Want success with "developers friendly" tools? Try to make a business of using Khronos APIs in GNU/Linux games.
Ask Loki how well did it go.
As for Vulkan it is just the same design by committee extension spaghetti soup that killed OpenGL, just with even more boilerplate.
I don't buy that Vulkan is not a first-class choice for graphics. To the extent that it has issues, it's only because of (developer hostile) lack of support from major software vendors.
Now that Microsoft owns Doom, let's see how long it holds its Vulkan implementation.
> skohan: failing to support open standards is not developer friendly
> pjmlp: closed standards are developer friendly, because Vulkan is inadequate.
> skohan: Vulkan is provably adequate
> pjmlp: Microsoft will use its cash advantage to prevent the successful use of open standards, and is therefore developer friendly???
They create a narrow space where it's possible to make money developing for their platform, but there's a huge risk that:
a) they will make a decision which makes your product no longer viable, or
b) they will decide to replicate your product as a 1st party offering and render you redundant (e.g. tile)
Adopting open standards like Vulkan would be the single best thing they could do to support games on their platform. Games are extremely high-investment, and having to develop against a second back-end like Metal is a perfect reason not to support a platform.
Apple's friendly to developers as long as they are willing to stay on the reservation, but there is no reward for doing so.