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.'"

Comments

Who cares about games?

[soft_guy]

You can play any Infocom game on the Mac. Who cares about anything else?

Re:Apple should buy Nintendo

[dR.fuZZo]

And they could call the new company Nipple.

Re:Blame sw dev stupidity, not Apple

[mypalmike]

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.

One day while working at Looking Glass Studios some years back, I was called to an all-hands company meeting. It turned out the meeting was the announcement that it was to be the last day of the company's existence. Why were we closing down? Money. We had none, and we owed lots. Everyone at the meeting was sad, from playtesters to the president. Why sad? Because we had a great team that had made some great games, and we were in the process of making even better ones. Not because we were money-grubbing pigs.

The reason game companies care about making money is so that they can stay solvent and make more games.

To your other point, every game company I know of uses some sort of platform-agnostic libraries/framework/etc. But compiled code does not a shipping product make. Optimizations, installers, QA, packaging, distribution channels, you name it. It all costs money, and if the result isn't a net gain, it means the company can't afford it. Do you buy things you can't afford?