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Mac Version Of Halo Exemplifies Piracy Problem?
An anonymous reader writes "MacSoft takes popular games and ports them to the Macintosh for all the Mac users to enjoy, but according to a TwinCities.com article, apparently there are far more users pirating Mac Halo than actually buying it A MacSoft spokesman 'didn't release sales figures [for Halo] but said illegal downloads number at least in the hundreds of thousands.'" The article uses this specific game to discuss how PC and Mac publishers are "...making gamers enter special codes, authenticate themselves online and jump through more hoops." It ends by describing the pain of the developer in seeing their title pirated: "It was a dagger in the hearts of guys who worked 12 to 14 hours a day [on Halo]... We're on an emotional high, and it all comes crashing down."
I have not downloaded Halo (mostly because there's not a snowballs chance in hell it'll run on my iBook 700), but my friend did. He has a TiBook 1Ghz, and it runs EXTREMELY slow. He had to put it on the lowest resolution possible to even make it playable. But even then the game slows to a halt when there's any kind of action going on... Needless to say he quickly deleted it.
Now come on, this computer is less than a year old and yet it wont play a game that was made a few years ago. I wonder if it'll even run on the latest G4 desktops (I'm sure it flies on the G5). This is pretty unacceptable in my opinion.
I'm willing to bet that a lot of people were in the same boat as my friend: pirated it to try it and found out it ran as slow as molasses - then quickly deleted it.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
I have to admit I will never buy Halo on the Mac. Why? Well, I own it on the PC already. My Wintendo will always be my main computer box, since it does games better then my Powerbook. But, I personally enjoy a game of Warcraft 3 every once in a while on the road, so I pop in the same copy of the game I only had to buy once to play it on either my Powerbook or Wintendo desktop.
Use this same argument for Linux too. Many gamers see no reason to buy a Linux only version of a game over a Windows version. But a ton enjoy the fact that the Windows Quake disk also allows Linux play.
Macsoft also has the problem of not ensuring they keep up with patches. By what I understand, no Mac user could play online with a PC user for a while after release. Thats a bad thing for sure.
I get a pirated copy of every game first (with the exception of Bioware titles). There is no way in hell I'm buying a $50 game that won't run and cannot be returned. I'll waste the $0.25 on a blank and then see if it's worth buying.
Maybe if MacSoft worked closer with the development studios to get the titles out within a month or so of the PC release they'd sell more. When you have to wait 1-2 years for a game that is in the PC bargin bin for $9.99, most people will just pirate it since the perceived value isn't there.
For example, Neverwinter Nights. It was supposedly getting released for Linux, PC and Mac in the same packaging at the same time. Reality: 1+ years later, no expansion packs and it doesn't have the Aurora Toolkit and it's $50. The PC version is $30 with the first expansion (gold version) and toolkit included.
If you want to play games get a PC. Until Mac releases are timely I won't buy any.
So the appropriate answer to Mac Halo's problems is a free and open beta test and/or "shareware" release, ala Doom, Quake, etc. Give people the engine and a couple of levels, and maybe multiplayer play and see what happens?
Now that I think about it, I wonder if id will do that for Doom III.
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Also, I wouldn't have expected any laptop made a year ago to support games released recently. That's the nature of the machine, unfortunately, as far as laptops go, unless they're one of those hacked-together beasts that use desktop components.
</MINIRANT>
Michael C. Hollinger
Heck- it's cheaper to buy a PC clone at $400+ than to try to get Halo to run well on a Mac.
I have a 17" iMac G4/800 with 1GB of ram- this system will not upgrade "officially" much beyond this configuration. This system is 14 months old. It will not run any of the FPS PC ports from the past 2 years with an acceptible frame rate (including Wolfenstien, Jedi Knight II, and No One Lives For Ever.). I am not complaining about the inevitable obsolecence- it's the price curv between x86 hardware and Apple's.
There is clearly a lot of polish and pazaz that goes into Mac systems. There is some bleeding edge risks too. There is, even with budget macs, no way to compare their performacne to PC counterparts at half the price. x86 beats the Mac hands down in budget power.
While MacPlay and similar companies make bank on game-desperate mac owners trying to keep up with the PC market, it's disgusting to me. I bought NOLF for $49 when the PC version was $20 and the sequel, NOLF2, was $39 (and most retailers bundled the original in for free with NOLF2).
I am done investing in Mac games. I'd rather put the budget towards Linux x86 as a gaming platform where many development houses are doing parallel development on Win32 and Linux instead of porting. It may lack polish, but at least I'd get more from my hardware investment.
I don't condone the raping of intellectual property- but just the same, in NY state it's practically impossible to return software. At $50 a title, the gamble is too high on the Mac platform. I'd rather go without or choose a platform alternative.
