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Valve's Gabe Newell on Apple's Gaming Failures
The site Kikizo has up a lengthy interview with Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve and one of the minds behind the Half-Life 2 games. Though their discussion centers around the Orange Box (slated for release soon) and the titles contained therein, the discussion kicks off with Newell's scathing dress-down of Apple's understanding of the importance of gaming: "We tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to... well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go 'wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming'. And then we'll say, 'OK, here are three things you could do to make that better', and then they say OK, and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow though on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms."
Photoshop is not a game
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Get a mouse with two buttons. (granted, the new mouse emulates a right mouse click finally)
Macs are good machines, but they are not gaming machines by any stretch of the imagination. Then again, gaming on Windows or Linux is a kludge as well. I haven't seen a home computer optimized for gaming since the old Amiga. Frankly, all of these guys focus on their bread and butter, and if they can "happen" to get games to run, good.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Seriously, better gaming availability and I'd be running to buy a Mac. Like, tomorrow.
Of course, the same could be said for Linux. If the "bigs" showed up on Linux, I'd be dumping my Windows desktop, too.
Bottom line: first non-Windows OS with decent, supported, modern gaming and I'm off to the races.
I have a feeling that Shuttleworth isn't as silly as the Mac folks on this issue, wouldn't be surprised if he's had the same meeting, too.
Under VMWare and/or Boot Camp. Peggle (Extreme) works well in VMWare.
I'm all for giving ad revenue to sites with intersting articles, but this site is particularly annoying. Narrow text. Tons of ads. A forced flash ad between every (artifically) short article page, and no "print" view. So, without further adeau, the full text:
Gabe Newell Valve Interview - Orange Box
We sit down for a lengthy discussion with Valve Corp's MD and co-founder, Gabe Newell, ahead of the release of The Orange Box for PC and console.
By Adam Doree
Our previous interview with Valve's Doug Lomrabdi focussed mostly on Half-Life 2 and its new episodes, like Episode Two, included in the awesome Orange Box next month.
This time, we sat down with Valve boss Gabe Newell (with some additional input from Doug as well as graphics architect Jason Mitchell) for the definitive interview on everything in The Orange Box, where Valve is at, why there's no Mac love, and what's coming next.
Kikizo: Let's start with Steam. Some have levelled it as a criticism that you can't sell something after you have purchased it like you can with a typical boxed game. From a commercial point of view - if you want it, you've got to buy it new - how significant an effect does this have on your revenue?
Gabe Newell: I think we always try to provide great value to customers. You know, I think everybody who bought, Counter-Strike has received all of the updates and free content for that, or people who buy Orange Box will get five games in a box, will say that they got value, and that's what we try to focus on.
Kikizo: People keep asking you about a potential Macintosh version, and your stance is that this is a strictly Windows project...?
Gabe: Well, we tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to... well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go "wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming". And then we'll say, "OK, here are three things you could do to make that better", and then they say OK, and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow though on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms.
Kikizo: So you think it's all because of staff turnaround in their gaming department?
Gabe: I just don't think they've ever taken gaming seriously. And none of the things developers ask them to do are done. And as a result, there's no gaming market there to speak of. We'd love it if they would get serious about it. But they never have, and can't even follow trough on any of their commitments for game developers.
Kikizo: So would you say that the rumour that crops up every couple of years that Apple is about to do a big plan and release a console box, is basically bullshit?
Gabe: We've seen no evidence that they are able to follow through on even simple programs in the game space. It seems bizarre to me because it's like one of the biggest things holding them back in the consumer space. If you look at a Macintosh right now, it does a lot of things really well compared to a Vista PC, but there are no games. Why, I don't know. If I were a Macintosh product manager, it would be pretty high on my list, and a problem to get taken care of, as probably the number one thing holding them back with consumers.
Kikizo: Well that clears up the Mac issue. Now, you guys have always been improving your lobby systems, let's talk about Half-Life 2 in particular, I have to be honest I only recently delved into the online multiplayer aspects of Half-Life 2, what would you say as a new player going into the MP side of HL2 is the best thing to do, because I fired up the lobby and there's all these different things you can do, and most of them look like user-created leve
Apple needs better hardware for gameing the mac pro with 1gb of FB-DIMM ram and only a 7300 gt in the base system for $2200 is too costly and $250 more to upgrade to a X1900 XT is ripoff.
