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GameSpy Attempting to Dump Mac Gamers

An anonymous reader writes "Inside Mac Games reports that GameSpy is trying to license its way out of supporting the Mac." From the article: "The impact of GameSpy's pricing tactics could be devastating to the Mac gaming market. A number of recent games on the Mac such as Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor: Breakthrough, Neverwinter Nights, and others use GameSpy."

137 comments

  1. First post. by numbski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Lame move. Basically, they don't want to continue to update their SDK for the Mac platform. Either it's costing them more, so they've increased licensing fees, OR, they don't want to bother with it any more.

    Anyone know the before and after cost of the SDK license?

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:First post. by mahdi13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is one of the things holding the America's Army Mac port back, the GameSpy license needed renewing but they are now asking WAY too much for it. And since the in-game browser is run off GameSpy it makes the game useless.

      GameSpy was a great thing...8 years ago. Started by a Navy man that wanted a quick and easy way to find and connect to Quake servers, but it turned into a mega-corp somewhere and adopted many MS techniques of crush and conquer. FilePlanet use to be great for game downloads, but now I can't get anything even with a logon (I'm not paying them for that crap when there are many other download sites available).

      This affects more then just Macs, it affects everything they touch. Soon you'll need to logon to read the news at planetquake.com or even need to PAY them to read the news.

      People need to stop relying on GameSpy and show them we are not going to put up with their crap...unfortunately most people WILL put of with their crap because they are too lazy or narrow minded to find something else.

      --
      "Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
    2. Re:First post. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > > Anyone know the before and after cost of the SDK license?

      I love all the bullshit here but I can tell you that they didn't increase the price for the "Mac" platform.

      GameSpy has increased prices for their licensing in general.

      Aspyr just doesn't have (or want to spend) the money and other Mac publishers do.

    3. Re:First post. by Clock+Nova · · Score: 2, Informative

      No. You're wrong on both counts. They may have also increased PC licensing fees, but they've increased Mac fees MUCH more. And it's not just Aspyr that can't pay the fees, which apparently add up to the entire development cost of some games, effectively doubling their cost to port. If this continues, no Mac publisher will touch GameSpy. The market just isn't big enough to justify it.

      --
      There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
    4. Re:First post. by jim_v2000 · · Score: 1

      Or maybe few Mac users (or PC users for that matter) use Gamespy? I don't, because it's big, slow, they want to charge for everything, the service sucks, and in general, it's worthless. Now Steam and Battle.net on the other hand...there are some good products.

      --
      Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
    5. Re:First post. by dgatwood · · Score: 1
      So let me get this straight.... All this software does is provide a central mechanism for finding other running game servers?

      If GameSpy wants to try to hurt the Mac game community, the game community should hurt them more. Make their business model no longer viable by coming up with a free (as in beer) replacement. One possible place to start would be grafting the functionality into AIM, Freenet, or some other P2P system.

      Better yet, use DNS. For your local LAN, use mDNS. For the internet as a whole, use the Service Location Protocol (RFC3832). There's no reason for something this simple to require paying some slimy company tons of money for an SDK. It's a hard problem, sure, but not hard enough to allow them to hold game manufacturers hostage.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    6. Re:First post. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If GameSpy wants to try to hurt the Mac game community, the game community should hurt them more. Make their business model no longer viable by coming up with a free (as in beer) replacement.


      Sounds like OpenPlay, but nobody seems to want to actually use it.
  2. GameSpy sucks anyway by mrseigen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Only Mortal is a fine enough server browser for most Mac games, and GameRanger is still available if I remember right.

    1. Re:GameSpy sucks anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GameRanger, on a morals level, is much, much, worse. The administration of Gameranger will ban you for any reason they want, and then you're banned from every game you own (This happened to me). Aside from that, they don't provide in-game server browsers like GameSpy does, you need to use the (IMHO terrible) GameRanger program.

    2. Re:GameSpy sucks anyway by Mattintosh · · Score: 1

      Uhh... Does Scott even show up there anymore? He hadn't shown his face in over 2 months when I quit using it. Anarchy was beginning to take over, and there were rumors that he had said he was fed up with it and that it would end when the money ran out.

      As for the service itself, there are "in-game server browsers" and they're displayed in GR itself so you don't have to even run the game to see them. Basically, just look at the UT or Quake series for an example. You can either start a GR-listed game or a master-server-listed game. And you can view the master server list in GR. The GameRanger (GamerAnger?) program is of excellent quality.

      You're probably just one of those guys that got pissed when Evill told you to stop warezing.

    3. Re:GameSpy sucks anyway by MyDixieWrecked · · Score: 2, Interesting

      GameRanger is neato, but it needs an SDK for in-game browsing.

      Although I don't really game too much nowadays, but I CS-Source it up whenever I go to my friend's house. I'm seriously considering building a PC JUST to play HL2 and CS-source.

      btw, I'm the man, my GameRanger ID is only 2 digits.

      --



      ...spike
      Ewwwwww, coconut...
    4. Re:GameSpy sucks anyway by YOU+LIKEWISE+FAIL+IT · · Score: 1
      As for the service itself, there are "in-game server browsers" and they're displayed in GR itself so you don't have to even run the game to see them.

      What part of in-game do you not understand? :-P

      --
      One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
    5. Re:GameSpy sucks anyway by jim_v2000 · · Score: 1

      I remember back in the old days I used to use Hotline client to look for people to join Warcraft 2 games with my Mac. We'd have to exchange IP's to get the game going...now that was fun. (And more convenient than GameSpy)

      --
      Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
  3. Gamespy, where have you gone? by O_Sleep · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I remember really liking this company in the Quake1 days. The *world.com sites where great community sites. They were the source for mods, skins, console commands, quakemovies, etc.

    Then they switched and became a really unappealing, money grubbing company. I even bought one of their for-life gamespy 3d licenses which they want me to upgrade. They switched to a for pay product and I don't think they put any money into the old one.

    Use to be a great source as well for downloads, now it's waiting in line for a public ftp server. Why haven't they embraced torrents?

    What happened at this company?

    1. Re:Gamespy, where have you gone? by PeeweeJD · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why haven't they embraced torrents?

      they can't charge for torrents, or make you buy a super-ultra-platinum-extra-bonus membership for only $6/month.

    2. Re:Gamespy, where have you gone? by Suppafly · · Score: 1

      they can't charge for torrents, or make you buy a super-ultra-platinum-extra-bonus membership for only $6/month.

      They could certainly make you pay for access to the torrent tracker. There are several trackers that require passwords to download from them. empornium is probably the most obvious example of this.

    3. Re:Gamespy, where have you gone? by SoLO · · Score: 1

      I think you mean the planet-*.com sites.

