Sometimes i wonder why some games on Steam that made with unity not available for Mac.
For example the recent popular one, Sea of Stars. Currently the game only available for windows user only.
Regarding to the minimum specs, it also doesn’t seems too demanding which most current mac device can handle it.
Is this related to specific technical / compatibility issue or just some kind of marketing preferences ?
Because based on my own experience in some simple 2D project made with unity, it’s always no problem with compatibility on mac. If the game runs well on windows, it usually runs well on mac. I’m not sure about a project with complex shaders and stuff though.
Basically, as far as I’m aware developing for a mac pretty much requires a Mac. You could throw an untested package, but when errors start coming in, you’ll need a mac to test them.
And that is a hassle.
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Because supporting Mac users sucks. You’re lucky if 10% of your sales will come from them, but 90% of your support requests sure will. Porting is more than just hitting “build for platform.”
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I think Steam’s hardware survey honestly answers this question:
1.84% of Steam users. Not worth it for most devs, honestly.
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I understand if that really an issue for small developer, but Sea of Stars developer is kinda big company i believe. I mean, having various device for testing won’t be an issue for them.
Porting to consoles surely is a whole different story but Mac & Windows has really similarity in terms of the development. But what i didn’t aware is that the behavior of every single version of mac (in terms of OS version and the hardware architecture) could be pain in the ass for the supports.
Thanks for highlighting this.
Big thanks for the info. Now it’s clear that the tiny portion of mac users not worth the works of patching and support.
They have two games total on steam, this is their second game. The first one is a pixel art retro action game and the studio does not have a wikipedia page. This is a small developer.
They don’t really have similarities. Mac is unix-based, ditched OpenGL support and is pushing their metal api.
Basically, it would be the last platform to support. Consoles are another story due to larger userbase.
I think it’s still bigger company than most indie devs out there. I’m sure they can provide mac devices on their table. Still, i don’t think this is the main issue.
I mean the basic development. As i know consoles have their own API for specific event & stuff so it need an independent development at some stage while most project for Windows & Mac could be developed at the same time generally.
But yes, any output difference between Mac & Windows device still be really a problem for devs. And the fact that the portion of Mac users on steam really TINY make it not worth for supporting the users & patching the game regularly, because i’m sure most dev should be fairly responsible to all platform they chosen. So i think this is the main reason why many devs not porting to Mac and focusing to platform with bigger audience.
If they were small before, they won’t be for long unless they want to be. Sea of Stars got several reviews of 100/100 and a Metacritic score of 90 for PS5 (making it one of the highest-rated Unity games available, afaik)… there’s no thread in Made With Unity, nothing on the forum about their game at all that I could find. I’d like to see a “Made With Unity” thread titled “Sea of Stars” by the developers… would personally like to see our stars shine more brightly around here 
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Stop making sweeping assumptions about stuff you clearly don’t understand.
You have come to a forum of expert game engine users, and started telling them how their engine works whilst simultaneously proving you have no idea how any of this works.
Its not a good look.
IKR. They are rising star. One of best game this year IMO.
It’s really a good motivation for any unity user to see a game made with unity got so popular.
Wait what ??
This is just general discussion. What’s wrong with my question or statement? why people so sensitive nowadays. I’m not telling anyone how their engine work. It’s simply me explain my experiences making unity project for mac & windows and found both have similarity in terms of basic development process because that’s what i experienced. From there, i wonder why some devs not just port their game to Mac also, because it’s “easier” than to port to any other platform like consoles.
The only thing i disagree (respectfully) with other user in this thread is about the developer can’t afford the mac for their development.
I don’t know what’s wrong with that ?
for IOS and Mac, I believe you need a mac to produce one that apple will ordain to put on their stores. You can build on a pc, but you need a file you have to copy (as I understand it) from the mac. On top of that you need to pay apple per year to be allowed to do it… If you do what you do for free, paying up for a mac - even a “cheap” one, and paying apple around $99 (havent looked in a few years so I expect its gone up) on top of that, isnt something that appeals when you arent going to make money in return
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By the way, my question actually specifically for games published on steam, so the pricing with or without mac version will be the same i believe.
Historically Apple has discouraged their platforms from being considered gaming platforms, and the Mx-based devices not supporting dedicated graphics cards hurts that even more. If that game were to be brought to their devices chances are it would hit the mobile devices (iOS) where most gamers are not desktop (macOS).
A larger company doesn’t make it easier to justify additional platforms. If anything the cost of having all of those team members makes it less likely you’re going to want to take a chance on a platform that almost always won’t have meaningful sales.