The I macs have weak video cards and the only way to get a faster cpu is to get a bigger screen that puts even more load on the GPU.
The mini is over priced and under powered.
As far as I know, Apple hasn't had to leak the source code to one of their own projects to cover for it running waaaay over schedule.
They have a 1-up on Valve in that regard.
Peace sells, but who's buying?
Given that I've been able to run every Blizzard game since Warcraft II on my Mac, and that I've been able to run every Quake III- or Unreal Engine-based game that anyone bothered to port, the whole "Macs can't run games" argument is weak at best. Especially from Newell, who canceled a nearly-finished port of Half-Life I because he just didn't feel like supporting it.
While the Slashdot summary focuses on the article's brief discussion of Mac gaming, the bread and butter of the article is about other things. I found this to be the most illuminating quote:
So [Team Fortress 2] tends to accommodate a wider variety of play styles than say Counter-Strike. I mean Counter-Strike is very clear; there's not a lot of variety in that, whereas there's a huge difference between the tactical thinking that an engineer does managing resources versus say the approach that the sniper has playing in that game. So really it's much more accommodating to a wider range of play styles than any game out there.
This is exactly why I haven't played CS for 2 or 3 years, but I've been playing TF2 every night this week. In CS, or Halo, or just about any other multiplayer first person shooter, if you're not good at shooting people in the head, you're not good at the game. But in TF2, there are so many ways to play the game that everyone's bound to be good at something once they find their niche. While I still suck at playing a soldier or sniper in TF2, I'll often find myself at the top of the list when I'm playing as a Medic or Engineer.
The other unique thing about TF2 is the variety of cooperation that it requires. In Halo and CS, sticking together is just about the only required teamwork. In TF2 the level of class specialization demands an incredibly diverse range of cooperation. Switching the balance of power is often as easy (or hard) as finding a combination of classes that can defeat whatever strategy happens to be working for the enemy.
In some ways, the cooperation in TF2 reminds me more of World of Warcraft than any other First Person Shooter.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
The problem I think is pricing. The base configuration of a high-end Mac Pro costs what I normally spend on a fully decked out SLI rig. I think the problem Apple faces (and knows) is that gamers aren't morons about hardware (most of us) and are unlikely to spend that much extra just for a Mac shell.
After all, no gamer goes.. oohh I want a Dell XPS. No, they say, oohh I want a quad core Kentsfield and a 8800 GTX SLI blah blah blah.
Apple just doesn't have the insight or ability to take Mac gaming BEYOND PC gaming. Coming in as a tie won't matter much but it will get a few people to jump ship that only hang around Windows for the next Tomb Raider game or whatever genre they like. Apple is not stupid, they know that gaming on a Mac won't add much, however it is inevitable if Mac is ever going to be viable in the mass market. No those few percentage points don't count.
Queue Mac trolls telling me how I just don't get it..
Is the turnover rate at Apple really that high? Why are people leaving so fast? And in entire teams? Can I type a sentence that isn't a question?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
To stay on the bleeding edge they need better options, but for many games out there the games will play just fine at 1024x768, some cases higher. Hell, you can run 5 copies of WOW on my 2.16 C2D iMac ;)
I think Apple as a whole is too distracted by trying to do too many things at once. You know that the iPhone had to take a lot of focus to pull off. Yes while they talk about increasing Mac marketshare I don't think its their bread and butter anymore and probably no where near the direction they will go and stay. In other words, Macs are here until they become #3 or lower in the revenue chain.
What would I like?
A headless machine which can accept an Apple approved video card in PCI format. Perhaps a slightly thicker iTV with the card mounted horizontally. The problem is, Macs are generally more stable simply because you cannot add any card you want, let alone the horrible drivers some bring.
Be realistic in your game choices and a Mac will do just fine. Yeah they won't run the latest texture hog as 2536x1234 or what not but in many cases they do just fine with 1024x768 or close.
The only thing I could never figure was the choice of cards in the new aluminium iMacs, major step backwards in performance versus the 7600GT option (which is in my iMac)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Sounds like whining from Valve to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Apple is a saint or anything. They should probably make things easier and up the hardware a little more.