      Also, it was QSpy back then, not Gamespy.

    4. Re:Gamespy, where have you gone? by O_Sleep · · Score: 1

      Your right, I forgot. Do you remember what the game said when you finished refreshing the server list? It's been a while.

      -Bjorn

  4. sad day for gaming by biggyfries · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is a sad day for gaming in general. To drop support of a viable platform for monetary reasons is ir purely a financial move on GameSpy's part. They basically dont want to spend the time and/or money supporting a platform--granted, that platform is small, but that is still your customerbase youre fucking with.

    Yes, i know platforms range--ps2, xbox, gamecube, DS, cellular, etc. PC and Mac run on the same TCP protocol, just different internal programming (just like all platforms, after i think about it).,br>

    If they are dropping supprot for a (fledging?) platform, then they might as well do it for Gamecube (Network adapter? whats that?), or even PS2, since it seems that it does not have the same online userbase as the xbox.

    why isnt there a competitor to GameSpy? At least, one that is just as popular?

    1. Re:sad day for gaming by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Uhm, by the very definition, if the money isnt there then its not a viable platform. Gamespy is a company, and needs to stay profitable, and supporting a customerbase that is costing it more money than it stands to make isnt a good financial move for any company. The reason the competition is so small is that the market jsut isnt there.

    2. Re:sad day for gaming by IpalindromeI · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is a sad day for gaming in general. To drop support of a viable platform for monetary reasons is ir purely a financial move on GameSpy's part.

      I, too, long for the old days when companies didn't have to think about their costs or profits. When they did whatever would make slashdot users happy. Whatever happened to those days?

      --

      --
      Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
    3. Re:sad day for gaming by Toddarooski · · Score: 1

      As I recall, the dot-com bubble burst, and we all went onto fuckedcompany.com to make fun of these companies for doing things that didn't have solid monetary reasons behind them.

      --

      "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"

    4. Re:sad day for gaming by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gamespy is a company, and needs to stay profitable, and supporting a customerbase that is costing it more money than it stands to make isnt a good financial move for any company.

      Bullshit. Gamespy use to have free versions, and gave the SDK's away so they could lock companies in. Now that they are Bigger, they cant afford to offer the SDKs You always develop the SDK and give it away for free, you make your money on the license later.

      And building on OSX is much easier now, if you have a standard platform, you can cross develop a customer client that works on both. One of the nice things about OSX is games run in OpenGL on top of a unix based OS. (Can you say Linux port anyone?)

      BTW, what is an alternative? Could All Seeing Eye be the replacement?

    5. Re:sad day for gaming by steeviant · · Score: 1

      BTW, what is an alternative? Could All Seeing Eye be the replacement?

      I don't see how, since they don't offer anything for Mac or Linux.

    6. Re:sad day for gaming by palad1 · · Score: 1

      The eye!

      It sees everything!

    7. Re:sad day for gaming by superpulpsicle · · Score: 1

      Mac users need to stop complaining about unequal treatment. PC users are pumping money into the PC gaming market left and right. Things are still broken all the time. Network problems, graphics card problems, install problems. You name it.

      Please don't think PC users get the royal treatment. If it wasn't for the new Doom 3 and HL2, the PC gaming would have been virtually dead compared to the console market. Ah.... That's what Apple needs, their own console!

  5. So? by Mitsoid · · Score: 1

    Why use Gamespy? Cant they use alternate game hosting services to host the games? heck, some witty people made XConnect, allowing you to play XBox System Link games online.. Don't see why the mac community can't make their own hosting services, or use one of the computers in the game to 'host' the game/server while they play?

    1. Re:So? by FLAGGR · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thats not the point of the article. Some games depend on gamespy internally, and if they don't work out of the box now, then that makes the Mac platform even less appealing.

    2. Re:So? by Golias · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That assumes that the Mac platform was ever appealing to gamers.

      Don't get me wrong, I use my Macs every day. One runs my music studio, another is about to become my new web server, and my iBook goes with me everywhere gets used for just about every other computing task that I do.

      But when I want to play games, I do so on either a Windows PC or a console. I'm all about using the right tool for the job.

      Yes, I could play World of Warcraft on the eMac I use for recording music, but why bother when an el-cheapo PC with a decent video card, which I can keep anywhere in the house, does the job just fine?

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  6. Nice example by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a nice example why vendor lock-in and closed source _can_ be bad for business.

    1. Re:Nice example by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " This is a nice example why vendor lock-in and closed source _can_ be bad for business."

      You really are an idiot. Why would you NOT want to use closed source for business? You gotta protect your assets (and asses) with propietary software. Why go open source and have the code (that is the lifeblood of your company) be freely available on the internet for others to see?

  7. Re:Why Steam by MindStalker · · Score: 1

    What really surprises me is that gamespy has a bunch of ads and they still charge a licensing free to the game maker.

  8. Lucky day for Mac gamers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lucky bastards. I wish they would drop the PC support too.

  9. All Seeing Eye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is stopping them from bundling a different server browser like The All Seeing Eye?

    Gamespy doesnt have anything that it doesnt have.

    1. Re:All Seeing Eye by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Insightful
      One would assume because the PC users are on GameSpy, so it ends up creating a wall between PC and Mac gamers that, really, ought not to exist.

      Of course, long term, a software house looking to produce a game for both PCs and Macs long term will choose an agnostic server browser, or host their own, so GameSpy, ultimately, is going to lose with this move.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:All Seeing Eye by ahmusch · · Score: 1
      Of course, long term, a software house looking to produce a game for both PCs and Macs long term will choose an agnostic server browser, or host their own, so GameSpy, ultimately, is going to lose with this move.


      Of course, that posits that there are such software houses in great quantity that consider the Mac platform a significant market *worth* supporting with time and money.

      The value of GameSpy to consumers is a function of the number of other GameSpy users. Do we really believe that eliminating Mac users significantly alters the number of GameSpy users?
    3. Re:All Seeing Eye by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Of course, that posits that there are such software houses in great quantity that consider the Mac platform a significant market *worth* supporting with time and money.
      Well, I'm sure the software houses are grateful for the free cash they get from Mac users. The usual pattern is:

      * PCGamesInc releases "PC Wars Ultimate Mega Online!", for PC and consoles.

      * MacSoft, or some other third party, then buys the rights to do a Mac port. They, not PCGamesInc, pay oodles of cash to developers to do the work, and eat the loss if the game doesn't sell.

      * PCGamesInc then profits, without any work on their part (except for the lawyer signing the rights.)

