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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)
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.
What about the original XBox? That was basically the same architecture as a PC, but optimized for games.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
By contrast, the company that 'gets it' about everything else doesn't seem to see any worth in trying to make their platform more game developer friendly...It's always been an afterthought, and that's strange if you think about it. Here's a company that's winning sales by making the use of their platform more fun/enjoyable than their competitors, yet somehow, they always ignore games? It's almost like they think that magically game devs will target their platform/solve the problems for them, which I suppose is possible if they get enough market share, but seriously-- how many more Macs would sell if gaming on a Mac was really something you could do? It boggles the mind.
....So what you're saying is.... "I use Windows to run games on my Mac"
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..
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.
It's not about porting a game to Macs.. it's about Apple doing a few things that would make porting games much easier. It seems quite simple, if Apple wants to greatly increase market share, they will make their systems more gamer friendly.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
You're mis-representing his argument. He's not saying "Macs can run games," that's patently ridiculous, seeing as there's so many games on Mac. What he's saying is "Apple doesn't give game companies much support." What's the most Apple's ever done for game companies? They had "Sprockets" for OS 8 and 9, but they never took it seriously-- Bungie did most of the work on it, from my understanding, and Apple mostly just ignored it until by OS X it was completely obsolete.
Apple's historically always been like this, though. Even classic games like Prince of Persia, Uninvited, or even Myst were done with no support or promotion whatsoever from Apple.
Comment of the year
Still not a home computer.
But the GP is talking nonsense. Shell out five grand for a XPS or Blackbird and you're buying a gaming PC, full stop. The Amiga was no more "optimized for games" than a Mac (to get back on topic)
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
It boggles the mind.
Does it? If one thing Apple works hard for, it's a good user experience. They charge more for hardware of moderate performance. They WANT customer loyalty.
Gamers by contrast love to upgrade video cards and screw with bios settings. Gamers also have NO loyalty. They'll drop anyone to go to a next big thing in performance and gaming. The PC world there are plenty of vendors competing in all spaces. Who is Apple going to compete against? Apple? The entire chasing gamers trail of thought is basically in the same vein as "why doesn't Apple make their OS for all PCs".
If apple should be concerned with anything right now it would be having the biggest PC game available on a Mac. Last I checked World of Warcraft worked just fine, so I don't think they're too worried.
You could make a very strong case that the Mac could be an ideal gaming platform since they utilize a limited number of configurations-- it's a closer analog to a console than to a Windows PC that way. /That's/ why it boggles the mind.
There're different kinds of gamers, and those that hack around with their boxes/upgrade the hardware themselves are not the only ones that drive the gaming market. Given that 'l33t rig' warehouses seem to be doing fine, it seems clear that there're even hardcore gamers that buy their config pre-tweaked.
Yes, WOW works just fine on the Mac(and under Linux), and that's /not/ because Apple has in any way facilitated its development. Rather, Blizzard recognizes that volume is king when you're talking about an MMO, so they've worked hard to support as many available platforms as possible. Good for them.
"But it doesn't play games" is the typical argument against purchasing a Mac/using OSX. Sure, you can use Boot Camp and dual boot, but in that case you're buying a Windows license /and/ installing your own operating system, putting this outside of the comfort zone for many potential users. Your average end user is not going to want to mess with a boot loader, period.
Microsoft is in no way being short-sighted by locking down the XBox. Game licenses are what make them money, XBMC and homebrew doesn't. You may not agree with their decision, but it doesn't make them stupid for it.
It'd be nice if they let people freely mod the things once it was fully EOL'd in a few years, but that isn't really germane to the product strategy.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
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
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 ]
Valve, like a bunch of other companies in a similar position most of a decade ago, had a choice to make and got into bed with Microsoft and DirectX. you can argue about the business or technical justification, but the effects are that those companies now have a much steeper road for porting, to the detriment of all (except Microsoft).
until Newell puts forward some specific complaints with gaming development on the Mac, i'm afraid it simply sounds like he doesn't want to admit that they make money-based decisions around their games.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.