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Why game companies should support mac

X

Xuen

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 6, 2009
1
0
This is a post from wolfire's blog about why a company should support mac. I think they have a very persuasive message and was hoping to get that message out on the internet so we can get some more mac software!:apple:

http://blog.wolfire.com/2008/12/why-you-should-support-mac-os-x-and-linux/

I would appreciate if you would help spread this around in the hope that we can convince some of those many came companies and indie developers that mac OS X is a platform worth developing for! But if you decide to help out, try not to sell it as a paper on mac supremacy, instead just try to get people to read it. I am not trying to encourage misleading titles or links, just a softer approach.

(Note: I read the about thread and this seems like the place to post this link, but if I am wrong I would appreciate a push in the right direction.)
 
As I posted on that blog a few days back, I really wish the dev environment I used would let me simply make a port of my project to OSX without using Cider or whatever.
 
Not really a great read. The poster fails to acknowledge the effect of saturation in the OS X market. Sure, whilst there are so few games available for Mac, titles that are ignored on the PC get much larger exposure, but as the Mac platform becomes more saturated with developers churning out massively advertised, ultimately crap games, these smaller titles will once again fade into insignificance. But as he said, he is no economist. As an economist myself, I found that statement so obvious it didn't need to be spelled out.

Besides which, I'm not too interested in a slew of lazy-ass Cider ports of Windows .exe's being sold to me for £40 a pop. It sickens me that even aged titles like Civ IV are retailed for Mac at more than twice the price of the Windows equivalent that includes a number of expansion packs.
 
eXan said:
No, thank you. Windows is a pain to deal with.
Click to expand...

It is, but thankfully (IMO of course) the pain is limited to a few hours a year. But they're the most frustating of hours :D just last night my iMac (XP) crashed and I had to reinstall Bootcamp drivers because the keyboard app somehow got corrupted.
 
eXan said:
No, thank you. Windows is a pain to deal with.
Click to expand...

I keep a image of my windows install. When something goes south I fire up winclone reload good imge and I back to flying my flight sim. With windows or OS X it always pays to have a backup image of good install.
 
I think an iTunes App Store for Mac apps (particularly games, in this case) would do a world of good.

Without having to worry about distribution & sales/tax systems, game developers could just concentrate on developing quality games.

It obviously doesn't make the actual development of a game any easier (as the iPhone lowered the bar for Cocoa game developers), but I think it would still spur a lot of small gaming houses & (previously) shareware developers to get titles out for the Mac.
 
eXan said:
No, thank you. Windows is a pain to deal with.
Click to expand...

Not to discount any bad PC experiences you've had, but I launch Vista on my MBP for one reason- to play games, and within that narrow venue, I've had no real problems. I don't surf the net on Windows and I run System Suite 9 to keep Windows in line...
 
Antares said:
Except I would rather play natively in OSX rather than having to load up Windows, then load the game. I'd rather avoid Windows.
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The problem is lack of AAA selections in Mac native titles. Fallout 3, The Witcher, Crysis are just a few of many titles currently available via bootcamp.
 
Huntn said:
Not to discount any bad PC experiences you've had, but I launch Vista on my MBP for one reason- to play games, and within that narrow venue, I've had no real problems. I don't surf the net on Windows and I run System Suite 9 to keep Windows in line...
Click to expand...

Just wondering...how well does Vista run on your MBP?
 
Huntn said:
Not to discount any bad PC experiences you've had, but I launch Vista on my MBP for one reason- to play games, and within that narrow venue, I've had no real problems. I don't surf the net on Windows and I run System Suite 9 to keep Windows in line...
Click to expand...

I didn't have any serious issues with Windows, its just unpleasant for me to use it.

Also, the biggest PITA in BootCamp gaming is that I have to close everything I have open (usually its 7+ apps) and them reopening it when I'm back to OS X
 
Theophany said:
Besides which, I'm not too interested in a slew of lazy-ass Cider ports of Windows .exe's being sold to me for £40 a pop. It sickens me that even aged titles like Civ IV are retailed for Mac at more than twice the price of the Windows equivalent that includes a number of expansion packs.
Click to expand...

While I agree about "lazy-ass Cider ports", no doubt you'll appreciate that as long as Mac games do well to sell merely 50,000+, as opposed to 100s of thousands on PC, Mac games will remain relatively expensive. Then again, so is any sell-on fee (see eBay prices). With PC sales dipping in recent years, new titles continuing to lose value quickly due to piracy & an over-saturated PC games market, it may well be that in future more companies will be interested to follow Blizzard's policy of dual-format releases, or port more AAA titles to Mac (though I think we have a fair few as it is!). FWIW, I still choose OS X games where that option exists, rather than Boot Camp.
 
eXan said:
No, thank you. Windows is a pain to deal with.
Click to expand...

eXan said:
I didn't have any serious issues with Windows, its just unpleasant for me to use it.

