
The future of my games on Apple and what this means for art games - tomgp
http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/the-future-of-my-games-on-apple-post-catalina-and-what-this-means-for-art-games-in-general
======
danielrpa
We've heard the warnings about the rise of "proprietary computing", where all
experiences in computers need to be approved by the policies of hardware and
software manufacturers.

I feel it's getting worse as we get pushed more and more to vertically
integrated platforms (Pixel, iPhone, Surface, game consoles, Kindle+Fire etc).
We still have Linux, thankfully - at least as long as hardware manufacturers
let it run on their computers.

[https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-
general-...](https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-
purp.html)

~~~
viraptor
Pixels are one of the few phones with custom firmware loading explicitly
enabled and exposed by Google. Sideloading apps is also 1 switch away. It
could be even better, but I really don't think it belongs in the same category
as iPhone and have consoles.

~~~
lowtolerance
Are we supposed to pretend it’s something other than vertical integration
because you happen to prefer their approach?

~~~
viraptor
I don't understand why you'd pretend anything.

You've got 3 areas:

1\. Producers actively preventing you from running custom software (iOS, TVs,
game consoles, some Android systems, ...).

2\. Platforms providing default software and leaving an official way to
replace it (pixels and a few other androids, ...).

3\. Producers who mostly don't care what you run. (PCs)

It matters to me that things are as close to the 3rd category as possible. But
let's not lump 1 and 2 together - there's a huge difference.

~~~
lowtolerance
What does any of that have to do _vertical integration_?

------
teraflop
A lot of people here are fixating on the $100/year fee -- and don't get me
wrong, that's a problem -- but ignoring another significant part of the blog
post: the fact that Apple is demanding what amounts to a non-trivial amount of
_creative control_ over the visual appearance of games that can be distributed
on macOS/iOS. Just like the other restrictions on user freedom, this is a
ratchet that will only get tighter as time goes on.

What would happen to indie filmmaking if every TV and movie projector threw up
a scary warning screen, requiring a cumbersome manual override, before playing
anything that wasn't certified by the MPAA?

If you develop webapps, would you be OK with not being able to get a trusted
SSL certificate unless an anonymous reviewer at Mozilla was satisfied with
your UI?

~~~
Razengan
> _A lot of people here are fixating on the $100 /year fee -- and don't get me
> wrong, that's a problem_

How much should you have to pay for unlimited bandwidth, hosting, downloads,
user ratings, reviews, feedback, crash logs, showing up in searches, the
chance to get featured, and other features like CloudKit etc.?

> _Apple is demanding what amounts to a non-trivial amount of creative control
> over the visual appearance of games_

Where did you get that from?

How is that different from Steam, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony not allowing
certain types of content on their platforms? For example, you can't show
explicit pornography in your game and expect it to be approved anywhere.

As for not allowing _" blue screens of death, simulated error, glitch art,
brokeness"_ that TFA complains about:

Have you seen those "YOUR PC IS INFECTED BY 42 VIRUSES!! CLICK HERE TO CLEAN
SYSTEM32! PERMANENT HARD DISK DELETION IN 2 SECONDS!!!" ads?

What if apps start doing that for fun then charge in-app purchases to clean
the in-game viruses?

Would you want the job of being an arbiter over whether something like that is
malicious deception which preys upon user naïveté, or just a cute quirky joke?

~~~
teraflop
> How much should you have to pay for unlimited bandwidth, hosting, downloads,
> user ratings, reviews, feedback, crash logs, showing up in searches, the
> chance to get featured, and other features like CloudKit etc.?

As others have already pointed out, I'm talking about the fact that Apple
charges $100/year to make your software runnable on a Mac, regardless of
whether you want to use their app store.

> Where did you get that from?

From the blog post that we're all supposedly discussing: "The next reviewer
saw the “blue screen of death” art and said that it conflicts with copyright
(it’s Microsoft) as well as simulated error not being allowed. So I changed
that too. After that it got arbitrarily rejected for another reason… so at
this point I changed so much about the game that it wasn’t even my work
anymore. It didn’t reflect any of the things that were important to my work.
Simulated error, glitch art, brokeness, historic UI’s are deeply important to
me because they reflect a computer history. None of that was allowed. I had to
change my games."

