Nat Brown leaves Apple.

Jimmyjames

Jimmyjames

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I just discovered that Nat Brown @natbro on various social media networks, has left Apple. A real shame as he was the main person pushing various aspects of the move to improve gaming on Apple platforms. He was instrumental in game controller improvements, GPTK, Game Mode etc. While it’s relatively straightforward to find good engineers, his statement about “pushing this particular rock" doesn’t fill me with confidence about gaming on the Mac.

I feel quite sad about this.
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Cmaier said:
someone left apple.

apple is doomed.
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They’re not doomed, but the message from his post is that he found it very hard work to advocate for gaming changes. As someone who doesn’t want to have to use more than one platform, it’s frustrating how little progress has been made. He championed more improvements in his time there, than everyone else.

So while Apple isn’t doomed, gaming on Apple devices might be. In terms of AAA games at least.
 
Yeah, this is one problem with large tech companies on the scale of Apple/MS/Amazon. Inertia gets to be a right pain. It’s easy to keep on a direction/vision that’s working or the org agrees is the way forward, but if you need to correct the ship in some way for a specific goal and the org just doesn’t prioritize that goal, it can feel Sisyphean.

I’m looking around for my next project at the moment in part of dealing with this myself. I was brought in to my current team for an effort that got defunded within a couple months, and it’s clear that the priorities of the org, and my expertise don’t align and it’s meant dealing with burnout for the first time in my career.
 
This quote from an Andrew Tsai stream doesn’t fill me with joy.
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Edit. There’s a lot more. And it’s pretty devastating. For me at least. I’ll add more quotes later.
video here with chat replay.
 
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More comments. Apologies for the messy nature of it. It was difficult to get the screenshots in time and the chat has gone now. Hopefully it makes some sense. He said he is pessimistic but not fatalistic.
The experience of trying to get gaming progress was very difficult it seems. They have no interest in a Proton like solution and no market to demand native games. Mac users simply dont buy games. It seems like belief has drained out of those involved. Very sad for someone like me who cannot or will not have multiple computers or consoles. I want one device which covers all bases. I have to give up that dream or give up using a Mac.
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In relation to the argument that increasing numbers of Macs will help

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casperes1996 said:
Arranging for Nat to be a guest on my podcast. Preparing interview questions if anybody wants me to ask anything in particular. If it’s allowed I’ll gladly link the episode when we release it.
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you have a podcast?
 
casperes1996 said:
Arranging for Nat to be a guest on my podcast. Preparing interview questions if anybody wants me to ask anything in particular. If it’s allowed I’ll gladly link the episode when we release it.
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That’s great! As I said previously, I enjoy your podcast.

I wonder how much he will be willing or able to talk. I would love him to elaborate on his views of just where he believes Mac gaming stands. With games like CP2077 and AC Shadows coming, I’d have thought we were in a reasonable position. It seems he feels differently.

What needs to happen to improve things for Mac gaming?
What would he have done but was unable to?
What is he most proud of while at Apple?
What can the Mac gaming community do (if anything) to help?

Less likely to answer, but I am very curious to know if Apple is paying for these ports or not?

I understand you may not be able to ask these questions so no pressure. It will interesting to hear him in any case. Any idea when it will happen?
 
Cmaier said:
you have a podcast?
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Me and a couple other people. Tends to mostly be Jon and me on the show these days but we're technically 5 people in total.

MacGameCast
Jimmyjames said:
That’s great! As I said previously, I enjoy your podcast.

I wonder how much he will be willing or able to talk. I would love him to elaborate on his views of just where he believes Mac gaming stands. With games like CP2077 and AC Shadows coming, I’d have thought we were in a reasonable position. It seems he feels differently.

What needs to happen to improve things for Mac gaming?
What would he have done but was unable to?
What is he most proud of while at Apple?
What can the Mac gaming community do (if anything) to help?

Less likely to answer, but I am very curious to know if Apple is paying for these ports or not?

I understand you may not be able to ask these questions so no pressure. It will interesting to hear him in any case. Any idea when it will happen?
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There will naturally be things he can't answer. I told him I'd give him a list of questions in advance although more could pop up as we think of it on the show and he should just feel free to reject answering whatever he can't, but he said he can talk about most things at this point as things are publicly out.
Will definitely touch on some of these subjects
 
casperes1996 said:
Me and a couple other people. Tends to mostly be Jon and me on the show these days but we're technically 5 people in total.

MacGameCast

There will naturally be things he can't answer. I told him I'd give him a list of questions in advance although more could pop up as we think of it on the show and he should just feel free to reject answering whatever he can't, but he said he can talk about most things at this point as things are publicly out.
Will definitely touch on some of these subjects
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Awesome. Really looking forward to it. I’d also be interested in your views on these topics if you have time here.
 
casperes1996 said:
Me and a couple other people. Tends to mostly be Jon and me on the show these days but we're technically 5 people in total.

MacGameCast

There will naturally be things he can't answer. I told him I'd give him a list of questions in advance although more could pop up as we think of it on the show and he should just feel free to reject answering whatever he can't, but he said he can talk about most things at this point as things are publicly out.
Will definitely touch on some of these subjects
Click to expand...
Definitely let us know when the podcast comes out. I don’t usually listen to podcasts but I’d like to hear this one!
 
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