Also, the biggest PITA in BootCamp gaming is that I have to close everything I have open (usually its 7+ apps) and them reopening it when I'm back to OS X
Click to expand...

Brillant. The biggest pain about Windows you have to deal with is because you have to close and re-open windows in OS X?

Why not just say that OS X is a pain to deal with because you aren't allowed to save your 'active OS X session' and restore it later on when you reboot (eg. FireFox; sleeping)? Or how OS X a pain because you can't play games with it?
 
meh.

just another retread if u ask me - haven't we done this before???

it's basic economics/operating system share - plus, frankly - how many gamers (of mac owners) do you ACTUALLY know vs the ones who like their macs for the 'lifestyle' (not that there's naything wrong with that, ok????) Like, they know what FPS is, what RTS/TBS is, and whatnot - it's the 'never-ending September' all over again, just in a microcosm for mac owners (long live usenet!)

personally, i'd rather Apple took the lead, with a co. like Blizzard, and made the PC 'killer game' that was a must-have cultural thing. WoW, notwithstanding...

They're starting to 'get it', what with the Nvidia cards, 8g RAM, etc - and hopefully Snow Leo will be even more game-friendly, but let's ALL stop wishing and hoping for a day that will not likely come in our lifetimes, and just starting asking Apple to help them kae some quality games.

Modders unite!
 
gregorsamsa said:
While I agree about "lazy-ass Cider ports", no doubt you'll appreciate that as long as Mac games do well to sell merely 50,000+, as opposed to 100s of thousands on PC, Mac games will remain relatively expensive.
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Not really, if it's a Cider port there is minimal extra work required to alter the original Windows game. Thus, the Windows format should effectively subsidise the Mac title, meaning there is absolutely no reason that ported games should retain ridiculous RRPs.
 
Theophany said:
Not really, if it's a Cider port there is minimal extra work required to alter the original Windows game. Thus, the Windows format should effectively subsidise the Mac title, meaning there is absolutely no reason that ported games should retain ridiculous RRPs.
Click to expand...

hear hear! i concur.
 
I really wish there were more game titles ported over to Mac.... I think they just work better and with more mac users..you would think it would be a no brainer...oh well, Have to keep my bootcamp until things change
 
leishan said:
Just wondering...how well does Vista run on your MBP?
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert on Vista (32bit) but I have no issues with it besides it being crappy Windows. :D Seriously my understanding based on what I've read is that you need to have at least 2GB RAM to overcome it's overhead and allow a game to run properly. I have 4GB RAM. It plays Crysis at about 20 FPS which is pretty good considering they designed Crysis for a computer built 5 years from now. ;) I run System Suite 9 (a utility suite) which seems to keep it honest.
 
eXan said:
I didn't have any serious issues with Windows, its just unpleasant for me to use it.

Also, the biggest PITA in BootCamp gaming is that I have to close everything I have open (usually its 7+ apps) and them reopening it when I'm back to OS X
Click to expand...

You run 7 apps at once? That seems a little high compared to the average bear... ;)
 
It's my understanding that it's Apple that isn't supporting game developers, not the other way around.

Besides, if you want to dick around playing games then get a console. Don't waste a great computer on WoW. :p
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Besides, if you want to dick around playing games then get a console. Don't waste a great computer on WoW. :p
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Console games suck. OK, that's overstating it, but that attitude sucks--there are lots of games that are worse or downright terrible on consoles, and are much better on computers, like strategy, adventure, RPGs, and shooters, which happen to be the kind I like most anyway. And more people play on computers compared to consoles, so next time this topic comes up and somebody thinks about saying "get a console", kindly do not. Thank you.

--Eric
 
There's alot of benefit to console gaming. A console's usable lifespan on the large part greatly exceeds that of a gaming computer, online play is more consistent, and its more friendly to a wider spectrum of the audience. Its far easier for a parent to monitor whats going on in a child's console game than a computer game, and grandma doesn't want to play your PC games but she loves casual stuff on the Wii. Are there more PC gamers? Yeah. They're playing Bejeweled and Lumines, Scrabble clones and Sudoku. Your average "PC gamer" is at work or home and plays to relax and take a break.
 
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