Games On Demand Service For Mac

Torrey Clark writes "MyMacGames is preparing to launch a new 'games on demand' service for Mac users ($8-20 per month) in the third quarter of 2007 that will feature roughly 100 games at launch. They are currently offering a free beta."

Comments

I heard about this before...

[macadamia_harold]

MyMacGames is preparing to launch a new 'games on demand' service for Mac users ($8-20 per month) in the third quarter of 2007 that will feature roughly 100 games at launch.

I've heard about this. Photoshop's a game, right?

Re:100 Mac Games

[jacobw]

Have there been 100 Mac games worth paying for since the Lisa?

Hey, there are thousands of good games you can play on your Mac. You just have to install Boot Camp first.

Seriously, there is actually a pretty healthy Mac games market. I'm just not sure it's one that appeals to the average Slashdot reader. If you want the latest and whizziest FPS--or if you spend enough time gaming that you need a new epic game every few days--then yeah, you need to run Windows.

But for a more casual gamer, the Mac is a perfectly good option, even without Boot Camp. Many of the most popular Windows games eventually get ported to the Mac--the Sims, Doom III, Jedi Outcast, etc, etc, etc, are all available on a Mac. Then there are companies like Ambrosia Software, Pangea, and Freeverse that make games primarily or exclusively for the Macintosh. The smaller Mac market means that these games will sell fewer copies, and they therefore tend to have smaller development staffs. On the one hand, this means Mac-exclusive games often don't have the vast scope of original PC games. On the other hand, it means there's more room for quirky, off-beat stuff.

Email from MyMacGames

[Anonymous Coward]

I received an (unexpected) email from MyMacGames last Saturday:

Subject: MyMacGames and [my company name deleted]

Hey,

I'm Mark Howson, and I'm a marketing manager for MyMacGames.com. MyMacGames is a forthcoming service set to change the world of mac gaming for ever, and we're so impressed by your product, we'd love you to come on board.

Your paid games show a great level of dedication and hard work, that needs rewarding.

MyMacGames wants to bring the excitement of your games, and hundreds of others to mac games throughout the world. Before you stop reading, we're not asking to buy your game, we're not asking to remove the amazing creativity that controls it. We're just offering you another way to distribute it.

Games don't last forever, and every game is not right for every person, so the MyMacGames system follows 3 central strategies to provide a new way of buying games for the mac platform, and a new 'rental' strategy to mac gaming around the world.

These 3 pillars are:

Choice
Anti Theft
Fair Pay

Firstly, choice. We feel the consumer deserves a choice as how they play games, how long they keep them for, and which games they play. We charge between $8.00 and $30.00 to the consumer per month, for them to experience a number of exciting mac games (between 8 and 35 simultaneously).

The consumer can change the game in each slot every 14 days. This is on a slot by slot basis, so if a consumer adds a game to one slot on the 1st, they could change it on the 15th. Another slot, with a game added on the 3rd, could be changed on the 17th. The user has 24 hours to change the game. If they play the game during this 24 hour window, we assume they wish to keep the game.

Our system will email users to tell them when a slot is available to switch, and will warn them if playing the game will mean they forfeit the opportunity to 'swap' the game out for another game. These methods make the user feel in control, while giving you greater earning potential.

Of course, you're not going to earn money if we just give users unlocked dmgs, so we're going to be sure to protect your intellectual property. Which brings us on to our second 'pillar', anti theft.

We know that your work is your most valuable asset, and we really do care for your property, and the time you've spent. The idea of providing us with an unlocked dmg sounds stupid, but it's not.

Games are spliced with code that means they live in our application, can only be played via our application, and are encrypted with the AES method. The AES (or Advanced Encryption Standard) is an encryption standard involving unique keys. It is the standard encryption method of the US government, and is one of the most secure methods around. But for your game, that's just not enough.

All downloads will also be watermarked, so if encryption is broken, we'll know exactly who broke our encryption, disable the version where possible, send out a whole load of intellectual property notices, and disable the account. Of course, this won't happen, but we'll be equipped with this, and other, secondary safeguards just so we sleep well at night.

Which leaves us with the final pillar, fair pay. We feel this is the most important pillar, and one that will be crucial to our business with you. For every game slot you fill, we'll pay you 10 cents/week. This money will be provided monthly by your choice of method, we will support:

Wire Transfer
PayPal

You will have a control panel, where you can hold payments, check payment data (updated daily) and find out how your game is doing. If your game is in our top 10, or less than 1 month old, then 2 slots are required to play the game, and we will, of course, pay you twice as much money.

Here's some examples of quite how much that is

Normal game 1000 players weekly (average)