near unplayable. The same amount of money spent in PC hardware would get you buttery smooth gameplay.

        They used to say on Usenet that if you wanted to game and exclusively own only Mac computers, buy a PlayStation. Some things never change.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )
        I wrote a few games on the PC between 1987-1988. The sound processor in Mac at the time rocked, compared to a PC speaker whose tone was a function of turning it off and on based on system clock and a divider. At the time, gaming on the PC was an afterthought. Then in 1987 PS/2 came with VGA, but still no sound processor. It wasn't until 1989 when Create Technologies created Sound Blaster when gaming took off on the PC. And then Doom took the world by storm because of its LAN play option. That's when Ma

    • I had an awesome multiplayer game of Baldurâ(TM)s Gate 3 last night - on my M2 Mac. If Larian can do it, why not others?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by KlomDark ( 6370 )
        It's not that they can't do it, it's that they can't make much money from doing it. Macs are niche and kinda pointless compared to the rest of the world.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

      Apple will have to fund that at a loss until its big enough to sustain itself. That means incentivizing game companies.

      They'd also have to invest in hardware. Keep in mind, no modern Apple Silicon Mac has a discrete GPU. Instead, they have an integrated GPU that's based on the iPhone's mobile GPU, and they use a custom Apple API to program them.

      So, ultimately you have:

      1. Macs require a CPU architecture that most non-mobile games do not target
      2. Macs use an API that no one else uses
      3. Macs use mobile-grade GPUs, no matter how much Apple wants to pretend "console grade" means anything else

      Which means that, unless you're makin

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xenx ( 2211586 )

        3. Macs use mobile-grade GPUs, no matter how much Apple wants to pretend "console grade" means anything else

        That just isn't accurate. Apple silicon is able to compete with low to mid tier dedicated laptop GPUs. In terms of hardware, games are more than capable of running ok. The problem is that if gaming is your goal, its a lot cheaper to go with a gaming laptop. As such, gamers still aren't likely to go Mac.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by r1348 ( 2567295 )

          If gaming is your goal, you build yourself a gaming desktop PC, which no Mac in existence can equal in gaming performance, at any price point.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

          It's really not, though. You can't get comparable performance from PCs for the $600 of a Mac mini. The biggest issue, is compatibility.

          It used to be that Apple folks just ran games in virtualization (or dual booted). Apple Silicon makes that significantly more cumbersome but it's still doable.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Xenx ( 2211586 )

            It's really not, though. You can't get comparable performance from PCs for the $600 of a Mac mini.

            I'm not sure if you're saying a $600 PC is worse, or better, than a Mac Mini. Finding great numbers for comparison isn't the easiest. There is a $450 NUC style PC that uses an AMD APU with a 680M. I can find some benchmarks. Benchmarks place the M2 8-core GPU at around 30% higher, but in game results at around 25% lower.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        But beyond that, as long as Apple hardware is actively hostile to games, I don't see it ever becoming a "real" gaming platform. Apple hasn't shown they intend to ever really address the real problems that exist on their hardware.

        They probably don't want it to be viewed as a serious gaming machine because they think it will tarnish the brand. That is probably why they don't allow you to put a real GPU in the new systems and there is no real API developed for gaming.

        This is a completely different business model than Microsoft. Many years ago Microsoft recognized that people bought PC for gaming and actively encouraged it with the release of Directx and all its decadents. Basically not since the Amiga has no other platform bee

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        This is Wintel troll nonsense. None of it is accurate.

        Apple Silicon M1 and M2 are not 'based on the iPhone'.

        The GPU is not discreet, the GPU effectively IS the CPU, with direct system memory access. It's exceedingly fast. It blows away even the mid-tier desktop offerings from AMD and nVidia in performance for eg. OpenCL. There are accounts of people running games on their M1/M2 machines, emulated, and they run better than on high end gaming systems. Planetary Annihilation is one specific example I'm aware o

      • Macs require a CPU architecture that most non-mobile games do not target

        Do you count games for Nintendo Switch as "mobile games" for this purpose?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

          Do you count games for Nintendo Switch as "mobile games" for this purpose?

          Would you not? The Switch is literally running a SOC designed for tablets. Nintendo positions it as a portable console that you can also hook up to your TV.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      If Apple were to do this, they'd effectively enter a war with Microsoft.