Other game companies have made games for Apple no problem: ID, EA, Blizzard, etc. The difference is they accept that they have to go with OpenGL. Some of them are fairly recent ones too. Apple has even made 1-2 updates that include fixes for a game, so they "care." I've always seen it as an effort vs reward type of thing: a bunch of work for a smaller audience makes it less likely to happen.
My guess is they're asking Apple to do something along the lines of Direct-X, to make it easy to adapt an DX game for some mythical Apple architecture. They probably want big architecture changes or additions, things they aren't just going to do on a whim because of Valve.
After the things Valve did, it's hard for me to take their side after just hearing their claim. Heck, even against MS I'd have a hard time just believing Valve.
Apple only sells one computer that isn't a laptop crammed into a tight enclosure, and its default price is USD2500. Unless GPUs reduce their heat envelope, Apple won't bother putting anything worth having inside of the computers that sell the most units; making the Mac as a gaming platform less appealing.
Apple isn't going to cannibalize the Mac Pro by introducing a pragmatic desktop Mac. Apple always releases configurations that provide some unique incentive to buy while providing encouragement for spending a lot more money on something else.
I don't think it's the best way they could go about things, but Apple doesn't really care what anyone else thinks.
It seems that Gabe Newell wants to comment on every platform but Windows' failure. I remember a while back, he commented on Linux's gaming failures. Now, he's complaining about Macintosh's gaming failures.
Where's an article from Gabe Newell on Windows' gaming failures? Sure, there are many games on Windows, but the performance on some is horrible compared to the performance of the same games on Linux or Macintosh platforms. Windows takes up so much RAM, lowering overall game performance.
In my opinion, Gabe Newell thinks he is God and that he owns the gaming world. This is just what I seem to get from all of his articles.
Disclaimer: In general, I respect Gabe Newell and he did a wonderful job with Steam and the Half-Life series and their subsidiaries.
People who want to develop games for Mac need to think more like a console developer: 1) Here's a standard set of tools. 2) Here's a limited range of hardware. 3) Here's a growing market of people looking for games, both simple and advanced. Gabe and Valve have chosen to develop on the "cutting edge" for the advanced players, which means DX10, fancy Audio engines (for the 5% of users who have more than a 2.1 setup), support for Physics coprocessors, and as much bandwidth as the graphics card allows, all of which means Windows only. Nothing wrong with that, gotta make money somehow. The Mac gaming market is there, they just don't want to participate. And how many hardcore gamers of Valve's target market only have a Mac? No PC, PS2/3, Xbox, 360, etc. They'll get their gaming fix somehow.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I'm not saying the argument is without merit. Apple could probably do a lot to promote games on their platform, but one really should consider the source a bit. Valve is about the only major game publisher not owned by MS that doesn't port their mainstream titles to the Mac. Everyone else sees the business case and makes money off of it, but Valve seems to have really drank the MS kool-aid. That's not exactly surprising seeing as both Mr. Newell and co-founder Mike Harrington were Microsoft employees before starting Valve. His argument about getting poorer support from Apple than from his old company falls a little flat in that light. I get better support too when I call companies I used to work and where I still know people, than calling some random company.
Now on the other hand, I think Apple could and should do a lot more to support gaming on the Mac. They should be collaborating with Sony to promote OpenGL toolkits to target multiple platforms more easily. If they have to, they should go the MS route and start buying up innovative gaming companies to secure them on Macs as first class citizens. In a normal market, this would not be an issue, but MS has been throwing their monopoly influence around a lot and in the past has bought some of the best Mac gaming companies (Bungie) resulting in problems for gaming on the Mac. MS gets double value for their lock-in dollars with the Xbox, which is why Apple needs to partner with Sony or Nintendo. Still, I'm not sure the guys at Valve provide an objective viewpoint. They are an anomaly and I'd much rather hear from Id, Blizzard, or EA for an objective opinion on this topic.
You sir, do not know your art. TF2's artwork is blatently copied from one "The Impossibles", which is clearly an American title stylized after american comic books.
