RPG Maker Forums

EDITORIAL NOTICE: I originally posted this as a conversation-starting piece regarding the sunset of x86 apps on macOS Catalina and the resulting impact on RPG Maker MV and projects developed with it. Since then I have also been receiving several other reminders pertinent to the situation (including documented impacts from the recent removal of OpenGL) and have edited this post to accommodate these and other impacts which have resulted in the unfortunate change of my position relative to the situation by which I now recommend the immediate deprioritization and/or a full and complete platform support sunset for RPG Maker MV relative to the macOS platform at the discretion of Kadokawa officials (take a pick really, considering the situation).

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:
It has come to my attention that Apple no longer allows for the distribution of apps based on either OpenGL and/or 32-bit processor architectures, which by consequence is system enforced beginning with macOS Catalina (such that affected apps will not function properly, and may possibly not be able to run at all). There are some important takeaways from this for which MV developers should take note:

1. Because MV relies on the Steam framework to authenticate macOS customers, any update to MV that accommodates a 64-bit mandate would likely come with the requirement to sunset the provision of rollback options offered through the Steam beta participation interface, which would negatively impact projects that cannot make use of newer versions of MV because of design and/or functional limitations (such as for plugin compatibility issues).
2. Use of the App store or Apple software update tool for model year 2012 or newer will terminate the ability to launch MV if updates requiring macOS Catalina or later are installed.
3. Current deployments would have to be completely redone for macOS which is not easy compared to Windows. This means that not only does MV need to be patched but also the nwjs redistributable.
4. The recent support sunset of OpenGL relative to the nature of the macOS platform has also had a negative impact on several MV capabilities and/or plugins.
5. Did I already mention x64-only in the latest Apple developer agreements and its enforcement on macOS Catalina? This also impacts the feasibility and capacity for developing with MV on the Mac platform in general.

It has also come to my attention since the initial posting that support for macOS is being subject to tentative removal until further notice due to the nature of the situation. It is also possible because of these impacts that serious possibilities may arise by which Kadokawa may no longer be able to consider the Mac platform as a priority (and for obvious reasons due to the resulting changes in approval guidelines, support capacity and code structure that would be required in order to maintain compliance with the Apple software developer agreement). As a result of these developments I would suggest the macOS version of RPG Maker MV to be considered as functionally-deprecated unless otherwise communicated by Kadokawa, and therefore recommend that it be retired from active development use (and possibly considered for subjection to a full and complete support sunset process at the discretion of Kadokawa developers if warranted by the nature of the situation). Obviously this will be difficult to accept for some of us, however the unfortunate reality is that because of these impacts the use of macOS for active development of MV projects will be difficult or impossible to guarantee in the future as a result of these changes.