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Apple Needs To Get Its Game On
BusinessWeek is running a piece exploring why Apple needs to get back into gaming. From the article: "Maybe Apple's user base just isn't fully aware of great games that are now available for the Mac? Sure, there are games to be found at the Apple store, prominently displayed in the software section. But does Apple market the Mac as a gaming machine? Adams says it should. 'The biggest thing that Apple could do is educate its users,' she says. 'Apple's message is so closely tied to iTunes and iLife and the iPod and these are all great selling points. We have a great relationship with Apple and they help us get the games ready. But we really need the users to meet us halfway, and only Apple can make that happen.'"
The biggest thing that Apple could do is educate its users
:)
Educate them how ? Like Bob or Clippy ? Like Vista (à la "You need more privileges to move that file") ? No, thanks !
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
That's a given for Mac users!
Ah thankyou!
You can play any Infocom game on the Mac. Who cares about anything else?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Convince more game devs to use OpenGL, libSDL, OpenAL, and other cross-platform libraries, lest they settle with straight DirectX. Ports become very easy (and presumably less expensive) to do, making it more likely that a port will turn a profit. And we all know how the suits love a profit.
This is the only logical step for the company. Microsoft and Sony both have their own gaming systems; Nintendo is the only independent company left still making a system that isn't also part of a PC/Media company.
An Apple/Nintendo merger makes quite a bit of sense from a corporate culture perspective as well - Nintendo, like Apple, is the smaller, more personal of the gaming companies, focused on user experience more than sheer graphic/processing power. From a philosophical standpoint, their directions align nicely.
Additionally, Nintendo could help Apple expand into the Japanese / Asian market with other consumer electronics, given Nintendo's HQ and savvy with that marketplace.
Anyone remember the days when games actually came out first on Apple computers? All sorts of stuff used to debut on the Apple II - Castle Wolfenstien, Boulder Dash, Karateka (the precursor to Prince of Persia)...
The coolest voice ever.
Apple has a website dedicated to advertising the games that are available for the Mac. A cursory glance of the titles gives the impression that Apple actually has a large videogame library. However upon a closer scrutinization the games are a generation or two behind a series that is currently available to the PC. For example, Apple has Battlefield 1942, but they don't have Battlefield 2. Apple has Civilization III but they don't have Civilization IV. Apple has Ghost Recon but not Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. If Apple really wants to win over the gamer market they are going to have to end the typical 6-12 month delay that a game experiences before being ported to a Mac, if it is ported at all. Otherwise the gamers demographic will continue to be dominated by Microsoft.
I can relate to what this guy is saying.
Macs are 100% capable of running all the latest games, and doing it well. Hell, these days they are basically a typical x86 machine with a totally ideal OS. You can get the most recent powerful video cards no problem, so it's not like performance is an issue, especially considering that every new Mac has a cutting edge Intel CPU in it (other than the G5s).
It would be nice if, for example, developers would use OpenGL more often considering it's actually the only reasonably cross-platform 3d API that has fairly widespread acceptance. I can't understand why companies willfully lock themselves into a Fisher-Price platform just because all the kiddies use it. It's frustrating as hell to me that game development companies are so shallow that literally all they care about is what will make them money.
I guess I'm just too idealistic in imagining a world where software is written with adherence to cross-platform standards, where people can run the same pieces of software regardless of what platform they prefer.
I shouldn't have to be locked out of huge portions of the software industry because I purchase the computers that work best for me. Unfortunately, it seems that "those who make the decisions" don't agree with that sentiment at all.
I was actually talking to an art teacher friend last night. She's going to buy a new computer, and has decided on a Mac, because of their better graphics capability.
Whether or not they actually have better graphics capability or not anymore, I don't know. But I know the historical use for Macs in business has been for graphic design, or other things that require very fine graphics.
All the best games have great graphics. You'd think that those games would be even better on a Mac, since they reportedly have so much better graphics capability. And yet, the big downfall for Mac historically has been that you have to have a Windows machine for gaming, because there just aren't games for Macs.
Which leads me to believe that maybe the "Macs have better graphics" line has always been a bunch of hooey. Had there been extensive game development for Mac earlier on, maybe there'd be 90% market share for Apple and 10% for Microsoft now. And you'd think that, early on and capitalism being what it is, game companies would have pushed games for the Mac. Did they?
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
What Apple needs to do is hire the WINE people or Transgaming to get something usable on the Intel Macs and include it free of charge (no Quicktime Pro nag) with the OS. This would be a stop gap solution as Microsoft is planning on destroying everything with Vista anyway but it would at least lower the "Mac's aren't for games" cries.
