HTML5 is the development buzzword of the moment. It's the 'ajax ninja' of the last few years, so naturally it comes with its fair share of skepticism. Indeed, many have been writing about its seemingly never-ending spec, inconsistent implementations by browser makers, and even its inferiority to native apps. All are valid arguments against betting a real business on HTML5.
However, here's a hard example of why you absolutely should consider serious development in HTML5. In December of last year, we launched our little pure-HTML5 game Onslaught! Arena in the Google Chrome Webstore. Sales could be better, sure, but we also just launched the exact same game in the Mac App Store. The code is identical with negligible development time required to port it over to a completely different platform.
Think about the business case for that. Normally it would take considerable resources to port a game to such a different platform. We know our game isn't exactly a AAA title, but if programmed from the ground up in Objective-C, our best guess is it would take a few months to develop. That's time that we can now spend on content updates or even a sequel.
“It plays as good as it looks.” – IGN “Amps everything up to the next level.” – 148Apps “Sharp controls, impressive graphics.” – Pocket Gamer Step into the action as the latest installment in the best FPS series raises the bar for shooters once more! Create a squad, add your friends and t. Mac App Store is the simplest way to find and download apps for your Mac. To download apps from the Mac App Store, you need a Mac with OS X 10.6.6 or later. The first store dedicated to Mac games with over ten years of customer satisfaction. Thousands of Mac games to choose from! Instantly download and play most games for sale.
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How was it done? We just embedded a WebView in a native Cocoa app using Xcode. Is it inferior? Not noticeably so. On my MacBook Pro, the Chrome Web Store version ranges from about 50-250 FPS (frames per second) depending on how many monsters are on the screen. On the same computer, the Mac App Store version ranges from 30-100 FPS. (You can see this for yourself: type 'lddebug' while in-game to see debug information.) And despite nasty HTML5 audio issues, sound plays great in both versions.
Surprisingly, the Chrome version runs faster than the native Mac version. While Safari and Chrome are both using WebKit as their rendering engines, Chrome is likely faster because V8 has wicked speed and its canvas rendering is hardware-accelerated.
Either way, it runs great on both platforms and required almost no dedicated development time to port. If you're a developer, you should find this exciting. We certainly do!
Since you made it this far, you might like to read 'Our first week in the Chrome Webstore: the numbers' if you're into graphs and sales numbers (and who isn't!). If you'd like to learn more about our HTML5 development, including a tutorial on how to embed a WebView into a native Mac app, follow us on Twitter; we'll be writing about that soon.
As part of this longer post on my purchases from the Mac App Store over the last seven years, one particular bit really struck me: Based on my purchases, at least, there are a a lot of rarely-updated apps—and games in particular—in the Mac App Store.
Of the 116 purchases (or free downloads) I've made since the App Store opened, 90 are still available in the App Store today. At first glance, that seems pretty good—78% of what I have is still in the App Store. But it doesn't look quite so good if I examine when each of those 90 apps was last updated:
Yes, 51 of those 90 apps (57%) have been updated within the last year, and that's good. But what's not good is that the remaining 39 apps (43%) haven't been updated in at least a year—and of those 39 apps, 21 of them (over half!) haven't been updated in four or more years.
Digging into those 21 apps reveals that four of them are utilities, five are general use apps, and 12 of them are games.
The non-updated non-games
For the nine utilities and general use apps, not being updated in that many years means those apps aren't taking advantage of any new macOS features, they haven't updated their appearance to match Apple's evolving trends, and they may have new-macOS-related bugs that haven't yet been fixed. In my testing, though, all of these apps still ran just fine—just possibly lacking features and interfaces they'd have if they were updated.
It's possible that app sandboxing is preventing some of these apps from being updated: If they can't be sandboxed, then they can't get any updates that add new features. So they sit in the store, unable to be properly updated yet allowed to continue to be sold (as they predate the sandboxing requirement; we have a couple apps of our own in this category).
Beyond sandboxing issues, perhaps the apps' sales figures don't merit the effort needed to update, or the developers have moved on, or whatever. These apps, generally speaking, probably could be updated but haven't been for whatever reason. But the games…the games are a different story.
The problem with the games
Of more interest to me are those 12 games that haven't been updated in at least four years. In particular, eight of those 12 are still 32-bit apps, which is a big cause for concern for a couple of reasons.
Apple has said that, starting this fall, 32-bit apps 'won't run without compromise', and we don't yet know what that compromise might entail. But that's not the big problem.
This is the big problem: Apple's 64-bit requirement for App Store apps. It first states that all new App Store apps must be 64-bit after January of 2018, which won't affect these older games. But then it adds this tidbit about existing apps (emphasis added):
…and Mac app updates and existing apps must support 64-bit starting June 2018.
To me, that sounds like any 32-bit app in the Mac App Store as of June 2018 will be removed from sale—they separately call out updates and existing apps. Yikes! So why don't these developers just update their games to be 64-bit?
The problem with 64-bit and games
I spoke with a friend in the business of porting Mac games, and he explained some of the difficulties they're facing.
First off, many 3D games rely on the Havok Physics engine. Older games used an older version of the engine, which was given to porting companies only as a 32-bit binary. Those older games can't be updated to use the newer Havok engine without a major rewrite, nor can the engine be recompiled as 64-bit (because they only have the binary). Hence, those older games are stuck and will never have a 64-bit version.
Games that don't face issues with the Havok (or other bundled) engine still have troubles. If there's a multi-player component, there can be compatibility issues if the Mac app is 64-bit and the Windows version is 32-bit. Also, if the Windows source was 32-bit, generally the Mac version was kept at 32-bit too, because it's non-trivial to update the original code to 64-bit.
Fps App For Pc
Things have changed a bit recently, as Apple's Metal is 64-bit only, but offers some nice performance increases. If a particular game will benefit greatly from Metal, the porting company will probably take on the work required to convert it to 64-bit.
Will older games be converted?
From talking with my friend, it would appear that older games using the old Havok engine won't ever (can't) be udpated. For other games that can be updated, the porting companies are faced with a time/money/resources question: Will converting an older game to 64-bit drive enough incremental revenue to make it worth the time and money involved in doing that conversion?
On a pure revenue basis, I find it hard to imagine the answer is 'yes,' because these are all older games. Old games aren't huge sellers to begin with, so it's doubtful that a sales pitch of 'Now in 64-bit!' is going to move many units.
Those who already own the game won't generate any additional revenue, yet they're the ones likely to complain the loudest when those games vanish or stop working. There's some value in keeping existing customers satisfied, but when it comes with a real world cost, that's another decision to be managed.
I imagine that each porting company will look at their top revenue-producing titles and some of those will get converted—some additional revenue will result, and some positive press may be gained. For the rest, though, we're probably looking at the end-of-life for a number of games—much as we saw with the PowerPC to Intel transition.
So if you enjoy games from the Mac App Store, you might check if they're still 32-bit. If they are, you might want to get some play time with them now, in case they disappear in June and/or stop working 'without compromise' this fall.