Does Steve Jobs dislike the idea of gaming?

[Stellarola]

As a fairly recent Mac gamer who finds himself spoiled for choice - I mean, it usually takes months just to play through stuff (or as you put it "crap") like the "AoE" franchise, "Civilization", "Command & Conquer" games, etc. - I think yours is probably the best tongue-in-cheek comment on the thread so far. Great stuff!

Did you check out the Games section on Apple's site. Here's some of the games listed...

-Christmas Crisis

-Chocolate Castle

-Ozzy Bubbles

-DQ Tycoon

No, really....these are some of the many games on the Mac. Some of which are even considered "Staff Picks".

...You can't make this stuff up.

-Stell

 

[gregorsamsa]

No, really....these are some of the many games on the Mac. Some of which are even considered "Staff Picks".

...You can't make this stuff up.

Don't get me wrong, I want more quality games for OS X, but in fairness to Apple those casual games you link are from their downloads site. Their regular Mac gaming site still has some very impressive titles, but even there some big titles are missing. With Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 & some proper native ports (not Cider) of older & not-so-old PC classics coming this year from the likes of Feral, I think things could be worse.

As the Mac user base increases & more Macs get better video capability (the Mini should be next), I think more developers may well find it harder to ignore this market in future. FWIW, I've bought 11 games since buying a HD 2600 iMac last May. All are for OS X & I'll be buying more this year. Overall, I'm satisfied (but not overly so ) with gaming on the Mac, with Boot Camp catering for any must-have titles that haven't been ported yet.

 

[Stellarola]

Don't get me wrong, I want more quality games for OS X, but in fairness to Apple those casual games you link are from their downloads site. Their regular Mac gaming site still has some very impressive titles, but even there some big titles are missing. With Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 & some proper native ports (not Cider) of older & not-so-old PC classics coming this year from the likes of Feral, I think things could be worse.

As the Mac user base increases & more Macs get better video capability (the Mini should be next), I think more developers may well find it harder to ignore this market in future. FWIW, I've bought 11 games since buying a HD 2600 iMac last May. All are for OS X & I'll be buying more this year. Overall, I'm satisfied (but not overly so ) with gaming on the Mac, with Boot Camp catering for any must-have titles that haven't been ported yet.

I agree with you. It's funny though, I find that while Call of Duty 4 on the mac doesn't play as speedily as it does in Windows, I think it actually looks better using OpenGL than DirectX. Hopefully the good people at Blizzard will release an amazing version of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 this year. Don't let me down Blizzard!

-Stell

 

[pilotError]

I heard a rumor that Steve was muscled out of the Gaming business by two goons named Mario and Luigi. They threatened to send some monkey after him and squash him with a barrel if he didn't comply...

The simple fact is the Mac's don't have the graphics hardware or market penetration that PC's have. A game producer has a much broader audience creating games for XBox, PS3, Wii or PC. To make a good buck, they would have to ship to what??? 40% of the installed Mac market to be in the ballpark of their other platforms? I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon.

I'm pretty sure Apple is hoping that they'll have an iPhone halo effect and gain a few more game writers for the OS X platform since the programming is pretty close.

 

[gregorsamsa]

The simple fact is the Mac's don't have the graphics hardware or market penetration that PC's have. A game producer has a much broader audience creating games for XBox, PS3, Wii or PC. To make a good buck, they would have to ship to what??? 40% of the installed Mac market to be in the ballpark of their other platforms? I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon.

Another "simple fact" is that most PC games actually make very little money in an over-saturated market, which sees game prices fall quickly & sharply.

Though few Mac games sell over 100,000 (like for eg., Sims, AoE franchise), Mac developers still make good money on games selling even under 50,000. This is because porting code isn't as expensive & Mac game prices rarely fall by that much, with even 2nd-user sell-on prices still fetching good returns (check eBay prices).

 

[.Andy]

As soon as Steve finds a ways to control distribution through iTunes and take a 30% cut of profits I'm sure Apple will be on the bandwagon in a big way.

 

[boonlar]

Steve Jobs should do the DEVELOPERS dance on stage for the game devs