> How is that different from Steam, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony not allowing
> certain types of content on their platforms?

Steam is a free service that doesn't prevent me from running non-Steam
software on my computer.

As for your other examples, I don't think it's different. I think restrictions
on user freedom are made worse, not better, by the fact that lots of companies
are engaging in them.

~~~
uriro9n
Look the point stands: it’s a non-free as in speech & beer platform

Go work with Purism if you want to ship whatever

What a shock Apple is also nickle & diming for services as hardware sales
atrophy. This is business 101.

If we don’t like how businesses work we should stop working for them.

Paying for beer & leaving speech free never works. We end up talking about
supporting paid beer. Free speech becomes all about what we buy & sell.

If you want a free society that doesn’t end up in a nickle & dime system of
inequality a test should be is life free as in speech & beer? Organized around
resource distribution sure, but free of coercion to support paid speech all
day (where to be viable in the eyes of society work must earn money).

That’s the DNA of our culture. These are not random things. This is what we
and Apple talk about all day: financial justification for behavior.

That’s a complete corruption of free speech.

------
jakobegger
This article mixes up a lot of issues and is not very coherent. Here are some
important clarifications:

1\. You can run any unsigned or unnotarized software from any developer by
right-clicking the app, selecting "Open", and then click the "open" button in
the scary warning. It's really simple. I wish people would stop pretending
like it was really hard to run unsigned software.

2\. Apple does not "curate" or "review" software distributed outside the Mac
app store. The notarisation process runs some automated malware checks, and
that's it. The goal is to block malware, not to limit the content you put on
your computer.

3\. Notarisation takes less than ten minutes. It's easy to automate it, and
you can also do it manually if you want. You can staple the notarisation
ticket to the app, but you don't have to. MacOS will look up the ticket via a
webservice if you don't staple it. The documentation sucks, but that's the
only bad thing you can say about it.

4\. Apple does review stuff you submit to the Mac app store, but fortunately
it's entirely optional to submit stuff to the Mac app store, there's nothing
stopping you from releasing software outside the app store without any review.

5\. Apple did end support for 32bit apps, which sucks, and I don't have
anything good to say about that.

~~~
tinus_hn
You do need to get a paid developer account though and Apple has announced
that in the next version of MacOS bypassing notarization is going to get more
difficult.

~~~
jakobegger
You only need a paid account if you want to sign and notarize your app.

You can build apps and distribute them without a developer account. But macOS
will show a scary warning to your users.

------
unlinked_dll
As a developer mainly on MacOS I feel the author's pain. There's also some
legitimate gripes about Apple locking down their platform in a way that is
ultimately hostile to users down the road.

As a user I say suck it up. Notarization and 1st party QA will make users
lives so much easier. I have yet to see people run into serious issues with
either that weren't doing things that entitlements/signing were designed to
prevent.

The $100/year dev license kinda sucks if you just want to hack around and
distribute code, but it also goes a long way to stopping people from creating
spam accounts and evading bans. But it's a pretty trivial burden, if you're
distributing software professionally and can't cough up $100 in revenue in a
year... maybe try your hand at something else or just go the amateur route?

I also don't get complaining about obsoleting 32 bit. Use obsolete software on
an obsolete OS in a VM like the rest of us, we all hate supporting things
until the end of time.

~~~
cortesoft
> just go the amateur route?

But how do you even go the amateur route? You still won't be able to
distribute what you make.

A big part of my childhood was making games, and sharing them on shareware
sites in the mid 90s. It sucks that kids today aren't going to be able to do
that. There was no way I could afford $100 as a 10 year old.

~~~
unlinked_dll
Well you could write your game in JS and deliver it over the web. Flash games
were all the rage when I was a kid.

But for now, non-notarized executables don't fail, they just need to be
enabled by an admin account through permissions.

~~~
ciroduran
WebGL isn't fully supported on iOS, so there goes your nice little web game.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
Last year I was building web games* with Phaser. To better support iOS, I just
changed the renderer to `canvas` when an iOS user agent was detected. In the
end, the games worked pretty well on iOS devices.