      Now, tell me again why software houses would even care about the number of Mac gamers as long as they know that there are enough that, as long as they don't make the game too PC centric (say, by chosing a server browser technology that's actively hostile to Macs in favour of something agnostic that's just as good and reasonably priced), they'll get cash from someone wanting to do a Mac port?

      Personally, if I was running a software house, I'd care. It's money. I'm not upsetting anyone by keeping my options open, and I'm opening the door to raking in more cash in future without any extra expenditure today.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:All Seeing Eye by ahmusch · · Score: 1

      I'm fairly certain it's not *that* simple -- nothing ever is.

      Selling the rights for a flat fee would be criminally stupid on the part of the original developer/publisher or MacSoft's part. There would be some shared reward, more like:

      $500,000 up front for the rights,
      then $2 per unit for the first 100,000 units,
      then $4 per unit for the next 100,000 units,
      and $5 per unit for all other units.

      Shared profit, mitigated risk.

      I'm also sure there's lots and lots of review to ensure that the Mac product/version faithfully reproduces the experience. No one would simply sign away their IP to MacSoft, where MacSoft would then have total control.

      That review of the final product costs money and time, both of which are seldom in simultaneous supply from both publisher and original developer.

      I believe that Mac fans should hitch their wagon to Linux, and argue for Linux/Posix versions, where the Mac version in an emulated/unix native mode. At least then the breakdown of the market isn't 98-2, it's anywhere from 90-10 to 75-25, and then you're talking about a large enough segment of the market to matter to the publishers.

      If Mac ports were free (or purely profitable), every game would have one. The fact that every game doesn't yields one of the following conclusions:

      1. There's a conspiracy against the Mac as a gaming platform; or
      2. Developers and publishers are too stupid to take free money; or
      3. The original hypothesis is flawed.

      My money's on #3, but Brent Sienna's is on #1.

    5. Re:All Seeing Eye by snuf23 · · Score: 1

      Uh. Users aren't ON Gamespy. Gamespy is a server browser. Another tool can find and connect to the same servers that Gamespy uses.
      I personally can't stand Gamespy. I REALLY hate games that bundle Gamespy - but it's the free version complete with ads. So I get to watch ads to play the game I spent $50 on.
      The problem I can see is if the embedded browsers using Gamespy stop working when it pulls Mac support.

      --
      Sometimes my arms bend back.
    6. Re:All Seeing Eye by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
      I didn't say a flat fee. Anyway the following comment is obviously flawed:
      If Mac ports were free (or purely profitable), every game would have one. The fact that every game doesn't yields one of the following conclusions:
      I didn't argue they were free, I said the original authors - the PC software house - doesn't incur any costs. MacSoft, and other similar vendors, does.

      The Mac port software houses will not touch, with a ten foot pole or otherwise, any game that they do not believe will be profitable on the Mac platform. This is why not everything gets ported to the Mac.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    7. Re:All Seeing Eye by guuyuk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, that's exactly what will happen on the Mac side when Gamespy pulls their support.

      It's kind of like how MacOS users used to get onto Kazaa and Audiogalaxy. Someone would write a piece of software (your "another tool") that would talk to their servers, then the servers would be modified and you'd lose your connection.

      If Gamespy decides it doesn't want Mac users to connect to their servers anymore, then they'll cut the cord just like my example above. They are, in fact, doing just that with their new (many times larger) licensing fee.

      --
      We're sorry, the phone number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try your call again
    8. Re:All Seeing Eye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The original hypothesis is indeed flawed. A lot of original software developers will be sloppy and write non-portable code. The fact that the Half-Life code sucked balls in terms of portability was the entire reason it never actually got ported to the Mac. Competent programers=cheap ports.

    9. Re:All Seeing Eye by Clock+Nova · · Score: 1

      No. This is incorrect. Gamespy support in Mac games that have already purchased a license will continue to work. Gamespy is contractually obligated to support them for the life of the product. They said so themselves, so I'm not just speculating.

      --
      There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
    10. Re:All Seeing Eye by guuyuk · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected. I am wondering if games like America's Army will still be playable if you have to connect to updated servers...

      That was always a problem with games like Quake 3. The Mac patch would be behind the PC patch by a week or so, and you would be out in the cold until the patch came out.

      --
      We're sorry, the phone number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try your call again
    11. Re:All Seeing Eye by technomancerX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually many highly competent developers write great code that is completely non-portable. It's called Direct-X which is in no way shape or form portable to another platform (without reimplementing the entire API on the target platform).

      It has zero to do with programmer competency and everything to do with API choices. If your game is programmatically tied to Windows, odds are it will not be ported.

      Personally I think this is a stupid move by developers, but that's just me.

      --
      .technomancer
  10. Shortsighted move... by VernonNemitz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What with Mac these days being a Unix workalike, and with Linux being a Unix workalike, then isn't support for Mac almost the same as support for Linux? AND with Linux beginning to take desktop space away from Windows, a move away from Mac/Linux becomes the same as restricting oneself to a shrinking market share! (Of course, if some fundamental misunderstanding was written into the preceding, I'm sure someone will let me know, heh.)

    1. Re:Shortsighted move... by Nasarius · · Score: 1
      then isn't support for Mac almost the same as support for Linux?

      Eh, no, not really. In an application like this where it's almost all GUI, Linux and MacOS use completely different APIs. The networking end would probably be similar, though.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    2. Re:Shortsighted move... by VernonNemitz · · Score: 3, Funny

      What??? No POSIX-compliant GUI??? Isn't anyone planning thinking of standards here??? (heh heh heh)

    3. Re:Shortsighted move... by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      What with Mac these days being a Unix workalike
      Not when it comes to graphics, sound, or UI, it isn't.
    4. Re:Shortsighted move... by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

      There is no POSIX GUI standard.

    5. Re:Shortsighted move... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 1

      Reminder: WindowsNT line of OS software IS Posix compliant.

      It doesnt actually run the POSIX commands correctly, it acknologes that Windows cannot run it.

      There's 2 different meanings from "Posix Compliant". 1 is that we acknologe the API and do not just immediately halt the program. 2 is if it actually acknologes the command and correctly processes it.

      Windows does 1, but not 2.

      Why did Windows put Posix complaincy in the OS? The Military wanted it.

      --
    6. Re:Shortsighted move... by bar-agent · · Score: 1

      There is no POSIX GUI standard.

      Fool, that's just what they want you to think! There's a POSIX GUI standard, alright, but it is being suppressed by the Big 3. But the Internet routes around censorship! You can get the standard at http://www.$@#di'n+++[NO CARRIER]

      --
      i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
    7. Re:Shortsighted move... by AusG4 · · Score: 1

      It's rather tough emulating something that doesn't exist I guess...