I am fortunate in that I have an Xbox, Linux and Win32 hosts here to kick around with. I find that I do most of my gaming these days (as little as I can game these days) on the Xbox. I can rent titles before I buy them to see that I am getting what I expect. I just drop in the disk, fire up XBOX live, and embarass myself publicly. On Win32 or Linux I spent more time updating drivers and other code and tweaking the system than actually gaming. The console (xbox, ps2, whaterver) just smokes the Mac for most action games, and it's hard to say that the Mac has more variety than today's consoles for most game genres.
How have these guys measured this? downlading stuff off bit torrent you rarely get more than 20 seeds. How many files have you grabbed from kazaa that have more than 10 other clients they are downloading from? Seeing as there are loads of p2p networks, how have Macsoft come to the conculustion that "hundreds of thousands" of illegal downloads have occurred.
lots of comments here mention how the Mac version is buggy, slow and people resent buying the game after bungie sold out to Microsoft. Perhaps (in true RIAA style), Macsoft are blaming poor sales on p2p networks as opposed to poor product.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
its seems possible that at least one member of the Halo team, or someone close to them, is actually celebrating this - because somebody with access to the PC version pirated it and put it on the web something like nine days before the official release.
--- Bwah?
The thing is, some of us are not debating Mac vs. something else for gaming.
I bought a Dual 2GHz G5 with a Radeon 9800 Pro and 1GB of RAM. I did not buy it to play games, but to do work at which the Macintosh excels (Java development, video editing, etc). However, since I have such a spiffy Mac, why not play games on it?
For this reason, I buy Mac games, because I have a Mac and I don't have a console. I don't really need a console though -- I have a great gaming machine in the Mac. I could buy a console, or a cheap PC, and play games on them, but why? The Mac has all the good games now, or at least enough to keep me busy. My games folder contains:
Aliens vs. Predator II
4x4 Evolution 2
Wolfenstein
UT 2003
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
Tiger Woods 2003
Soldier of Fortune II
Myth II
Medal of Honor
Max Payne
MacMAME
Jedi Knight II
Jedi Academy
Halo
Quake3
OIDS.X
No One Lives Forever
Myth TFL
America's Army
Fallout 2
Giants
There are a dozen others that I will buy when I tire of these. What more does a casual gamer need?
- Vincit qui patitur.
The game runs like hell and half of the features don't even work. The gamepad support is "coming", the multiplayer crashes my machine and the game with all the details turned down at 640x480 resolution runs on my 933MHz iBook like I'd expect Half-Life 2 to run on a 286 with all the features turned on.
I've played better looking games on my iBook that ran a lot smoother. If the game started out on a Mac, why did macsoft have to port it anyway?
I have a 17" iMac G4/800 with 1GB of ram- this system will not upgrade "officially" much beyond this configuration. This system is 14 months old. It will not run any of the FPS PC ports from the past 2 years with an acceptible frame rate (including Wolfenstien, Jedi Knight II, and No One Lives For Ever.). I am not complaining about the inevitable obsolecence- it's the price curv between x86 hardware and Apple's.
I call bull. While I upgraded last fall to a Dual 2 GHz G5 with a Radeon 9800, before that I gamed constantly on my 450 MHz G4 Cube with a Rage 128. One of the games I played the most was Jedi Knight II, and my Cube handled it easily. I also played Ghost Recon extensively, and rarely would I run into having too low frame rates. Sure you won't be able to play them with graphics settings at the highest, but a year+ old iMac is not meant to be an awesome gaming machine.
From the perspective of someone who creates and sells small games for a living, I'd pooh-pooh most arguments legitimizing the act of piracy.
1. If the game "isn't worth buying," don't pirate it, spend 30 hours playing through the whole thing, and claim that you "wouldn't have bought it, anyway."
2. If you want to try the game out before buying, don't pirate it; play the demo.
3. If there's no demo, and you don't trust the developer enough to buy the game, sight-unseen, don't buy it. The developer doesn't deserve your money, but neither do you deserve to own a copy of their game.
4. Copy protection schemes that prevent you from playing the game you paid for are inexcusable. If the copy protection detracts from the game, tell the developer why you're not going to buy from them again. Don't pirate the game; piracy will only make future copy protection schemes worse for legitimate users.
Recently, a young man from the UK e-mailed us, requesting a free copy of one of our games, citing that he could not possibly buy it. Later, he e-mailed us asking for tech support on the full version. Is this audacious, or simply stupid?
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
So fuck to game companies that insist on adding copy protections that only harass the paying public. Why should I pay for a crippled product when I can get the uncrippled version free? OFP is a case in point I own it and all the extensions legally but had to download it because I lost the key. FUCK YOU codemasters.
Next time I will just save myself the bother okay? Don't believe the copy protection is crippled? Look at the size difference between the official game.exe and the nocd.exe.
As for the hardworking developers.
Hidden & Dangerous, are we ever going to get a working patch? Should I just consider downloading the sequel for free as the patch perhaps?
Mafia, what on earth possesed them to take a year to release a patch to fix a lot of issues including in a driving game not supporting logitech force feedback wheels properly.
Keep screwing us with badly tested games and idiotic copy protection and we will revolt.