      Windows gaming is, I'd suspect, the biggest thing keeping anyone buying Windows machines for home use.

      Though, I suspect that the demographic is wrong. Apple users are not typically gamers: they're older, more affluent and likely more career focused individuals.

      I've personally not been able to game for years due to a lack of platform support. I'll use nVidia NOW for single player games, but there are few options for multiplayer. That's s

      • Windows gaming is, I'd suspect, the biggest thing keeping anyone buying Windows machines for home use.

        Nearly no one buys Windows unless its bundled on a machine, and it's the affordability of that machine relative to Macs that is by far the number one reason for buying Windows. Some other reasons are avoiding the Apple walled garden (unless one starts off with all family members and devices already in the walled garden), familiarity with Windows, and also the availability of some apps on Windows but not Macs ... like games.

        • Nearly no one buys Windows unless its bundled on a machine

          And absolutely no one buys a MacOS unless it is bundled on a Mac.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Holi ( 250190 )

      Yeah, well it's not like the gaming industry shoulders the blame on that one. Jobs made it clear he was not a fan of gaming and did nothing to make Apple OSes a welcome place for them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elcor ( 4519045 )
      in 2014 it was 86% pc and grew linux eventually overtook mac at 5% and mac gpu are garbage that need tons of optimization = expensive. just not worth it
    • A Mac with a decent GPU is crazy expensive. I have a PC for gaming.

    • There were about 460k games on the Mac App Store in 2022 and that is growing by 20% annually. Mac now can natively run iOS games as well.

      They donâ(TM)t have the triple-A game market because to the world of gaming that is a rather niche market. There are about 150 of those listed on Steam and another 200 AA+ games which they have a dedicated market that is locked into Microsoft/Intel/nVIDIA already. People building $5k machines to pay 2-5 different games are and will always be a fraction of the complete

    • There are no games on MacOS so one one plays them. No one plays them because they are not there.

      Mac users aren't using Macs for gaming. That is born in the statistics where 5-10% of users are mac users (depending on which stat you read), but even for games which are available cross platform only a fraction of a percent actually play those games on mac.

      This isn't a chicken and egg problem, it's a buying a specific machine for a specific purpose problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      This is a problem that has to be laid at Apple's feet.

      Apple doesn't release a BYO model. That was always the Mac Pro. Apple has neglected the Mac Pro, over and over and over. It's like they forgot what the "Pro" means.

      With the move to the ARM CPU's, they have failed to sell models that are equal or better than a i7-13700K+Nvidia 4090.

      This is the highest performing Mac, the Mac Studio ( Apple M2 Ultra - 16 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores and 76 GPU cores)
      Single-Core Score 2765
      Multi-Core Score 21312

    • And then there's the whole part about Apple having shit GPUs in general (people having even semi-competent ones on a mac are very rare) in addition to the metal API being proprietary.

    • I suspect apple could get developers to do ports by simply supporting Vulkan. They wanted to be special and now they are finding out.

  • Another overpriced game that I now have no temptation to play. I might get something done at last.

    • There's something very strange about someone with an overpriced computer complaining that a free-to-play game is overpriced.

      • Sour grapes are expensive.

        • Sour grapes are expensive.

          The flipside to that, though, is that sometimes more money spent on something really does not provide a superior user experience. Pirated movies don't show previews or make you sit through a bunch of other unskippable shit. I can adjust the climate control in my el cheapo econobox without taking my eyes off the road because it has physical controls.

          ...and my homebuilt gaming PC which cost a fraction of a Mac with comparable storage and RAM specs probably will run CS2 just fine.

      • so, free to play? then how does the coder get paid for creating and supporting it? via that in game purchase feature? As in, in order to have anything like real toys to be competitive with, you have to pay real money?

  • And to be honest, I don't blame them. If you can afford Apple's prices, you can certainly afford a Steam Deck to get your gaming fix.

    • My daughter has a Steam Deck - it looks very cool. Being able to get at the Linux underneath makes it even more so. If I played more games, I'd probably buy one.

      That said, odds are this game will be supported in CrossOver (Wine) on Mac soon enough. The Codeweavers folks do good work.