      At least, doesn't exist by Mac standards.

      --
      bash-3.00$ uname -a
      SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
  11. Oh Well by TychoCelchuuu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's their loss. Mac gamers are just going to have to do what everyone who gets fed up with Gamespy does and switch to another server browser. Maybe they'll like it more or maybe they wont, but Gamespy had better hope that the Mac doesn't gain any ground as a gaming platform because then they would have to try and regain ground with a whole community of pissed of gamers who are wondering why they were dumped in the first place.

    --
    Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
    1. Re:Oh Well by xenocide2 · · Score: 1

      Actually, this insiduous move wrecks more havoc than you think. Remember that built in server finding client that Game Spy was selling people? The one nobody thought was a good idea? Well America's Army bit, and now that the Mac port is coming close to a finish, Gamespy is moving to ludicrously price the Mac version of their client browser. Coincidence? Probably.

      --
      I Browse at +4 Flamebait

      Open Source Sysadmin

    2. Re:Oh Well by Malacon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's their loss. Mac gamers are just going to have to do what everyone who gets fed up with Gamespy does and switch to another server browser.

      Then you don't really understand the point here. The issue here is that a lot of games are made on the PC use gamespy. They are then ported over to the Macintosh and the gamespy browser is also ported. This allows Mac and PC users to game against/with eachother. This is done in the game, its the developers choice to use this browser, not the gamers. It isn't as simple as the choosing Firefox over IE.

      With Gamespy pricing themselves out of the Mac biz the pool of online players becomes considerably smaller. There already IS alternative game browsers for the Macintosh (http://www.gameranger.com/). But it only works on the Mac Platform, and its requires running a third party app (unless the Mac Developer decides to integrate it) to connect to games as opposed to doing it through the game interface. Get bumped from a server? Quit the game, launch Game Ranger, look for a game, launch the game... ad naseum. Even if Game Ranger was made cross platform, PC users in general won't download it just to game with Mac users, why would they?

      So aside from being less than elegant, This means that games in the near and far future will lack the ability to challenge your buddies head to head if they use PC's. I game on my Mac, but a lot of people I know game on their PC's. I buy games so I can play with them online, now thats taken away from me. Why should I want to buy the games then?

      A lot of Mac gamers will think the same way, so they won't buy those games anymore, or at least they'll buy less. Now the sales start to drop for Aspyr and Macsoft, so they port less games, so less sell etc etc, repeat as needed. Next thing you know the Mac Game market is drying up again and Gamespy is going "See?! We knew this would happen!", not admitting that they caused it.

      What's needed is an Open Source alternative. Something that can be supported by the community and made 100% cross platform compatible. If that will actually happen though... well that remains to be seen.

      (something interesting I actually found while researching this- Gamespy CHARGES to post on their message boards... wtf is that?!)

  12. Re:Why Steam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What happened to Kali?! I used to love Kali.

  13. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by falcon5768 · · Score: 4, Informative
    ^ which is a funny statment to make since MPOG use on the mac is GROWING not shrinking.

    Right now there are more games I can think of that are MPOGs then are not on the mac side, including just about ever FPS out there minus Counterstrike. A statement like this can only come from someone who has no knowlage of the Macintosh platform... for one thing how do you know those Battle.NET people ARNT mac users.... Mac and PC users run on the same system (I know, I played Starcraft and DiabloII all the time with my friend who runs a PC) and Starcraft has a OSX client as does DiabloII.

    Im sorry but your statment stinks of the same mentality of people who continue to keep the Mac down as a viable platform for gaming. A person who grew up on windows, only used windows and has no clue of the advantages to running a mac system, a linux system or the fact that all computers when the programmer knows what they are doing can run the same program with minimal effort done in changing the code, something Blizzard has done from day one, and still something that most PC heads cant grasp because they cant see past their own blinded shortsidedness.

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  14. Is there....... by goatan · · Score: 1

    A mac version of the all seeing eye? that would be a worthwhile interace. unfortunatley my company blocks it so i can't check.

    --
    Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.

  15. America's Army by wolf31o2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't forget that America's Army also uses GameSpy. I would hate to not be able to frag my Mac-loving friends anymore.

    1. Re:America's Army by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      America's Army for Mac is in serious trouble. Icculus (Ryan C. Gordon) says a Mac port of the latest (2.2.1) patch is "nowhere near ready" because of the GameSpy licensing problem.

  16. What's the use of GameSpy, anyway? by Kosi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not into (online) gaming much, so forgive me, if I understood something wrong.

    AFAIU GameSpy is a tool that helps you to locate other players that want to play the same game online. So, if they drop the support for my OS or fuck up things in other ways, I'll quit using it and search for companions/opponents somewhere else and with another tool or no tool at all.

    So, what's the big fuzz around this?

    Kosi

    1. Re:What's the use of GameSpy, anyway? by Firehawke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A lot of the PC games are using Gamespy on an *internal* basis now, using Gamespy-specific server design. There just won't be any way to communicate between the Mac and PC versions of the package because Mac development is almost 100% of the time licensed out to a handful of Mac developers.

      The PC devs will pay the cash and make Gamespy internal and integral to their product, and the Mac devs won't be able to license Gamespy to make their ports talk. That's the big picture they're painting.

    2. Re:What's the use of GameSpy, anyway? by Jonny+290 · · Score: 1

      Some videogames, having seen the good record of Gamespy service in years past built Gamespy browsers and such into their video game at release. Gamespy's protocols and formats are *not* a standard, and i'm sure there's proprietary crap all over it. Now that they want to drop support, many video games that people like to play online on the Mac may just.stop.working, or at best you'll have to manually enter server numbers.

      --
      Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
    3. Re:What's the use of GameSpy, anyway? by Kosi · · Score: 1

      I still don't understand. If GS doesn't work for me, I'll find my opponents/companions otherwise. Even if it's built in, I can't imagine that you 'd be forced to find other players only though it, only idiots would buy such a game! You can get together on Websites, IRC, IM or many many other ways, swap your IP addresses and go playing, where's the problem?

  17. Re:Why Steam by eviltypeguy · · Score: 1

    What happened? What do you mean? It's still with us:

    http://www.kali.net/

  18. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you're going to try and pick a game that is available to lots of PC players but not to Mac players, you could have done a lot better than to mention a Blizzard product - since Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft are all still available for PC & Mac and play on the same servers.

  19. How dare they... by ahmusch · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ... make a decision that inconviences the few while allowing them to realign development resources better. I mean, it's like they're considering things like shareholder value.