You can't really comment on the whole "Apple does nothing for game developers" until you know exactly what the man asked for. If it's insane stuff like "implement DX10 and the Windows API, and equip every computer with at least dual nVidia 8800GTS 2GB", I can understand Apple. On the other hand, if it's reasonable thought, such as shipping SDL with the OS...
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
I might be a bit out of touch with what's new and hot in gaming hardware, but are the new iMacs (for example) really that bad? I would think that they've got to be enough, especially for casual gamers like myself. My new iMac 20" with 4GB of RAM runs Call of Duty 2 at max resolution (but not max quality graphics options) just fine. I don't care if it has tri-linear-max-bump-shaded-whatzits; it looks good enough for me. Are modern games so bad that they aren't worth playing without maximum graphic effects?
First off, if your FIRST reaction to this post is along the lines of "you fools, there are no games for Macs" or "Mac hardware is so much more expensive than PC hardware", you are obviously bringing a lot of personal bias to the discussion. This topic has nothing to do with those topics. Many companies make many great Mac games with or without Apple's support. My takeaway from this is that Valve couldn't make their own business case for porting to the Mac. They are of course entirely within their rights to do this, but to shift the blame to Apple is patently ridiculous. They may not be doing it because they wouldn't make much money, or because they are incompetent and can't figure out the APIs, or whatever. But his reasoning that somehow Apple needs to hold their hand through the process, and THAT's the stumbling block about porting, flies in the face of all the great games that already exist. I see a speck of hubris on Apple's part, but that's Apple's problem. Mac users suffer for it, but the blame lays squarely with Valve for the lack of port.
How do I edit my sig.
In WoW, pressing both the left and right buttons simultaneously means "walk forward". The Mighty Mouse can't click both buttons simultaneously due to its physical design. The Mighty Mouse is a 1.5-button mouse.
(Yes, you can walk with the keyboard too.)
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
If wishes were fishes, all FOSSies would cast nets!
Teh Lunix has had over 15 years to be something other than a Windows wanna-be, and has failed. That's not Microsoft's fault... since MS isn't trying to program teh Lunix.
And at the same time teh Lunix zealots are puling about "OMG TEH MIKKKR0$$$$LOTH TAX!!!11!!1", on the other side of their mouth they are praising OS X, and gleefully overpaying "the Apple Tax" for your pretty new iLamp, then paying $150 for your yearly service pack, then overpaying for whatever other stuff SteveJob can sucker you into buying. All with a big grin!
Typical FOSSie "logic"- claim to be "all about choice"... but in reality demonstrate how you are really about any choice, so long as it dare not be Microsoft.
As far as the "reality based community" goes, most people are perfectly happy with Windows. Especially if you are a gamer- for gaming, Windows is the only way to go. It's not MS's fault their "competition" is far too limp to actually put in the hard work to get gaming to operate properly. Guess after all that work on making the case look pretty, they just don't have enough energy to get the OS working up to snuff.
I have to agree, gaming is important. So, where the hell is Steam on Linux?
Slashdot is kind of like Playboy; we aren't here to read the articles.
HUH?!?!?!
Even most reasonably low end computers with on-board audio have 5.1 sound and have for years.
A 5.1 setup with nothing plugged into the center, left surround, or right surround connector is a 2.1 setup.that even with money-no-object, the XPS would be faster at running the games than the Apple quad-core monster. An XPS can be ordered with top-end graphics hardware, the Mac can't - they're just aiming at different markets.
As you work down the Apple range comparing prices, the XPS will generally have (or have the option of having) better GPU grunt under the hood.
Problem as I see it is that Apple != Games. Nobody buys a Mac to play games, therefore there's no need to bot the price/cut margin putting in a fast GPU, therefore still no games.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?node=home/mac/buying_guide/ea
If EA can do it, why not Valve?
I have been reading this dirtbags comments about the "three things" they want Apple to work on all day in various forms and I have yet to hear any specifics. This one has gone around the web and spurred a ton of discussion, but the discussion is all about how we "feel" about our PC's or the Games we may run on them.
How about a few details? How about coming out and saying what it is that the Macs are missing?
