Adventure Gamers - Forums

My computer is getting up there in age. It’s about 7 years old now, and I am starting to think about upgrades. Though I still game quite a bit, I tend to use my PC more for writing, art, and render work nowadays. Thus, I am thinking about switching to a Mac.

I haven’t used a Mac since high school, and don’t have much of an opinion either way on them. People always used to say they were the better machines for art and video editing (not sure if that’s still true, or ever was), but I’m tempted to try something different.

My big question I have is, how are they for gaming? Compiling all my GOG, Steam, and Epic libraries into GOG Galaxy and hitting the macOS filter, the reduction in compatibility is notable (though not unexpected). Curiously, the genres best represented in this filter are RPGs and point and click adventures.

Does anyone here game fully on Mac? If so, what do you think of it? I have a number of game streaming service subscriptions, like AntStream and GeForce Now, meaning I won’t lose my entire PC library if I switch. I also have an old laptop I use primarily for older games I’ve bought off of GOG, but I would still be losing many of my newer games if I switch. Still, I’m considering it just because of the possible benefits to programs I use like Poser and Clip Studio. Any advice, words or warning?

I’ve been using a Mac since the 90s, and there are definitely more games coming out for Mac than there used to be. Unity makes it easy to release for Mac alongside PC so a lot of games that are built with Unity have a Mac version.

On the other hand, some older Mac releases don’t work on newer Macs (like the Telltale games) because they were never updated for the newer versions of OSX. And really old ones won’t run because OSX won’t run software made for OS9 and below, but you can emulate PC games through Scummvm or DosBox or even emulate an old Mac to run older games. I have a mid-90s Mac (the same vintage I had in college) emulated on my MacBook Air to play old Sierra games.

I don’t think I’d want to have the Mac as my only gaming platform, just because there might always be that one game I *really* want to play that would be unavailable to me. But realistically, I don’t think I would be hurting for things to play if I did only use the Mac. I think it depends on your style… do you just play a game once in a while, and pick from what’s available? Or do you look forward to new releases and play as soon as a game comes out? If it’s the latter, you might be disappointed by the selection, but if it’s the former there are plenty of options.

A Mac plus a Switch could be a good compromise.

This is great, thank you! I actually hadn’t taken into account that older games wouldn’t work on newer OSX. I’ll have to investigate that a bit more. Nice to hear there’s good emulation options available though.

Sorry to be so late to this thread. I game on Macs and iPads, recently playing games on Apple Arcade. With some of the Apple Arcade games the saves are in the cloud so you can start on a Mac then carry on playing on an iPad (not all Apple Arcade games work on all platforms).

I have also played older Windows games under Parallels on a Mac like “Zork Grand Inquisitor” on Steam.

It’s possible to be a gamer on a Mac. There’s plusses and minuses as with everything.