SteamVR is drained on macOS now , and that should come as a surprisal to no one . Indeed , you may be surprised to know it even existed .
As spotted byUploadVRon Friday morning , developer Valve relay the news in aterse Steam announcement , as though even writing the update was more time than it desire to spend on Apple ’s desktop operating system . ( For that matter , it could n’t even be bothered to get the name of the operating system right . ) On the bright side , you may still practice SteamVR either with bequest builds or through Boot Camp and apps like Parallels .
Still , it ’s a sad end for a feature that was originally so hopeful that Apple even made it part of the WWDC keynote display in 2017 . It was supposedly proof of Apple ’s commitment to embracing better graphical functioning . After that real abbreviated second in the spotlight , though , news about SteamVR vanish as fleetly as AirPower rumor .
But this is n’t really a case of macOS simply being an unpopular VR platform , although there are certainly anatomy for that . In March , Valve released ahardware and software program surveyshowing that a whopping 85.69 percent of Steam users use Windows 10 . But virtual reality is n’t all that pop to begin with , so this is well realize as a job underlying Mac gaming in general , which is in a peculiarly distressing spot right now .
you’re able to get a in force melodic theme of how awe-inspiring the situation is by taking a look at the figure for Psyonix ’s popular 2015 association football - with - cars gameRocket League , which still pulls in around100,000 role player per dayon Steam . Psyonixdropped support for macOSin March , though , andPC Gamerreported that a mere 0.3 percent of Rocket League instrumentalist play on macOS or Linux . employ that number to today ’s Steam role player count and , at best , that would mean that only around 300 people are playingRocket Leagueon a Mac .
The situation doubtless acquire direr when we venture away from democratic game likeRocket League . Anecdotally , I could experience the state of Mac gaming growing bad when I was working on my monthly roundup of the best Mac games , as each fourth dimension it maturate harder and harder to discover 10 or even five new games worth recommending . Eventually we scrapped the column totally . Even my roundup of the20 best Mac gamesis elusive since a good glob of those games wo n’t work on macOS Catalina because of the shift from 32 - chip to 64 - bit architecture .
That in itself is a reminder that Apple itself is responsible for this state of involvement . Apple may have had a good thought withApple Arcade , and it might even be building its ownVR headsetor ( yes ) a “ gaming Mac , ” but on the whole Apple has spent much of the last mates of years digging a grave for Mac gaming . For one thing , only high-pitched - last Macs have GPUs capable of adequately handling democratic games likeRise of the Tomb Raiderthat get port to macOS .
The lowest point came in 2018 when Apple announced it was vilipend the wide used ill-tempered - platform graphics renderer OpenGL in favor of its own Metal . For now , OpenGL still works on the Mac , but asPC Gamerreported , many developer are think about passing on porting their games to the Mac out of a awe that Apple might pull funding for OpenGL at any fourth dimension . Many developer recognise Metal as a effective renderer , but it requires dedicated attention that many smaller studios simply do n’t have resources for . And as we ’ve seen , even relatively big ones like Psyonix are skipping out .
And worse things may still be on the sensible horizon . Most analyst now agree that Apple will be transition away fromIntel to ARM processorsfor at least some models of the Mac as early as 2021 . It ’s too other to tell how Apple will handle this transition , but there ’s a adept fortune that most survive compatible games wo n’t work at all with these new machines .
It ’s of import to keep in mind , though , that SteamVR ’s remotion from macOS plausibly is n’t a strictly Apple problem . AsGearBrainreports , sales of virtual reality headset like the Oculus Quest have seen a definite uptick since tax shelter - in - lieu orders began , but despite some valiant drive over the last few years , VR as a whole has n’t become the culture - work effect it was expected to be in the last decade . Valve itself made one of the best efforts to change that berth with its acclaimed VR shooterHalf life story : Alyx , but only a petty more than a calendar month after release , itranks at only 300on Steam Charts with a mere 6,344 players at point . EvenBeat Saber — the VR biz a random person on the street will most likely be able to name — place at only 237with a peak player count of 2,830 . These numbers advise VR is still a recess hobbyhorse , and will likely stay so . If it is n’t skim in bigger number at a time when everyone is adhere inside and socially distance , then it probably never will .
And then again we run into the ironware problem : Even ifHalf life history : Alyxworked natively on a Mac ( and it does n’t ) , you ’d have to fork out a mountain of Johnny Cash on a auto that could ply it — and maybe even crochet up an external GPU to the boot .
Looking back , it now seems safe to say that VR was never really in a good place to take off in the direction that headset makers intended . But SteamVR ’s removal from macOS has less to do with than and more with Apple ’s own tag insistence on ruining its potential as a play system . gambling on a Mac simply is n’t worth the time or money , and even when you think you ’ve catch a capable system , Apple often throw up some other weird vault to clear .
That ’s a shame , as gaming is the only intellect why I personally still own a PC — and it ’s a big part of the late resurgence of interest in custom PCs . While I ’m excited about some bruit next development for the Mac , what I mainly see right on now is a system that ’s burrowing itself further into a niche of its own invention .