*Games I worked on: [https://livegame.show/play/ride_v3](https://livegame.show/play/ride_v3) | [https://livegame.show/play/pewpew_v6](https://livegame.show/play/pewpew_v6) | [https://livegame.show/play/bubbleshooter3](https://livegame.show/play/bubbleshooter3)

I will say though, Apple does seem to almost purposefully hold back the web on
iOS. I suppose this makes native iOS apps, which must pay Apple 30% of their
revenue, more appealing to users. On iOS, the Firefox and Chrome apps aren't
allowed to include their own browser engines. They have to just wrap Safari
webviews.

On Android, the Firefox app is allowed to include it's own browser engine. An
engine that supports adblocking extensions like uBlock Origin.

~~~
fingerlocks
I think this is an issue with phaser. I’ve also made a bunch of web games with
various frameworks, and webGL works fine on iOS in many other contexts. The js
port of cocos2d is webGL compatible on iOS.

------
boudewijnrempt
I'm also thinking of just dropping macOS as a supported platform for Krita:
[https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-
kri...](https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-krita/)

~~~
tachyonbeam
It seems to me that Apple is shooting itself in the foot very hard with moves
like this. At the end of the day, developers are creating value for your
platform. If you treat them like shit, they will leave.

A lot of teenagers who are learning to program right now are definitely not
going to be able to pay $100 a year to distribute toy programs they're making
for fun. Heck, a lot of adults developers won't pay that. Apple has just made
Linux significantly more appealing for all of these people.

I own a MacBook Air at home (and a Linux desktop). I know this will definitely
motivate me to go back to a Linux laptop for my next purchase. This move isn't
just hostile to users, it's hostile to developers, hostile to the people
creating value for the platform.

~~~
mrec
Even if you can easily afford it, the pay-to-publish model should be setting
off warning bells. Vanity publishing has been a real thing for a very long
time, and normally isn't something that people consciously want to be doing.

------
dessant
This was heartbreaking to read. I don't understand how anyone can defend not
being able to run software on their own devices, unless it was approved by
Apple.

~~~
avalys
It’s not about being approved by Apple. It’s about a digital signature that
proves the identity of the author.

~~~
megous
Ok, can I use EIDAS? That is surely stronger than whatever identity validation
Apple is doing. (I know for sure.) And it doesn't cost $100.

~~~
dwaite
That might be worth pursuing within the EU.

That said, if it required something like a "qualified electronic seal" I think
the cost would be substantially more (600 EUR a year?), and Apple might turn
around and start charging a notarization fee to recoup their infrastructural
costs.

------
Wowfunhappy
I agree with the sentiment expressed in this article, but notarization is not
the hill I'd want to die on.

Want to play experimental itch.io games? Open a Terminal and type:

    
    
        sudo spctl --master-disable
    

It takes all of five seconds, and it's _permanent_. It might take less
technical users a bit longer, but entering text into a Terminal window really
isn't difficult, and technophobes aren't using itch.io.

Some people will say this is a bad solution because it makes your computer
less secure, but, like, you can't have it both ways. Either you allow
experimental software and accept the risks involved, or you don't. Maybe don't
play experimental games on the same machine you use for important work.

------
athirnuaimi
I hope we can all agree that notarization is pretty valuable to users. Macs
are a mass market product and most users are not technical. Also to create
software for Apple devises you need... an Apple device. Isn’t the cost of the
device a bigger burden than the $100/yr dev program license?

~~~
heavyset_go
> _I hope we can all agree that notarization is pretty valuable to users._

I don't. As a user, I don't need Apple arbitrarily allowing big players' apps
through their approval process while they hold smaller developers to a
stricter standard. That will stifle innovation.

If security is the touted excuse, macOS already has sandboxd[1] which can be
used with arbitrary apps that aren't in the App Store.

Linux solved the security problem with Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages, which
all use various layers of containers, kernel namespaces and isolation to
provide a sandboxed environment for apps.

[1]
[https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Se...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AboutAppSandbox/AboutAppSandbox.html)

~~~
mrpippy
Can you point to evidence that Apple is rejecting anything from being
notarized? I haven't seen any.