- Is it "Direct X"? (cause that isn't going to happen)
- Is it better graphics cards? (they are the same ones in a comparably priced Windows box)
I don't get why we are all bothering to take the criticism seriously, when it's so vague a complaint to begin with
Apple never really needed gaming, it would've been neat and dandy for them but what they really needed was consumers who want laptops rather than desktops because they play their games on consoles. Which they're getting rather fast these days, and what do you know? It's timed fairly well with the huge lift in brand hype Apple has been building over the past few years with things like the ipod.
How many of your friends have got all three of current generation's consoles. Not many. Some do, but the avarage user has 1 box sitting under his TV.
Same question about Macs vs. Windows operated PCs.
Therefore, at the time of buying a game he hesitates between 2 option :
- either buy it for his current computer.
- or buy it for the console that sits in the living room.
he's not hesitating between all different console release. Most of the usual gamers can't choose between XBox360, PS3 or Wii, because only one is available at home.
And what number tells us, is that more often, the users prefer to buy a game for the console they have at home (whatever it is) instead of buying for their desktop (PC running Windows most of the time, Macs bootcamped into Windows in nearly every other case. Except for id Software game that are massively bought by us Linux gamers. All three of us...).
Then yes, inside the "console" market, there isn't a monopoly as strong as in the computer market.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The bunch of coprocessors specifically designed to handle multimedia tasks in the Amiga beg to disagree.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That up until recently (given the last decade of Macs) the little bastards were weighed down by terrible processors. Not terrible in quality, just terrible in updating compared to intel and AMD chips. Looking at pure specs, if you buy a mac with a video card it won't be half bad for running anything that has been out for 6 months or a year.
I think developers basically forgot about Macs because it did take about three years for the G series of procs to catch up to pentiums. That's insane and also, the structure was different.
Quit bullshitting, just port your game, there's system API's that'll just work.
Seriously, STFU and just port already, geeze. I can never understand developers who want a big hugs and would rather bullshit to the press than port their frikin software. Are you just incompetent or keyboard averse? Port already, quit talking and PORT.
Apple been having alot of problems lately! Seems their new Itunes store and Quicktime releases won't show apple content! the programs have been reaking havoc on browsers like IE 7 and safari! I can tell you I had to dump Quicktime and download the alternate player with quicktime codecs to see apple movie content on my PC! Something I had to figure out myself because even Microsoft had no definitive answers that helped!
i watched the trailer for Portal and was dissapointed I could not get a version for my Mac.
not so much that I would get a pc though
...These were the guys that ripped on Nvidia and convinced everyone that ATI was so wonderful. Well, turns out ATI cards are still crappy as ever, and Nvidia cards, EVEN the FX series, kick their asses in terms of overall quality.
These are the same people who keep working on a pathetic modified QUAKE 1 engine, then everyone praises them for being so "advanced". That must be why it took them 6 years to make a game that only lasts for 2 hours.
Steam is a giant multi-gigabyte invasion of privacy. The people who are subscribed to it are mostly young kids who don't know any better. Pity they are on their parents' computers.
Well, for starters Apple stayed on PPC too long
You mean the CPU that's in the XBox 360? That doesn't seem to be hurting Microsoft. Next ?
Those crappy intel GMA950 chips Apple is so enamored with don't even support all of the shaders the GUI needs
Now that one's a legitimate complaint... but all the PPC-era Macs had full 3d-capable video cards, while PC motherboards and Wintel laptops usually didn't.
get a solid, first part DirectX compatibility layer of some sort into OS X.
Not only "no" but "hell no".
DirectX only exists because Microsoft wanted a graphics standard they controlled that wasn't OpenGL, so they could use it to bone competitors. If you think OpenGL is a problem for Apple, having to implement DirectX to Microsoft's satisfaction would let Microsoft feed them the bone harder than you can possibly imagine.
It seems to me that Gabe must have decided some time ago that PC gaming on anything but the Microsoft platform is an inherent failure. If he actually had any interest in making his games multi-(PC)-platform, then maybe demanding Apple pay Valve $1 000 000 000 USD for just the rights to port HL2 probably wasn't the best start. And frankly, it's just sad when you see announcements like these, showing just how more proactive other people are about making Valve products available to new markets than Valve is itself.
I'm starting to think that internally at Valve, their real stance on this is, "Why bother to support them, when they'll gladly hack compatibility for themselves?"
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.