Are there technical limitations with older DOS games (e.g., Might & Magic) that prevent them from running in DOS VMs on a Mac? Did some DOS games require machine-specific hardware that cannot be replicated in DOS VMs on Macs?

Just curious ... I don't have time to play all the Mac ports I've already bought.

I think it's just legal reasons, not technical.

You can use WINE to run the installers (assuming you have an Intel mac, not a PowerPC one), and then run the game with a native install of DOSBox. I have played some of the Might & Magic games on Linux this way.

I don’t know a lot about legal limitations, but what’s obvious is the way to push GOG to publish more games for Mac OS: don’t buy a game here if it comes without official Mac OS support ;)

More to the point of technical limitations: as far as I know most, if not all, DOS games should be able to run through DOSBox (or ScummVM for a small selection of them), even if they are advertised here as Windows-only games.

It's legal reasons. Apple likes exclusivity. Just look at the App Store.

I don’t think games releases for Mac OS are linked to Apple in any way, it’s more tied to the editor of said games. Hey, why would Apple try to limit the software pool its OS can run? ;)

Honestly, I wouldn't put it past them.

That’s taking it a bit far in my opinion ;)
Apple is evil, not stupid.

Wouldn't put that past 'em, either.

Point taken XD

Well, since I use Mac I won't buy a game without support for Mac OS ;-) That's funny. In 1986, when I first started using Apple computers, they just made neat computers. Then Microsoft came alone and in the 1990s-2010s it was Microsoft that was evil and Apple was the underdog (remember the 1984 commercial targeting IBM?). Now Apple is successful and they are evil.

1. Legal reasons.
2. The fact that for several decades, many games were indeed ported to Mac, but on an entirely different architecture. You'd either have to emulate (difficult and slow) or reverse engineer (even more difficult and legally questionable.)
3. El Capitan changed the rulebook. Again.

"Legal reasons" can only mean that the publisher is against Mac versions. Why would a publisher be against selling on more platforms?

Ask Bethesda.

When the Fallout games were published by Interplay, there was an OS X release (first the OS X release of Fallout used the DOS version through DOSBox, then it was replaced with the Windows version through Wine when GOG got that working - because the old 68k/PowerPC System 7 version is hell of a lot more difficult to get running on today's macs than the Windows and DOS versions are), but since Bethesda took over there's just the Windows release (people who bought the games before still have the "Classic" releases with OS X as a supported platform).

So, go back to 2015 for a little while. GOG have already done the work required to get it running on OS X, and even had a release up under Interplay two years prior, thus Bethesda doesn't have to do shit except sign an agreement that the games are to be released for OS X as well as Windows. Yet Bethesda says "nope, those mactards can go fuck themselves" or something to that effect, maybe not those exact words.

Probably just legal rights issues and manpower prioritization. I suppose there is also more support overhead to consider also for supporting DOSbox or some other VM on another operating system and the manpower for that as well. Then there's the matter of whether the publisher wants to support the Mac and the support issues it might put on them as well.