And sandboxing is completely orthogonal to the fine-grained revocation that
notarization allows for. A sandboxed app could still be malicious: say, a
weather app that asks for access to your Contacts ostensibly to show weather
at your friends' location, but also uploads all the Contacts info to a
malicious tracking service. With notarization, this app could have its
notarization revoked once it's discovered.

~~~
heavyset_go
> _Can you point to evidence that Apple is rejecting anything from being
> notarized? I haven 't seen any._

Apple is rejecting anything by developers that don't pay them $100 a year,
stifling competition in the process.

Apple has a history of conveniently rejecting apps if the rejection is in
their financial interest[1].

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/31/18647249/wwdc-apple-
paren...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/31/18647249/wwdc-apple-parental-
control-app-store-mdm-spotify-moderation-developers-2019)

------
macintux
I don’t understand. I keep seeing developers complain about the $100/year
developer fee but I also keep seeing strong indications that’s not required
for notarization.

~~~
Skywalker13
I've a certificate whish is valid until 2022 (valid for 5 years) (generated in
2017 after paied 100$). I distribute only free games (GPLv3) that I sign with
this certificate. For Catalina, I can't notarize because I don't pay each year
(my certificate is valid then it's useless to pay and I distribute only free
softwares)... But I'm fucked by Apple for the notarization.

It's too expansive to pay just to distribute games that will be even refused
probably on the app store because it's GPL.

Apple is just killing freedom and continue to take advantage of free softwares
(free developers) on BSD, mach kernel, a lot of unix tools... even on projects
started by Apple like LLVM Apple takes all advantages of all third
contributions.

~~~
dwaite
FWIW, Apple doesn't care if apps being distributed contain code licensed under
the GPL. They care whether you have the appropriate rights to distribute the
app on their store under their terms - and that is asserted by you.

A previous build of VLC was pulled from the store because someone claimed they
had copyright on some of the code - because they did not want VLC in the
store.

~~~
Skywalker13
Thanks I found more details here: [https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-
about-the-app-store...](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-
app-store-gpl-enforcement)

------
simion314
Some developers here forget that there are game developers that make free
stuff, hobby games, This developers often get requests to also package for
Linux and Mac because the engine used is cross platform. So this people won't
afford to buy a Macbook and pay 100$ yearly for one possible user that would
like to try his free game.

I also see users asking for 32 Windows version of the games, there are still a
lot of people running old computers and have bad internet connection and there
is no good reason not to package some basic game app for them if it is
possible.

------
xylophoner
Every Macbook/Mac Pro should come with a free developer account that remains
active as long as the purchaser of the machine is using the laptop. Doing so
would further distinguish “pro” from non-pro machines, would make notarization
less like an annual tax, and would thus encourage rather than discourage such
malware-free certifications.

That said, I agree with the article’s author that devs should be free to
distribute whatever they want without warnings and without having to update
annually. Not every piece of software gets maintained but it can still be
useful, especially for artistic works. Let the App Store be the place where
Apple certifies safety and leave the rest to the user.

~~~
sukilot
Much like charities know that the best source of donations is previous donors,
Apple knows that the best source of revenue previous customers who've already
shown a willingness to open their wallets to pay extra for the Apple
experience.

------
mnm1
This article reminded me of the other major reason I've left OS X, other than
five years of shitty Mac hardware which has been covered to death: shitty Mac
software. Apple's software has always been on the lowest levels of quality,
however, this generally excluded OS X. It's clear to me that Apple intends to
remedy that and has already started so with this system protection bullshit
that prevents running programs and resets itself on upgrades and possibly at
other times randomly (I assume it does so just to fuck with users and show
them who's the real boss and owner of their computer).

The author of this piece is 100% correct: none of these changes have anything
to do with security. It's all about control. Apple, like most companies, just
wants to control everything, whether relevant or not. The end goal is to
control exactly what software is ran on their platforms, as clearly evidenced
by the linked articles. I highly doubt that we'll be able to run any non-Apple
approved tools in a year or two. They are turning OS X into iOS and have
already renamed it macOS to let people know it's just going to be a walled
garden of shit. The only reason to ever purchase an Apple computer was OS X.
Now that OS X is turning into a shitty version of iOS, that last reason is
gone. And that's before we get into the garbage hardware. I simply don't
understand why anyone would want to support this platform going into the
future. It's a platform that stands for censorship. Every component on the
platform is designed around it. It's no longer a general purpose computing
platform. In the future, it will be even less of one. All in the name of
"security" and "privacy." Yup, save the children. But plenty of smart people
fall for such stupidity.

------
Razengan
Let me just place this signpost in the bandwagon's way:

→» Users CAN run un-notarized apps if they WANT TO. «←

You just have to make us trust you as a developer.