  • The ARM transition is a failure. (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @02:13PM (#63916139)
    This is going to be controversial, but the whole reason why Apple Macs got popular after almost going bankrupt in the 90s was the fact that they switched to Intel and had Bootcamp. People could have the "cool" computer, yet also be able to use Windows and Linux for their real work. Emulation just isn't good enough when performance matters with games. Apple has to make some difficult choices. Either license x86 at the hardware level (not done since VIA), add hardware emulation Transmeta style (remember them?) or go back to Intel. They could make a deal with AMD, but x86 is the de-facto standard, and has been for 42 years. I expect Apple to go crawling back soon. I've had an M1 Macbook air for three years now, but I hardly use it compared to my x86 computers due to compatibility issues. Yes I've tried UTM and Asahi Linux, but I just can't get enough real work done on ARM.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I don't think it's controversial. I think it's the truth. It is widely regarded that Apples switch away from Intel was a mistake. This caused developers to have to retool and develop a separate branch of software to support two processor architectures at a cost of millions. To most developers it simply wasn't worth the cost. Adobe was going to dump the new Mac line until Apple offered to subsidies to develop for the new line.

      An that is not a bad thing. It's been common practice for companies to pay

      • Having CS on a mac still possible not cause value might make it but due to last part of the statement. "Moving forward, Counter-Strike 2 will exclusively support 64-bit Windows and Linux." The linux part might be way it could be on there.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jwhyche ( 6192 )

          Nope and I'm not going to provide you with any. I'm not going to waste what time I have digging through the internet trying to find a reference to a obscure article I read years ago. You can ether find it yourself or go ahead and make a big deal out of nothing. Truth is many companies do pay development costs when launching a new platform. It's not that big of a deal. If you make it one, go for it.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jwhyche ( 6192 )

              Look. I'm here to have casual conversations with people on subjects that I have in common. I'm not here to smooth over the feathers of some butthurt fan boy that has issues with something I've posted.

              Believe whatever you want too, my days of drama on this site are done.

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by jwhyche ( 6192 )

                  Did you know that we have a new feature that lets us apply a negative personal modifier to an account? That allows someone like me, reasonable and just wanting to carry on a intelligent conversation, be spared the rambling of you, a butthurt apple fanboy. By applying this modifier, I will be forever spared the rantings and ravings of an insane poster, like yourself. So, you go ahead and post. I no longer have to deal with your prattle and butthurt ravings.

      • Citation needed for literally all of that. Mac sales are pretty robust--the end of 2022 was one of Apple's strongest years in recent memory for the Mac.

        Your speculation is way out of left field. I read a lot of tech news, and nobody that I've read has any opinion like this that I've seen. Who is it in the group that is 'widely regarding' the transition as a failure? It certainly isn't any stockholders. Nor many actual Mac users.

        You don't provide a single justification or source for your claims. The cost of

    • I wonder what percentage of users bought Windows and installed it via Boot Camp? Was it really enough for that to be the reason hardware sales were so good? If anything, units shipped seemed to increase with the move to the M-series.

  • It's Been Weird (Score:3)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @03:04PM (#63916323)
    It's been a weird ride watching Linux overtake Macs in gaming. While Macs were never really known for first-class gaming experiences, let's not forget that they did have some wildly successful exclusive titles such as Marathon. I think the transition to x86 hurt gaming within OS X a bit since you could just boot into Windows and get access to a much wider selection of games. Therefore, even fewer people bought titles written for OS X. Now that Apple shifted away from x86 and game titles on OS X are virtually extinct, it's probably tougher being a gamer on a Mac than it has been in several decades. However, as other people have pointed out, if you can afford a Mac then you can probably afford another device for gaming.
  • Since when have the big game developers cared about that? Just look at all the 'must have multiplayer' edicts the industry has even though most people don't play that way. Multiplayer support ends up eating 75% of a project's resources in order to appeal to 25% of the players (completely made up numbers of course), but that is the kind of project devs want to be involved with and departments want to be associated with.

    MacOS support is the same way, it isn't about how many people play it, it is some exe
  • There's so much apple tears in this topic I could paddle myself to Germany on them... It's funny how Apple users think they're the best for everything. Speaking of, whatever happened to apple server???

  • Linux has proven a real game-changer. Specifically, the game changed to "Hunt the Wumpus".

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