    The Brent Siennas of the world who are all aflutter about this need to realize that the Mac as a gaming platform is a downright miniscule niche, and one that probably takes nearly the same number of resources to support as any other platform. However, the return on investment derived from that platform is probably negative, and any Mac gamer probably does their hardcore gaming elsewhere because they're not willing to wait months or years for the popular games to finally be ported.

    GameSpy feels, rightly or wrongly, that this decision is in their best interest, and I'm pretty confident they've done those suit-like activities like market analysis and return on investment analysis to back up their decision. I'm further pretty sure that the Think Different crowd hasn't, and is motivated solely by their want -- no, need -- not to be considered second-class citizens in the gaming world.

    If the Mac were a strategic focus for GameSpy, they probably wouldn't have made the decision to drop support -- companies tend to be willing to tread water for markets and products they consider of primary current or future importance.

    Anyone here who isn't a Mac zealot really consider the Mac as a gaming platform to be of primary importance?

    Here's a parallel -- I'd venture that the Mac share of the computer gaming market (excluding consoles) is on par with SCO's share of the X86 server market.

    If major software vendors dropped support for SCO, would there be the same hue and cry?

    1. Re:How dare they... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We don't want GameSpy's crap. They can take it and...well, you get the picture.

      The problem is it's already deeply woven into the source of America's Army, and their license change puts continued support for the Mac in jeopardy.

      I hope the upshot of this will be a freely licensed server browsing SDK/protocol that puts GameSpy out of business for good!

    2. Re:How dare they... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Here's a parallel -- I'd venture that the Mac share of the
      > computer gaming market (excluding consoles) is on par with
      > SCO's share of the X86 server market.

      > If major software vendors dropped support for SCO, would
      > there be the same hue and cry?

      That may be so but as someone else has already pointed out, the online Mac gaming market far exceeds that of devices that don't even come with a network adapter. ( GameCube, anyone? )

    3. Re:How dare they... by Clock+Nova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As a matter of fact, I consider the Mac a viable gaming platform, and I do all of my hardcore gaming on it. I have a GameCube for a few pickups, but most of my time is spent gaming on my Mac. And yes, I'm quite serious.

      You talk the way you do because you're in the majority. Were fortune to change, you'd feel the way we do.

      --
      There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
    4. Re:How dare they... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      of course it's not of 'primary importance'. This does not mean it's not profitable. PC/Mac games use the same protocol's to network. It would be a minor effort to create the OS X SDK's, and this would also enable them to sell the service to Linux users.

      I believe this is a purely political endevour. The Mac gaming market is huge, and is GROWING. I'm certain the decision would have been made by some suited biggots, seeing that MacOS port is not AS profitable as the PC side of things... So lets get rid of it.

      losers. The positive thing to come out of this, is that there will almost certainly be some activity from other competing products.

    5. Re:How dare they... by Senjaz · · Score: 1

      There's a little more to it than that. At LAN parties we have a pretty good mix of platforms, and the only games that get played are ones we can all play together.

      The knock on effect of stopping Mac support on a game tracker for us is to stop 2 windows users per mac user from playing the game too.

      Cross-platform support is a important feature in this kind of networking product. If they drop support for any used platform then the numbers for all the others will suffer too.

      --
      Don't blame me - this .sig had steal me written all over it.
  20. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    ...and still something that most PC heads cant grasp because they cant see past their own blinded shortsidedness.

    Shortsighted, not shortsided. (What would that mean, anyway?)
  21. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by PygmySurfer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can jump on Battle Net and get my Starcraft fix in any time of the week and there are always lots of games (although more eastern hemisphere guys are on when it's after midnight in the states)--and that game is almost seven years old! This is because there are lots of people who like to play. Compare that to a Mac game that might sell a few hundred thousand units. The numbers just aren't there.

    You DO realize Starcraft (and all Blizzard games) is available for the Mac, right? You could be playing against Mac gamers every time you log on to battle.net, for all you know.

  22. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by ahmusch · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shortsidedness is the quality of a golf shot that misses the green near the flag, resulting in a more difficult chip. To hit such a shot is to shortside onesself.

  23. I guess I should be affected by this somehow.... by Selecter · · Score: 5, Interesting
    But I'm not.

    I own both a Dual 1.8 G5 and find the Mac to be a superior platform over Windows for everything I do in computing.....EXCEPT gaming. For that, I have my 3000+ homemade box.

    As I get older, I dont game as much or as often. I expect there's a lot more like me in the same boat, they used to be hardcore gamers back in their 20's but I'm a lot more interested in producing and making videos and music these days.

    Mac beats the PC hands down for that. ( for me )

  24. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by valkraider · · Score: 1

    Market != installed base.

    Other than that I fundamentally agree with you... This is a place, that Apple could step in, and help significantly....

  25. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by Blitzenn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I won't challenge you on which machine is better, PC or Mac. I will state a fact though. Gamespy is dumping Macs because it costs them more money than they make supporting them. The install base simply does not exist to support the continuation of Mac gaming under the gamespy umbrella. Again I am not bashing the Macs at all. It simply has come down to a dollars issue.

    I will however take a moment to bash some of the Mac users though. They whine about not being able to play a specific game on their Macs all of the time. That, to me, is like buying an xbox and complaining that you can't play nintendo games on them. Well perhaps you should consider buying the platform that the software exists on if that's what you want to do, rather than buy the wrong thing and p1ss and whine and moan about no one writing games for the mac. The Mac is a great machine, it's just not for mainline games.

  26. Gamespy is a company by Jaeph · · Score: 1

    not a charity. They live or die on their financial decisions.

    -Jeff

    --
    Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
  27. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by welkin · · Score: 1

    When you're rushing me with Zerglings you're rushing a "Mac gamer."

  28. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Macs have around 1-2% of the market

    If by "around 1-2%" you mean "6%", you are correct.

  29. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    but Linux seems to be taking off worldwide

    Five Years Ago called. They want their hype back.

    Widespread use of Linux on the home user's desktop was a pipedream which precious few believe anymore.

  30. I may be naive, but... by rodik · · Score: 1

    I may be naive, but I've been thinking that the bigger game developers ought to cooperate and form some kind of platform-agnostic server browsing service which would untie them from the pc/mac lock-up that is now. I really hate it when I can't play with my PC friends just because I've got a mac, and this GameSpy mess really needs a solution, obviously.

  31. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by santiago · · Score: 2, Informative

    You know, I remember that Warcraft II for the Mac had built in TCP/IP play, allowing me to go on IRC and get trounced without having to pay for some hack like Kali that routed IPX traffic over TCP, like the inferior PC version required. Blizzard has always had excellent support for the Mac, and its employees whom I have met at developer conferences were all great guys. However, enough talking, I need to get back to leveling up my World of Warcraft character using this nice PowerMac G5 of mine...