First though, Apple needs to sit down with ATi, Intel, and likely soon nVidia and get their drivers in better working order. they have the push to be able to do this so there should be no reason not to. Currently, the Intel Macs perform significantly worse under World of Warcraaft under OSX than booting into XP. Yes, this is just one app but it is a driver issue. This needs to change immediately.
Apple also needs to woo the developers (developers! developers!) to OSX. It's not going to happen immediately but if they can prove that there is both a market and a valid gaming system (get rid of crappy GMA-950, fix drivers) then they might have a chance. Developers are already going to have to switch to Vista's new way of doing things, they could also switch to OSX.
So, first step: get the back catalog. Next step: get the developers. Apple has a serious chance here. They better not screw it up.
Well, the average "Macs Have Games" post brags about 2-3 year old stuff like Unreal Tournament 2004, so I can't really blame the publishers for charging full price for old titles. It's not like there's an abundance of new titles drawing peoples attention.
Note that the price disparity also exists for mainstream programs like MS Office. Mac users are not price sensitive.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I'm not sure what Apple can do to "fix" the integrated graphics issue. I mean, looking at almost every PC laptop in that $1000-1500 price range, which the MacBook exists in, the Intel Integrated Graphics 950 chip seems to be one of the most common graphics chipsets available. Apple is currently using the ATI X1600 (in 128 or 256 meg variants) in the MacBook Pro and the iMac, and seem to basically be on par with the PC version (although the MBP X1600 is dramatically underclocked, apparently for heat and battery life reasons..... a number of MBP owners have clocked it back up to normal speeds though without too much problem). Given the MBP form factor the ATI X1600 is one of the better cards you can even get right now (and similar offerings from Asus and Acer use a similar video card...... it's really only when you get to the 17" behemoths that the competition is offering stuff like the 7900GS and 7900GTX, which Apple isn't yet offering anything to compete with).
The game developers I know dislike the cross platform tools. They don't dislike that they are cross platform, they just find them inferior to work with compared to DirectX, they find it's a lot more work. One of my friends, who's currently learning all this for the first time (he's at a game dev school at SMU) says how much more work it was for him to get his engine to work in OpenGL mode than it was in DirectX mode (their project requires both).
Now, maybe these guys just aren't very good. Ok, fair enough but you have to consider those people as well as the Carmacks. You cannot make the argument that everyone should be a grand master, most people aren't.
Well, the problem is if 99% of developers find DirectX easier than the cross platform tools, they are more likely to use it. Again you come to economics. You are going to make, by far, more money on Windows than any other platform. So you calculate how much you think you'll make cross platform (and you probably lowball it since you want to CYA) vs how much extra cost in dev time using APIs your programmers don't liek will add (and you highball that for the same reason) and the conclusion is you don't do the port.
From talking to my friend the cross platform stuff just needs a lot of simplification and unification. He claims it takes much less effort to make something work in DirectX than OpenGL and that everything in DirectX, be it 2D, 3D, input, sound, etc is all done in the same way.
So I think what needs to be done first is to out slick DirectX. Produce a unified API that does everything, and does it easier than DX does. You have a leg up in that regard as you aren't shackled to any legacy designs. Make it so that, even if they don't plan on porting, developers want to use it because it is so much better. Port the API to everything, Windows, Mac, Liunx, the consoles, and so on. Then it becomes much easier to make the port argument "Well if you are going to use AwesomeAPI anyhow it takes very little time to port cross platform."
But I do think the better API has to come first. Make it a benefit, not a sacrafice.
You're correct that Mac games aren't released as quickly as their PC counterparts - BUT, the flip-side of this is, they also don't release titles of unknown quality, only to end up upsetting people who pay out $40 or even $50 for something that's a total flop.
... or graphics artists designing corporate flyers and artwork for product boxes.) Gaming is also a potential interest, but more of a casual one. They'll buy a good game here or there, but aren't concerned with it being something that "just came out".
In the current state of Mac gaming, small companies like Aspyr and MacPlay only want to expend effort porting a title that's already proven to be a "winner" in the Windows world.
Right now, no - a "hard core gamer" won't really be happy with a Mac. They want the latest stuff the day it's first released, and they also tend to spend crazy amounts on money on the latest video cards, just for an extra 15 frames per second improvement.
In general, Mac users buy their machines with intentions of getting useful work done. Most PowerMac owners I know use them for projects that pay back more than the cost of the whole machine upon a single project's completion. (Wedding videographers and photographers, for example
That said, I think one problem with Mac action games has traditionally been the way the PPC chip does math. The coders of Doom 3 complained about this holding them back from getting the game running on parity, speed-wise, with the Windows counterpart. With Intel based Macs, maybe they're finally free of this issue.
They could use a "switch" ad. Red vs Blue already did a great one
Ever heard of Marathon? II - Durandal?
These spawned HALO, which put the xbox on the map.
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