Developing Windows only plugins

[perpetual3]

The race to the bottom is another topic. It has nothing to do with the OSs a dev wants to support.

If you are ignoring the portion of the market with the reputation for paying decent money on software, then by implication you are only serving the market which does not. “Prices which are two low” on products in a saturated and competitive market lead to a race to the bottom as competitors lower prices to attract new customers.

What are you talking about? The synths I got for 1$ (by AIR) are all Windows/mac compatible. Most plugins out there are Windows/mac compatible and yet you can get them at very low prices on sites like VSTBuzz. If there's one person to blame for the race to the bottom, it's the guy behind VSTBuzz who do bi-monthly "no-brainer" sales. But like I said, it's another topic. I think the link between Windows users and race to the blame is very weak.

I think I’ve made my argument pretty clear. Certainly, the massive sales have also devalued the market as a whole. Perhaps more people are producing music than the past, and market dynamics dictates that selling more volume for a lower price is more profitable. I’m speculating here, I don’t know.

But perhaps it’s best to ask why those sales exist, and what are the primary causes. Again, I don’t know and I could speculate, but as Richard from Synapse says, it’s not the Mac users who are predominantly using wares.

[perpetual3]

But since you asked: I’m graduate student working on intelligent systems. In addition to finishing my thesis, I have two jobs in the industry, one with a Fortune 500 company. Not that any of that necessarily has anything to do with the validity of my argument, but I’m coding pretty much all day. If not that, I’m looking at equations and researching.

So you're not an audio plugin dev. My question is to them not you since you don't have direct access to the data to answer it.

Fair enough, man. Seems two developers seem to agree with me, so perhaps you can rely on their authority.

[syntonica]

I'm down to the same VST 2 code base for both Mac (where I started) and PC, except for a class file for each to handle the editor and native drawing. The only issue on Mac is with Catalina and newer, due to all the secret handshakes you now have to go through, which I just haven't bothered with yet, along with learning VST 3 and AU.

Frankly, all the Mac bashing around here is tiring. I hear devs complaining that Carbon was finally killed off. Not like they weren't told to move to Cocoa, oh, when OSX 10.0 came out. It was supposed to get killed off after 10.4, about 15 years ago. Basically, Apple tells you what's changing and what's being deprecated well before it happens. They also fix bugs in their frameworks, and if you inadvertently rely on one of these bugs... (I've been caught out more than once on this one! )

To the OP, if you want to make money, then a Mac version is probably necessary. Mac users are at least 20% of the pie, and are probably far more numerous. Yeah, some Mac users are a pain in the ass, but they're artists/musicians, not super computer users, like many Windows users tend to become (out of necessity...) Have good FAQs available and you should be good to go. (And by frequently, I mean if one person asks it, turn it into an FAQ.) Get your PC version up and running, debugged and released. Then, you can worry about Mac versions if you are not using a universal framework. There's no rule that they need to be released simultaneously.

[EvilDragon]

like many Windows users tend to become (out of necessity...)

Man, what do we say about Linux users then?

I can say for myself it wasn't a necessity, it was more genuine curiosity about how things worked, so you pick up all these curious things about registry, policies, services, etc...

[machinesworking]

Yep, that is an important point. Also I don't know a single Mac user who is into warez. Ultimately that means the number of Mac users is much higher than what looking at Apple's market share would suggest.

Richard

This assumes warez users would buy the software if they had to instead of stealing it. The number of possible customers I think exponentially goes down if you factor in people who wouldn't pay if they had to. I'm not a developer and I know it's painful but keeping this in mind, that the amount of professionals using warez is much lower than they think. By professional I mean someone who would be a customer, who actively writes music and releases it, not someone who makes a living off of music alone etc.

[AndyMusician]

Frankly, all the Mac bashing around here is tiring. I hear devs complaining that Carbon was finally killed off. Not like they weren't told to move to Cocoa, oh, when OSX 10.0 came out. It was supposed to get killed off after 10.4, about 15 years ago. Basically, Apple tells you what's changing and what's being deprecated well before it happens. They also fix bugs in their frameworks, and if you inadvertently rely on one of these bugs... (I've been caught out more than once on this one! )

I can run Neon, one of the first VST plugin, on Windows 10 without any problems. I wish I could do the same on a Mac.

Recently, OZ-Soft released Genesis Pro, and there's plenty of people asking for a Mac version as if the dev own it to them.

If there's a Chinese restaurant across the street and they don't serve burgers, I won't go and ask them for a burger every week or every month. Yet, you see this type of behavior coming from Mac users all the time. For me, it's entitlement: the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

In any case, the topic of the thread is about making a living off Windows only plugins. If it turns out into a PC vs Mac thread I'll close it as it'll be a waste of time for everyone.