~~~
stefano
Should the user click on "Cancel" or "Move to trash" to tell Apple that they
trust a developer?

~~~
Razengan
I have to menu-click » "Open"

Telling your users to do that (+ any other steps if needed) might take less
effort than shaking pitchforks at Apple (though they're certainly deserving of
ire in other areas.)

~~~
stefano
Good luck with that if you have a non-technical user base. Gaining trust when
the first thing they see is a big warning telling them this software shouldn't
be trusted will also be really tough.

~~~
Razengan
You could do it all passive-aggressive like Krita:
[https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-
kri...](https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-krita/)

A developer who doesn't want to put any effort into gaining trust doesn't
sound like someone I should allow to run non-sandboxed code on my machine
anyway.

~~~
simple_phrases
A developer who doesn't want to pay $100/year and spend countless hours going
through Apple's arbitrary approval and notarization process, you mean.

~~~
Razengan
And so we reach the end of the for loop:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21506948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21506948)

:)

To reiterate: You don't _have_ to notarize, if your users trust you enough to
manually allow your app to run.

------
buboard
Developers have been worshiping mobile OSs for more than a decade. This is the
endgame, and don't say we haven't been warned about it. We 've been burned by
walled gardens way too many times to have an excuse. Phones are much less free
platforms than desktops. If developers desert phones, people will follow.

------
pier25
I've been in love with OSX/macOS since I switched during the Vista fiasco but
I feel it's a sinking ship these days.

I recently was looking to get a new machine for music production and ended up
building an Ryzen PC with Windows 10. It cost me the same as an i7 Mini but it
is many times more powerful, expandable, and silent. Thank god I moved away
from Logic years ago.

Windows is not as pleasant to use as macOS, but it's just as stable. A lot of
software seems to run better there (eg: Firefox, Chrome).

For dev work I will keep using my iMac and 2014 MBP with Mojave, at least for
the foreseeable future. Unless something dramatic happens at Apple I will most
likely end up moving to Windows or Linux in a couple of years when these
machines die.

------
asdkhadsj
Dumb question - as a dev on OSX (not yet migrated to Catalina), I compile and
run my own code all the time. I also install a ton of binaries, like the Rust
installation manager.

Would I see any issue here? I suspect everything I write or "install" via
curl/bash/etc will be fine. Eg, if it's a downloaded binary in my $PATH, I
expect it to continue to work.

So if that's the case.. why is Apple being so harsh about all of this? I feel
like malware will just move to curl scripts and all Apple succeeded at was
making normal Apps more difficult to develop.

I imagine some might argue that users will be _somewhat_ informed, and will
know not to run stuff in a Terminal. Cool.... but, how many times have we seen
non-technical folks run stuff in the Windows command prompt? They can be
walked through a malware installation process a thousand times over.

So is Apple going to lock the entire platform down? Are they going to limit my
ability to run binaries? My own and others? Because if they don't, this all
feels pointless. And if they do, i'l _be forced_ to switch to Linux.

I don't like you these days Apple. What is wrong with you.

~~~
dwaite
> So if that's the case.. why is Apple being so harsh about all of this? I
> feel like malware will just move to curl scripts and all Apple succeeded at
> was making normal Apps more difficult to develop.

The goal is to prevent users from running untrusted applications or mistrusted
applications like trojans. If you can convince the user to click through a
security warning or run commands from the terminal, then the user themselves
have taken responsibility for evaluating trust.

The current system does depend on the user having appropriate 'spidey sense'
to what the developer is asking them to do - the yardstick is a certain level
of informed consent. If malware driving the user through terminal prompts
becomes a significant user problem, that may unfortunately lead to the system
being locked down further.