Imagine if you went into a supermarket and at the checkout they stripsearched everybody. People who just walk out without paying go through unhindered. Idiotic? That is what copy protection is doing. Games are ripped before they are in the shops.
Only mmorpgs seem somewhat safe although there of the more popular ones "illegal" servers where you can play free.
Worse yet are game companies that release a game months later in some parts of the world. I seen games available on the net months before they appear in the shop (no not halflife2). Even the movie industry is learning that staggered releases are a stupid thing. In computer game land it borders on suicide.
I used to buy my games but I have felt increasinly that I was being treated like an idiot and a criminal. Well now I am a criminal. Happy?
Oh and anyone else notice that while CD's are cheaper then floppies and game manuals are a thing of the past and the market for games has increased the price of games has gone up? I also seem to remmeber being able to finish most games without having to patch them. Must be old age messing with my mind.
Oh and for a really old poor copy protection. One of the sequels to elite stopped the game every so often and required you to find a word on a page. The catch? If was a lot easier to use a cheat sheet then to use your manual to find the word. Of course pirates had a hacked exe and were never bothered at all. SMART MOVE.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I have to admit... I've downloaded a copy of Halo just because I read the performance requirements were SO steep that I didn't want to shell out half-a-hundred bucks just to get a game I couldn't play. I'm glad I did.... My Dual G4/450 with my Radeon 9000 Pro card gets a whopping 8 FPS. How could MacSoft, Westlake or any of those guys make a game that doesn't take advantage of dual processors in dual proc systems? That's complete nonsense to me. No thanks... I'll keep playing it on my Xbox. I deleted it off my mac and tossed the CDR I burned.
If Macsoft had just provided a demo for guys like me to evaluate it on my system, I'd not have had to do that. But they won't produce a demo because they know that 80% of the existing mac market can't play the game worth a damn.
You are, in fact, wrong.
I purchase a number of games. And not just games -- I have purchased *more expensive equivalents* and simply postponed purchasing a non-game product to avoid purchasing Microsoft products. I use Linux for things that it would be easier to use a pirated copy of Windows for. I use a MacAlly Q-BALL (and waited years to buy one) because the functional alternative was a Microsoft product.
You may be right that the majority of pirates do not feel this way. However, I do. I consider it an ethical mandate to avoid giving my money to Microsoft, and if I want something and there is no alternative to and the software cannot be pirated, I simply go without. This does not apply to any other company, but my wallet my own small way of expressing my unhappiness with Microsoft.
I even build systems in a day and age when OEM computers are price-competitive with home-built machines to avoid giving money to Microsoft.
May we never see th
I can't comment on the performace, as I've only played Halo on Xbox. But I do think you're missing out on the gameplay front.
You have to play on Legendary. The other modes are OK to get you up to speed with the controls and weapons, but the gameplay is all on Legendary. When you're there, the map 'repetition' (remember that Halo offers Silent Cartographer as well as The Library) and lack of enemy variety cease to be concerns. Your sole concern is how you're going to get past that single Covenant Elite and his handful of grunts now that you're out of rockets and down to just a Needler. And that battle - which would be over in under a minute in most FPS titles - might last you five minutes. And if, not when, you win, it'll be an achievement.
Halo doesn't need a wide variety of enemies. They'd dilute the experience. It't not perfect - some might say the adult Flood are an enemy too far - but it's very, very good. The little 'headchicken' Flood creatures are a well thought-out enemy, though - normally they're just an annoyance, easily killed or ignored, and they do precious little damage. But when your shield is gone, a swarm of them can kill you very quickly - they flip from being an annoyance in the background to your most pressing concern.
Still and all, YMMV. But having had countless hours of enjoyment from Xbox Halo (I got it at launch and I still love to play it, even in single player), I feel obliged to defend its gameplay when the opportunity arises. It's likely the best game I've played...
Oh, I've played a whole crapload of FPS games, and Halo wipes 'em all, IMO. I've never known a game that I've been able to come back to so often and still find something new. Nigh on every encounter is simply different every time, even if you decide to follow the same route. And I've never played an FPS with so many fantastic non-scripted moments - I've had random encounters in Halo that have been far better than scripted sequences in other games.
This is all single player, really - I've not played Halo with more than four people. I can certainly see the advantage of team / role-based games for larger multiplayer sessions.
It isn't really the tech that keeps me coming back to Halo, though it doesn't hurt... it's the emergent gameplay, which is more than the empty buzzword it sometimes seems to be. The AI in Halo isn't amazing. The weapons aren't amazing (though they are amazingly well balanced). The magic of Halo is in the way every feature interlocks and interacts with every other feature, enabling endless permutations. Halo isn't focused on the large battles; it's focused on the many small ones they're composed of.
But as I said, YMMV. If you're after a rich plot and a variety of experiences, Halo probably won't do much for you - you've met all your enemies by the halfway point, for one thing. But for depth of play, I rate it very highly - though I stress again, it HAS to be played on Legendary for this to show through. Working down from the Control Room in Two Betrayals always puts a grin on my face; how am I going to do it THIS time...?