  32. Who cares? It's a free market. by Guspaz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If GameSpy puts themselves out of reach for companies, companies will simply adopt another solution. GameSpy's loss, because this might cause companies to switch to another solution on both Mac and PC platforms to have a unified interface between their two software versions. Yes, it would require coding work to swap out Gamespy for another solution, but I'm sure some enterprising company will come up with a solution that is very similar to Gamespy in it's programming interfaces.

  33. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by brkello · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Listen, if you are really interested in gaming, you get a Windows PC. If you have things that are more important than gaming for your home computer, then choose based off that. Just know that YOU ARE GOING TO BE SCREWED WHEN IT COMES TO GAMES. If you don't understand this going in, well, that is your fault. I have no doubt that the market for gaming on Macs is growing...if it were shrinking, it would be non-existant. Ok, that's not really a fair statement to make, I remember the bitter feeling as a kid that I couldn't play the games my friends could on a PC. The market for gaming on Macs is much much much smaller than on PC....on Linux, it is even less. If a company chooses to not support other OS's than Windows, that is their choice. You may not like it, but as I mentioned earlier, it shouldn't come as a surprise. There aren't a bunch of PC users conspiring to keep Mac gamers down, as you would like to think. It is a simple business decision. If the effort and cost do something is > than the profit you get back, you don't do it. If Mac gaming was a cash cow, then you would see people scrambling to port to the Mac. This is not the reality. It is great that more companies are supporting Macs, if you are crying now, it was much much worse 10 years ago. The only thing that will make people take Macs and Linux more seriously (in gaming) are when they gain more of the marketshare from Windows. Until then though, if the main reason you have your PC is for games...then don't get a Mac. There is no conspiracy, only business.

    --
    Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
  34. Re:Department of Redundancy Department? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Also, your dog wants steak.

  35. Kali.net by Llynix · · Score: 1

    Hmm.. I was a long time user of Kali back in the day when it was the ONLY way you could play games online.

    I can say this.. Jay Cotton the writer is a decent guy from what I saw and heard of him. Not only was he an avid gamer, but he also listened quite well to the community. When we asked for a linux version, he actually provided a few months later. (unfortunately no one ever used it.)

    Apparently the fee is $20 FOR LIFE! I still have my old registration code somewhere I think. I may dig it out and give kali a try once again. (I myself haven't played it in about 6 years.)

  36. BACK TO FARK WITH YUO!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  37. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not according to the rest of the world. 6%? Not even close.

    Here's some good links. For every Mac-fan biased website you find supporting your outrageous 6%, I can find 10 that say a much lower figure is correct.

    I like the Mac, but I like valid information and honest accounting more. I've seen A LOT of 1-3% numbers, and NONE of any quality that echo your 6%.

  38. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because IBM's switching 40,000 desktops? Germany? Latin America? Asia? Most of the world's governments? And because the software from five years ago was jurassic compared to the new Gnome, KDE, Xfce, or whatever? The Apps being much better? Great driver support? Linux servers are doing amazingly well? Ease of use is through the roof? Far more users now, and technical help is one forum post away? Even my mom likes Knoppix because all she needs is a web browser and email client and it runs blazingly and securely on her Dell laptop?

    Yeah, these are all good reasons Linux is going away sooo fast. Since I can smell an unbalanced mac zealot like a fart in a car, I have to say

    Five years ago called. They want their closeminded Apple fanatic zealotry and stupid outdated arguments back. Live and let live, asshole.

  39. Screw GameSpy, they suck by curtlewis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The gamespy interface in games is weak and lame and devoid of basic features. And half the time, the filter features don't even work in the released game! I've bought a couple games in the last year where filters had no effect at all and another game where I have yet to see a single game server pop up in 9 months, with all filters off (no connection to master server).

    If they want to be the defacto game search interface for the industry, they need to get off their lazy butts and do it right. And while Macs aren't raking in the market share, they are part of the market, DEAL WITH IT! It's not like GameSpy code is rocket science anyways. Yet they STILL manage to hose it often enough.

    I wouldn't be surprised if the core of the problem is that 'the' Mac guy at GameSpy got sick of doing the same amount of work that 15 people do for the PC version and quit.

    This sounds like a geniune market opportunity for someone to come into the market and develop a nice cross platform (win/osx/X11) interface and service for games.

    Make one app and keep improving and supporting it - instead of the GameSpy approach of making one, raking in fees from suckers (like me) and then dumping it for a new product which is basically the same only web based and slow and buggy and trying to charge your lifetime customers for it.

    If GameSpy actually had the PC side of their stuff working well, it might be a lost cause, but they can't even get their core market right, so screw em. Time for some better company to squish them....

  40. Re:Why Steam by KermodeBear · · Score: 1

    Steam is far more than just a server browser; It's a content delivery system. Yes, it has had problems in the past, but they're all ironed out now (I don't know anyone personally that still has issues with it, at least), and automatic updates takes away the annoying process of finding out about a patch and finding a place to download it. Steam takes care of all that automatically. Faster updated also means exploits are around for much less time before being fixed... A huge boon to online gaming. Cheaters suck.

    --
    Love sees no species.
  41. Blizzard rocks by curtlewis · · Score: 1

    It seems strange to see me write that as a subject, because I'm really not a Warcraft or Starcraft fan, but Blizzard has historically made pretty darn good quality games. And they have a tendency to support the Mac for many of their titles too, which I think is a nice bonus.

    I own a Powerbook G4 (latest model), but I don't really game on it, nor did I buy it for that reason. But a company that's willing to support what I consider in general to be a superior OS gets plus marks from me. Windows as an OS pretty much sucks, but all the gaming hardware and software development happens there. So I have a PC that gets used almost exclusively for gaming and very little else. Meanwhile, I get my email (virus free) on the Mac, surf the web on the Mac, do shell scripting on the Mac. Hell, I even compiled our custom BSD tools at work for my Mac just so I can run them off my mactop if I want to. Flexibility is beautiful. And you still can't beat a Mac for creative applications like graphics, video and music. You can get by doing that on a PC, but on a Mac, you're in the groove.

    Each Platform has it's strengths and weaknesses. That's why I run a huge variety at home. It keeps my skills up and my employability higher. Since I have a PC for gaming, I shouldn't really care if company X supports the Mac or Linux, and I don't expect them to. But when they do, that scores big points with me. And when a company tries to weasel their way in to a large percentage of games as a standard and fails to be platform agnostic, especially after supporting multi platform, that gets my ire up.

    And it didn't help that I bought the useless lifetime subscription to GameSpy3D only to have them create the same thing more or less in the 'new' GameSpy Arcade and try to charge me for it AGAIN. They're slime.