FWIW, other more serious changes (such as disabling SIP) go beyond a terminal
command or requiring a password, to requiring you to reboot onto the rescue
partition. Here, they are requiring a much higher degree of informed user
consent.

------
madrox
I kind of blame UX and bad incentives for this. Most of these attempts at
curating installation all started as well intended means of keeping malware
out of the OS. If you think it’s bad today, you forgot what it was like 20
years ago.

However, the evolution of platform protection slowed down as it became clear
this was an amazing revenue generator. Incentives became blurred. A new type
of malware showed up aimed purely at collecting your data, and our protections
haven’t kept up, because that’s no longer the goal.

------
bcrosby95
Companies are in the business of making money. Once they find out they can
make more money by not supporting your use case, they will toss you to the
curb.

At this point, Apple does this by being a nearly completely consumer focused
company. If you aren't the average consumer, they are going to toss you to the
curb someday.

------
mariopt
Does the notarization licence covers the iOS store or do we need to buy both
licences?

~~~
threeseed
Notarization costs nothing.

But it's $99/year to be a part of the Apple Developer program which covers all
platforms.

~~~
SahAssar
It specifically says that "Software distribution outside the Mac App Store"
requires "Apple Developer Program" which costs 99 USD here:
[https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-
memberships/](https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/)

------
Terretta
This is both the most compelling and poetic argument in the article, and the
most wrong:

> _”Apple’s vision involves us constantly updating work, constantly adding to
> our games, constantly paying to exist here, even when some of this stuff is
> done. Often when a game is done, it’s done. Games aren’t a service. It’s
> like asking for a director to keep updating a movie, or for a musician to
> keep changing their song so it can keep running. Decisions like this erase
> our history.”_

On the contrary, you chose an ephemeral medium for your art. That choice, like
making sandcastles, has consequences.

------
msie
“I was looking into the requirements and I cannot afford $100 a year.“

I don’t understand how someone can’t afford a $100/year expense on something
related to their occupation.

~~~
Rebelgecko
If they pay the expense, will their income increase by more than $100 per
year? (not even counting the value of the hours it will take to notarize and
renotarize apps)

~~~
dkonofalski
There are no guarantees but, statistically, Mac and iOS users are far more
likely to make purchases than all their other counterparts combined.

------
madrox
I kind of blame UX for this. Most of these attempts at curating installation
all started as well intended means of keeping malware out of the OS. If you
think it’s bad today, you forgot what it was like 20 years ago.

However, the evolution of platform protection slowed down as it became clear
this was an amazing revenue generator. Incentives became blurred, and it’s why
you have so much malware on the App Store masquerading as casual games.

------
Svoka
So, I make game engine, Corona SDK. It is indie game engine. No issues with
notarizing occurred. I really don't understand what all the fuss is about:

* once notarized, always notarized. You don't have to continue to pay for old apps to work

* You can notarize old apps, same as new apps

* It is very easy. One command line command. That's that. There is also GUI wrapper for it, our user like. But in the end, it is very easy to do.

~~~
GrayShade
Sure, the article even links to a page describing the process:
[https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/notarizing-your-
flashair...](https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/notarizing-your-flashair-
applications-for-macos/).

------
dreamcompiler
Windows: Spies on you and shows you ads.

Apple: Censors and controls everything you do on your computer.

Linux: Neither of the above. It's your computer.

The choice seems clear to me.

------
asperous
One thing I don't see people talking about on here is.. html5. Probably the
greatest number of individual indie games are games made to be played in the
web browser.

It strikes me that as a developer if you can't afford $100 and just want to
make games, why not make them in the safety of the browser sandbox?

~~~
knolax
What if it's a graphically/resource intensive game that would necessitate
running it natively? Imagine trying to run an Unreal Engine equivalent in
webgl for example.

------
Ericson2314
Hehe, hopefully it's just more fodder for an anti-trust case 1-2 years from
now.