[syntonica]

Man, what do we say about Linux users then?

Masochists?

I'm speaking of those weirdos who use computers as tools, merely means to an end. Not us normal people who like to dress up our computers in hot pants and other perfectly normal human-silicon pursuits.

[syntonica]

In any case, the topic of the thread is about making a living off Windows only plugins. If it turns out into a PC vs Mac thread I'll close it as it'll be a waste of time for everyone.

I think you made it a PC vs Mac thread by the very nature of your question!

Apple is not known for their desire to maintain backward compatibility. They are more on the forefront, herding cats towards a future of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism™. I think they made a mistake by not creating a virtualization software to run older softwares, although this wouldn't help plugins.

Most PC-only software has a FAQ that reads:
Q: Will there be a Mac version?
A: Aww, hell no!
Any Mac user suffering from entitlement issues should get the message.

Frankly, there's a number of softwares out there where the Mac version is buggy and feels more like an afterthought than an actual attempt at making a good plugin. When I email regarding said bugs, with screen shots and documentation, they suddenly circle the wagons and start shooting. Needless to say, I haven't purchased those softwares at all.

So, from my point of view, you do what makes sense to you. A good Mac showing will definitely give you a bumped in income, but at some actual extra effort. Only you can determine if that effort is worth the income.

This issue has been discussed in other threads with the participation of some heavy hitters regarding their opinions on offering Mac solutions or not. A little searching should find them.

[Soundplex]

Assuming you're a one-man-show, you can of course live from making Windows plugins only. Pressure that comes from other sides to port your software is something you can choose to ignore. It's your business, not theirs. I also think it's an easier step to first concentrate on one platform. You'll see there's enough work to do there and enough support to give for the Windows user base alone. Using the time to develop and release (rather good and detailed) Windows only plugins can buy you a timeframe for later OS ports too. I think do what comes to your mind. If your first thought was "oh no, not Apple" then don't do it I'd also like to mention that another OS like Apple is an investment you have to do first (hardware, notarization, dev-account, DAWs, ...). Something you can save yourself from in the beginning.

[AndyMusician]

This issue has been discussed in other threads with the participation of some heavy hitters regarding their opinions on offering Mac solutions or not. A little searching should find them.

Can you point me to some of these threads? I'm not sure if it has been discussed within other threads that ran off-topic or if it's actual threads about releasing Windows only plugins.

[mystran]

Whether you choose to develop for a single platform or several, I highly recommend you still hide all the low-level platform details into a platform wrapper or use some portable toolkit. Not only does this allow you to write more wrappers for more platforms later if your initial choices turn out to be wrong, it also generally tends to make your higher-level code a lot cleaner.

Then if you choose to only support Windows right now, you still have the option to support whatever other platform in the future if it starts to look like a good idea later.

[wrl]

Whether you choose to develop for a single platform or several, I highly recommend you still hide all the low-level platform details into a platform wrapper or use some portable toolkit. Not only does this allow you to write more wrappers for more platforms later if your initial choices turn out to be wrong, it also generally tends to make your higher-level code a lot cleaner.

Then if you choose to only support Windows right now, you still have the option to support whatever other platform in the future if it starts to look like a good idea later.

Seconding this in a big way. Even if you don't have an immediate plan to port to other OSes, if you opt to use libraries or abstractions that are at least somewhat platform agnostic then you'll be in a better place. For example, using openGL or Skia instead of Direct2D, separating out your platform-level event handling from your inner application code... relatively standard platform-at-the-perimeter/no-platform-in-the-core distinction.

Anecdotally, my Linux platform backend has so far required the least amount of ongoing maintenance, followed by Windows (which has a boneheaded HiDPI situation), and then macOS is way out in front, requiring fairly regular maintenance as Apple releases new OSes. I certainly wouldn't have picked Linux for "most stable platform," but, hey, here we are.

[kippertoffee]

Not us normal people who like to dress up our computers in hot pants and other perfectly normal human-silicon pursuits.

Post of the year

[Lind0n]

This issue has been discussed in other threads with the participation of some heavy hitters regarding their opinions on offering Mac solutions or not. A little searching should find them.

Can you point me to some of these threads? I'm not sure if it has been discussed within other threads that ran off-topic or if it's actual threads about releasing Windows only plugins.

Start HEre: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=531663
Then go here..:viewtopic.php?f=33&t=552147

[Urs]

I can run Neon, one of the first VST plugin, on Windows 10 without any problems. I wish I could do the same on a Mac.

This is an argument for Mac development, not against it.