  42. Sad day..hrm....it is call capitalism by toolshed7 · · Score: 0

    Gamespy is a business and they make money, this is not Star trek. They are not the Peace Corp or anything else. They are not Open Source community. Greenbacks is what they are about...pure and simple. Nothing wrong with that at all.Another point, supply and demand....if there is demand, then someone will take their money. Not enough...then to hell with them...that is what capitalism is all about.

    --


    Deserving got nothing to do with it.....shuffle
  43. Re:Macs are a horrible platform for gaming anyways by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With companies like GameSpy cutting support for the Mac, no wonder it becomes a horrible platform for gaming...It's a self-licking ice cream cone.

  44. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Everquest. It's available for Windows and MacOS, but they can't talk to each other. Sony decided to segregate the two (paraphrase follows) 'so the mac users could play without having to deal with all the high-level windows version users.'

    Actually, that's exactly this Mac users wanted to do. I wanted to play with my friends online.

    So I dropped my Everquest account and switched to Lineage and Shadowbane. Problem solved.

    On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog, but they damn well know if you're a Mac or Linux user and screw you accordingly.

  45. OpenPlay by Dawang · · Score: 2, Informative

    You like open source (or semi... APSL) and cross-platform?

    OpenPlay is a start. Been around a while, but I don't know of any net games that use it. The mailing list seems to still be active, but I'm not a member, so I can't tell you what they're really up to.

    Most of these comments are talking about how the end-users are suffering from GameSpy - it's really the developers. If I wrote an app and licensed GameSpy because they had a cross-platform SDK, I'd be pissed if they then told me that one of those platforms would cost extra. f00kers. Until there's a real viable (read: probably not OpenPlay yet) x-platform SDK for net play and discovering opponents, this kind of crap is going to go on and on and on and on...

    Don't ask me. I don't know.

    1. Re:OpenPlay by sydsavage · · Score: 1
      I'm not sure how active that mailing list is, since the project has moved to sourceforge,

      The stats show 47.2% activity in the last week, and it is listed as 'mature', or level 6.

      This could perhaps be exactly what is needed to relinquish control of cross-platform network gaming from the likes of GameSpy. It just needs more exposure, since hardly any game developers are likely to have heard of it.

  46. Gamespy as cybersquatter: who needs 'em? by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It was never a good idea to rely on a third party such as Gamespy to provide a branded in-game browser. For one, that reliance drives up development costs for licensing fees. For another, it leaves you in a pickle when Gamespy decides to take its ball and go home.

    In the PC world, hardcore gamers avoid Gamespy like the plague (and we don't bother to read its crappy ad-driven "content" online, either).

    Apple can easily remedy the problem we're discussing by making a gaming browser part of OS X. No need to let a third party squat on what should be a seamless interchange between client and server, managed by the OS.

    1. Re:Gamespy as cybersquatter: who needs 'em? by terranman2 · · Score: 1

      and you really think adding something like a gaming browser into the OS is a good thing? now i enjoy games as much as anyone, but making gaming specific things like a server browser to find games, just seems like completely unnecessary bloat. and software bloat is never, never a good thing...

    2. Re:Gamespy as cybersquatter: who needs 'em? by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      http://www.gameranger.com/

      Mac only... I guess Americas Army etc will move to it.

      Whatever, I am a ww2 online gamer :)

    3. Re:Gamespy as cybersquatter: who needs 'em? by dangermouse · · Score: 1
      It was never a good idea to rely on a third party such as Gamespy to provide a branded in-game browser. For one, that reliance drives up development costs for licensing fees.

      As opposed to the cost of developing it yourself? If that were true, nobody would license Gamespy.

  47. What the developers say about it by rodik · · Score: 5, Informative

    Brad Oliver of Aspyr Media that (among others) does mac ports of popular titles has commented on the issue in the Inside Mac Games forums, right here: http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php? p=192796&highlight=#192796

  48. Relying on another is a good way to get hurt by TheMadRedHatter · · Score: 1

    I've thought about this for a while. Why don't game companies or shareware game developers develop an open protocol? That way, you don't have the problem of some company screwing you after you've developed your game. -- TheMadRedHatter

    --

    while(1)
    {

    }

    Ah, the story of life.
  49. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I own both a Dual 1.8 G5"

    and... a toaster?

  50. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by falcon5768 · · Score: 1
    GAH..... why cant you edit embarasing mistakes like this......

    oh I remeber so everyone can either

    a) point at the idiot who misspelled and laugh b) point at the gramernazi and laugh c) laugh d) what was the first one again?

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  51. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I love amiga.

  52. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A) Abuse the feature. The trolls would love that one.

  53. Mac Central Article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    New GameSpy terms threaten Mac to PC online gaming By Peter Cohen pcohen@maccentral.com New software licensing fees dictated by GameSpy Industries Inc. may make it impossible for Mac game publishers to let their forthcoming games play against their PC counterparts. GameSpy's licensing fees have increased by a factor of five to ten in recent months, an amount that Mac game publishers say is unreasonable to expect them to pay. IGN Entertainment Inc.'s GameSpy is game matchmaking technology that helps gamers find each other online. GameSpy is relied upon by some popular PC games that have been ported, or converted, to the Mac: MacSoft's Halo and Neverwinter Nights, for example. Aspyr Media Inc. uses GameSpy's technology in Battlefield 1942 and other games. By licensing the software development kit, or SDK, from GameSpy, Mac game publishers can make their versions play on the same servers used by PC gamers. Gaming enthusiasts frequently cite cross-platform online gaming compatibility as an important consideration when deciding which games to buy. Economy of scale? Up until now, GameSpy's licensing fees have been discounted to Mac publishers to a much smaller fraction of what the PC version costs. This discount is common among the developers of software development kits -- the developers understand that the Mac game market is smaller and less able to distribute these licensing costs, according to Glenda Adams, director of PC and Mac game development for Aspyr Media Inc. GameSpy changed its tune months ago, however, and the company has been unwilling to renegotiate a lower rate. "The other third party library developers we work with give us a reduced licensing fee," Adams told MacCentral. GameSpy's fee still ran into thousands of dollars per game, but Mac publishers were willing to pay it to put their customers on a level playing field with their PC counterparts. But now, with that discount gone, GameSpy licensing costs have skyrocketed for Mac publishers. GameSpy is now asking for an amount that, in some cases, is the equivalent of 50 to 100 percent of the total Mac development budget, according Adams. Doubling the cost of development just to make the game play with PC users isn't something that Aspyr can afford to do, she added. "What GameSpy is asking for now is more than what I'd pay up front for a game license," said MacSoft general manager Al Schilling. Like Aspyr, Mac game publisher MacSoft has seen its discount with GameSpy evaporate in recent months, according to Schilling. Licensing third-party software libraries is nothing new for Mac game publishers -- many original game developers cut corners by licensing libraries that allow them to use multimedia playback, networking, and complicated physics engines without needing to write their own code from scratch. But the dependence on third-party libraries requires that Mac game publishers reach separate licensing arrangements for such code when the games are licensed for Macintosh publication. Money for nothing From where Adams sits, the demand for more money seems unreasonable not only because of the economics of Mac game publishing, but also because GameSpy provides little in the way of development or technical support. The GameSpy SDK is largely static code that's managed by the individual game conversion programmers Aspyr has on staff and contracts work to -- GameSpy isn't involved at all. "They don't do any engineering for this," she told MacCentral. "They basically just have to cash the check. We handle the SDK and get it working in our game. To GameSpy's servers, a Mac client looks just like another PC, and there are fewer Macs playing online than PCs, so the added server load is small." Schilling agrees. "We were already paying more for the GameSpy license than we would have liked to," he said. Schilling added that Mac game publishers aren't the only ones in this fix -- he's spoken to PC game publishers who have recently seen higher licensing costs for GameSpy code. No one is seeing the same increase that Mac game licensees are, however. GameSpy w