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Yes i’m aware about it. Just wondering about some unity games that seems like it could be fairly ported to Mac technically like sea of stars, among us etc but they aren’t.
Agreed. That’s my reply to the previous post, that i’m sure the company is totally able to provide mac devices for testing and all if they want, so the inability to provide a mac devices must be not the reason why they don’t add Mac version of the games. But extra cost for team member who handle the additional platform with really low sales indeed would be a problematic and be not worth it.
It’s a non-trivial task. You need to modify code to support the platform, use the features of the platform if they’re required (Apple is like developing for a console in terms of their requirements), you need to verify that it works on all the target systems, etc.
My last work project was with a company of 15. We were very much underfunded the entire project and that’s despite getting funding from a well known company. Paying for the hardware would have meant one developer wouldn’t be paid. As it was the business guy wasn’t paying himself to make it more viable to get the project.
Wow really? It’s kinda shocking actually. I was working in a small team in a really small digital agency. My project was just to make an e-learning application that later offered to some schools. Fortunately the company able provide various devices we need for development and testing purpose. But i’am aware that every company situation could be so different.
But specifically for the Sea of Stars developer i mentioned (Sabotage studio), they even open a kickstarter that funded more than 1 Million USD, so in this case i still refuse to believe that this studio unable to provide mac devices on their table. 
Because you don’t think about this with your (should have) business hat on. It doesn’t worth it to hire people with mac skills and convert a project because of the lack of gamers in that space. End of story.
And do not forget, it’s not just provide some hardware on the table. It is hiring people, who knows how OSX works. It is rare to have both adequate game developer (code) and adequate proficiency in OSX (not just user level). (Mostly because gaming is not present on it much)
If you can’t find it in one person, you’re there to hire a dedicated OSX-guy. Then what happens if (s)he leaves or involved in an accident and can’t work? So you need at least two people if you want to do anything serious.
If you find people who are coders and have OSX proficiency, then you will have people whose velocity severely crippled because they part-time try to kick the OSX to work so they don’t do their base-assignment full time.
So, is it worth it? For some, sure. But it is not the brightest business decision. That’s why don’t more people make it.
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Effectively you’re trying to argue that developers HAVE to support MacOS.
You’ve been told that supporting MacOS is a pain in the butt, and you continue pushing your original angle.
At least that’s what it looks like.
Basically, like I said, it is easy to produce a completely untested zip file for MacOS, but when bug reports starts coming in, you’ll need an Apple device, and it isn’t really worth it.
Now, it would be great, if all companies joined forces together and created some sort of “game framework” which used platform independent binaries and could run on all platform, but basically, hell would need to freeze over for that to happen, as platform developers appear to be keenly interested in vendor lock-in, aside from linux, that is.
That is peanuts.
Shadowrun returns was 1.8 million.
Pillars of eternity was 3.9 million.
Now check their release date and graphical quality. With this amount of money they can easily not have spare funds for MacOS developer.
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Sabotage Studios (the company behind the game) has 23 employees. Average cost of a developer which includes the salary, benefits, space and equipment, etc is approximately $100,000 USD. That’s $2.3 million USD for a year which means that $1 million USD is five months at best.
Sea of Stars was announced March 2020 and released August 2023. If we assume that’s the entire development time that’s 41 months which comes to $7.85 million USD. If they accept a reduced salary they might be as low as $5.85 million USD.
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The issue is not about affording a device. The issue is the extra time needed for every build. I have released multiple games on Steam, including releasing Windows, Mac, and Linux builds. When you are ready to release a build, you have to select and build the correct platform in Unity. Unity takes a while to switch platform and then do the build. Then you have to copy the build into the correct folder in the Steamworks tools. Then you have to repeat those steps for each additional platform. Then once all of the builds are done, you push the delta update to Steam using Steamworks. Once it is uploaded, you can do additional testing on each platform through your Steam client on each device to make sure everything is working as expected.
If you want to support Windows, Mac, and Linux, then check out an asset called Turbo Switch Pro. It reduces the time needed to switch between the platforms inside Unity, and it is a significant time savings.
Another issue that comes up when supporting multiple platforms is determining which settings to use. Unity has slightly different support for features on each platform, and it varies depending on which Unity version was used. For example, the choice of Mono vs IL2CPP used to limit platform support.
Support in 3rd party assets can also play a factor. For example, Vivox (popular voice chat asset) supported literally every platform except Linux. I don’t know if that support has changed in the latest version. Every developer has a list of assets that they might want to use but might run into platform support issues when trying to deploy multiple platforms.
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