------
zackmorris
Apple has lost its way.

~~~
noisem4ker
Apple is exactly on its way, as it's always been. You've just been crushed
under its wagon.

------
kd3
Yeah, I'm never going to own any Apple crap with these kinds of policies. Pay
a crapload of money for a locked down product that you don't really seem to
own. No thanks.

------
derefr
As an indie software creator, consider that you likely don't have the
resources to be a _software publisher_ yourself.

Software publishing is a separate job, a separate comparative advantage, and
just because you want to be in ultimate control of your software doesn't mean
you can't delegate or contract out that job.

Depending on your size and your publisher's size, you might delegate any of
these responsibilities to them:

• their core responsibility: handling the jumping-through-hoops required by
each distributor/retailer (in these days these are the app stores) and doing
any ongoing liasing with them, leaving you free to just have your publisher as
a single point of contact

• doing any extra QA passes required to get your work accepted by each
distributor/retailer (and sending the bug-reports back to you)

• learning about changes in your software required to comply with the
distributor/retailer's policies, and either reporting them to you, _or_ fixing
them themselves, making each of their "ports" into a downstream of your
upstream codebase with their fixes living in it

• handling ongoing codebase changes required to evolve your code to comply
with minimum-runtime targets of each platform—in effect, giving them commit
access to your upstream codebase (though they _can_ do this as a downstream
fork, I wouldn't recommend it)

• porting your software to platforms that you can't afford to support yourself
(because e.g. the SDK is ridiculously expensive), creating separate "port"
forks of the codebase, or perhaps even entirely new codebases that just share
art assets

\---

If you're an indie shop, getting a publisher has always been a necessity to
sell on the more closed-down stores, like the console marketplaces.

Well, that onerous-ness is just becoming more universal.

That doesn't mean you're out of the market! It just means you have to take the
idea of acquiring a publisher more seriously.

And that doesn't mean that your publisher will bilk you out of most of your
profits, either. Especially in the Apple case, the fixed costs on the
publisher's part are pretty small, so development houses have a lot of
negotiation room. You might get away with just paying a publisher a fixed fee
to handle the glue-work.

Or, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, if you just want to "write
something then never touch it again", you could just sell your codebase as IP
_to_ the publisher, or make some arrangement where you keep the IP, they can
make whatever derivative products they like, and you get royalties on those.

------
scandox
Last time I used a MAC within 5 minutes it asked me for an F-ing credit card.
Why would anyone expect a platform that can do that to be anything but a
walled garden?

------
newnewpdro
Stop supporting walled gardens, this has been a long time coming. Protect your
rights, use free/libre software.

------
fortran77
One way may be to make distribute games as VM images that can "just work" in
VMWare or VirtualBox. Use one of those bare metal frameworks for .net that
just need a simple loader to start up. This will have the added advantage of
working on Mac or Windows or Linux with one binary. It's not that hard to boot
a vm that's ready to go.

~~~
derefr
Or, if you're a fan of the retro aesthetic, just develop "home-brew" games for
old consoles, and distribute (sell?) them as ROMs.

 _Everything_ can run e.g. GBA ROMs: your phone, your tablet, your modern
PC/Mac, your 20-year-old PC/Mac, your smart TV. Everything. They even run just
fine in web browsers through WASM emulators. Web browsers _on phones_. It's
kind of ridiculous.

Maybe, on Windows or whatever other arches you are a deft hand with, you can
package in a cute little customized emulator to wrap the ROM. (Use a GPLed
one; it won't be viral to your ROM.) But ensure you leave the ROM freestanding
in a directory for people to use as they wish, rather than hiding it inside
the executable. (And, maybe, offer a ROM-only version of the download as
well.) If you stop maintaining your installer, the emulator might stop
working, but the ROM itself never will.

------
droithomme
Apple's goal is obviously not security, nor is it to force things to work with
the latest version. The purpose is to break backwards compatibility of the
apps themselves. Make apps stop working on older versions of the OS. And the
OS isn't supported on hardware more than a few years old. So your software you
depend on breaks and requires an OS update and an OS update requires a
hardware update and a hardware update costs $2,000 if you're lucky and
12,000-$20,000 if you have a lot of peripherals like color laser printers and
scanners and audio converters that no longer have working drivers and the only
option is to buy a new one of each.