  54. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by martinX · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But what do sales figures mean to the gaming market? I work for a government organisation that probably has around 200 000 PCs and maybe a dozen Macs. I can guarantee you not one of those PCs is used for online gaming.

    THIS is where PCs make the good sales: governments and corporations, and neither of those outfits are into gaming.

    Hasn't been a decent game since Unreal Tournament anyway...

    --
    When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
  55. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    When you're rushing me with Zerglings you're rushing a "Mac gamer." ...and when you're playing a game less than six years old, you're playing against a "PC gamer."

  56. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by ottothecow · · Score: 1

    I'm sure that you will find a lot of xbox owners who wish that gran turismo 4 was available for them.

    --
    Bottles.
  57. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by dancingmad · · Score: 1

    Listen, if you are really interested in gaming, you get a Windows PC

    You miss spelled game console.

    --
    "There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
  58. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

    The whining is the only reason that Mac has a somewhat decent game library. Mac users are loud, but they back it up with $$$. And there's certain things (Half-Life port being cancelled right before release) that deserve to be whined about.

    Compare this to Linux users -- Oh Quake III for Linux was delayed two weeks so I had to buy the Windows version, the bastards.

    --
    Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
  59. Something I'll be interested to see... by 59Bassman · · Score: 4, Interesting
    is whether PC users who regularly play with Mac users do anything to try to support their Mac brethren.

    Years ago I played a MMO flight sim called "Warbirds" (It's still around I think, but it's a shadow of its former self). When they went from version 1 to version 2 (3D models), they didn't release the Mac version concurrently. Version 2 had its own troubles, but it was just gorgeous. The models were beautiful. However, we spent several months staying in the old V1 arenas because a significant number of our squadmates were Mac jockeys. It wasn't fair to leave them behind, so we tried to keep them involved.

    I wonder if current clans with Mac members will try to do something similar to support them.

  60. Re:Microsoft Involvment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Had a look at this link, some guy seems to think that such a move would be good for microsoft as it would slow the growth of Mac gaming. I'm sure it would be impossible to prove.

    But honestly how much effort does it take to support the mac sdk? From a coding perspective, isn't it just getting a list of servers from another server? I thought all the important work would be on the server side, isn't that what people are paying for? what the server provides? a list of other servers? I mean that functionality would be *nothing* compared with even just the standard networking code in a game. I think the SDK shouldn't really take that much effort to support, so I can't really see any reason to drop it.

    I have a Mac and a PC, and to me the mac market does seem to be growing. You used to never see mac's anywhere in tech circles. But these days, although I admit that not everyone has one, it's pretty hard to go any tech event without seeing a few ibooks or powerbooks around. That's growth, and for Game-Spy to drop a growing market where they already have a product does seem a bit ludicrous.

    So why drop a product that shouldn't really take much support, that you have already written, which is in a growing market... if it's not M$ then it beat's the f*&$ out of me...

  61. What does it mean for linux ports? by agraupe · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I like playing Neverwinter Nights on Linux, and, given that Atari now supports Linux on two of its blockbuster games (UT2004 and NWN), I would say it will continue without problems, given that, from what I have seen, GameSpy is just a server locater in NWN, and the actual server has been ported to linux. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but would it not be easier to port from Windows->Linux x86 than from Windows->Mac, because it's on the same platform? Well, anyway, I really don't care about Macs because, even most Mac users admit that Macs are bad for games, and they use them for multimedia. But I do care about linux, because games are the one thing standing between linux and wider acceptance IMHO, and it would be a shame to lose games and developers that we already have on our side.

    1. Re:What does it mean for linux ports? by gomiam · · Score: 1
      Martin Niemoller wrote this at Dachau:

      First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
      Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
      Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
      Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

      Remember that if the move to kick Mac games from GameSpy succeeds and the next ones on the crosshairs are Linux gamers.

  62. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by Selecter · · Score: 1

    Sorry. Forgot to include the gaming box in that sentence, later alluded to in the post. 10-4.

  63. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by welkin · · Score: 1

    ...unless you're playing WoW, or Unreal Tournament 2004, etc.

  64. xfire for macs by artaxerxes · · Score: 1

    xfire has become (on the pc platform) the ideal solution... hopefully they will port it to the mac

    --
    man kann nicht nicht kommunizieren
  65. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by GlobalEcho · · Score: 1

    Yeah, both devices process in parallel.

  66. Re:I guess I should be affected by this somehow... by supabeast! · · Score: 1

    "As I get older, I dont game as much or as often. I expect there's a lot more like me in the same boat..."

    It's the same for me. I've gotten sick of dealing with drivers, and Direct X versions on the PC and with what I saw as a general drop in quality of Japanese console games.

    I have improved my gaming experience by restricting my PC gaming to games by Blizzard, because Blizzard has never done less than comepletely exceed my expectations. On the console side I've swapped my PS2 for an XBox so I can play my Bioware games on the couch and use XBox live for those rare fighting games where the programmers didn't get sloppy like Capcom and SNK seem to be doing now. I don't buy anything that I haven't already played or read reviews of, period. Sure I play a lot fewer games now, but I also waste a lot less time and money on the sitty ones.

  67. Re:In other words, Multiplayer Mac Games are Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You miss spelled game console.


    Oh, the irony.

  68. Re:Not To Defy Mac Loving Moderators, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Double Asshole.

    Censorship sucks. YOU suck.