Don't break my heart.
I started porting games to the Mac seriously in 1997. I'm 36 years old now and I've been doing it for 10 years. Technology changes fast: OpenGL didn't exist on the Mac back then. Many third-party game developers were doing Mac games in-house - and a few years later many of those same companies exited the Mac market as fast as humanly possible leaving just the die-hards like myself. A few of the same people are still working in the Mac games industry, and many many others have come and gone.
But one thing hasn't changed much.
Mac gamers have seen one "miracle press release" after another vowing to restore untold glory to Mac gaming. We had companies in the late 90's who would gleefully announce 6-8 ports in-progress that would vanish as the companies folded. We had the entry of a company made up of seasoned Cocoa veterans (who better to work on OSX games?) and several ports later, they exited Mac gaming. We've had a company offer up their own custom DirectX library for the Mac - ports will be revolutionized! And since the Intel introduction, we've seen a flood of press releases touting one great new revolution in Mac gaming after another. They're coming fast and furious now from people eager to cash in on the Mac's growing market share.
But you know what? There are no miracle cures for bringing games to the Mac. You just have to be smart, work hard, don't over-promise or commit yourself to things you can't deliver. The state of Mac gaming has been such that it's easy to get excited about each new development like it was the second coming of Christ, and it's equally as easy to develop a sense of bitterness as each one fails to live up to the hype. This, I think, is my biggest fear as a Mac gamer. Each miracle solution that fails to deliver just continues to harm and prolong the status quo of the Mac game market. We have enough battles to fight as it is without having to sift through gushing press releases touting some semi-plausible miracle.
I welcome any and all new Mac games and Mac game developers, but don't treat Mac games like a fad to be exploited and then thrown away. As a developer, I'm smart enough to know better when a company starts talking out of their ass. Diplomacy - and a love of my job - prevents me from calling bullshit when I see it, unfortunately. But as an end-user, it just breaks my heart each time the promises fail to materialize.
Please stop breaking my heart.
Comments
So please keep the promise of the KotoR patch :D
Posted by: ifab | June 12, 2007 03:22 PM
Well, EA isn't really porting the games - they're using the Cider libs as some sort of shim. Besides, they port their sports games to everything and the kitchen sink already - they're set up for it. Id has always supported the Mac, and since the OS X transition that support has been quite good. Without Jobs to spin it, this would have been a rather minor news item.
From the outside looking in, it seemed like the last boom was synced with the OpenGL transition - which porting costs - and gradually died as Windows games moved to DirectX. This time, it's fueled at least in part by the Intel transition for much the same reason. We'll see how long it lasts, but it's unlikely that Windows gaming will move away from x86.
Posted by: P | June 15, 2007 07:58 AM
Yeah, don't break my heart either, I bought KOTOR because it was promised to be in works to release a UB patch.
I'm still waiting for a UB patch. Wouldn't kill Aspyr to show some love for the people who pay for their games.
Posted by: Michael Bennett | June 15, 2007 10:19 AM
> Well, EA isn't really porting the games -
> they're using the Cider libs as some sort of shim.
We don't know that, precisely. Brad himself pointed out in the IMG forums that a developer with access to the source code could make changes to the source code to improve interoperability with Cider. And of course a developer with access to Cider's source code could improve it as well. Transgaming is porting the EA games and has access to both. How much tuning is possible? How much tuning will they actually do? We don't actually know.
I'm not too worried about the ports, myself. My expectations aren't sky-high: I don't expect them to run quite as fast or as pretty as native games, but even native Mac ports have tradeoffs like those... As a consumer I insist that they be playable and that Cider hasn't introduced any significant new bugs into the game. X3 and Uru Live seem to be acceptable to many gamers, so there's some hope.
Frankly I'm more concerned about EA's role in this. Sure, they have publishing muscle but there is almost no retail space for Mac games left. Target isn't going to set up a Mac shelf for Mac-only titles EA unless EA pays them big bucks, which would use up any reasonable projected sales they might have for their Mac games. So we'll see some EA games in online stores and in Apple Stores.
And if EA is thinking like a PC publisher, they'll pull the games too soon and write the whole thing off as a loss.
The best we can hope for is that EA makes enough money to stay in this market for a while, and I think we'd have to be really lucky for that to happen.
On the other hand, I expect the Potter game to sell reasonably well. And maybe the point of this is that one day EA will publish next-gen Sims games for Mac themselves - those could be somewhat profitable. So maybe their expectations are sufficiently low. Again, we don't know. I don't have high hopes on this front.
This is a good place to mention that the Harry Potter OotP game website mentions PC, Wii, PS3... has not been updated to mention Mac yet. Hmm.
Of course, maybe Brad was actually talking about something else entirely. :-)
Posted by: Matt Diamond | June 15, 2007 04:17 PM
"Yeah, don't break my heart either, I bought KOTOR because it was promised to be in works to release a UB patch.
I'm still waiting for a UB patch. Wouldn't kill Aspyr to show some love for the people who pay for their games."
Lucky for us we didn't say when. ;-)
Seriously, it's still in the works. It's got some serious stability issues related to a certain Intel-built 3rd party sound library. I think with appropriate warning, we should just release it as-is and tell people to save often. ;-)
Posted by: Brad Oliver | June 17, 2007 01:09 PM
Heh, yeah, you guys didn't say when... but it certainly wasn't made to seem like we'd be waiting so long.
I would love a beta patch, as is on my Intel Mac's I can only go 30 seconds to a minute without a crash to desktop.
Put up a nice and pretty beta disclaimer warning on the download and on the install.
Look how hopeful I am about the day the patch is released: http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w168/Neptune2603/?action=view¤t=hope.jpg
I keep it in my dock, and you can see how selective I am of it (of course, I still have the default background too)! One day.... One day...
Posted by: Michael Bennett | June 18, 2007 02:27 PM
I certainly understand being "gun-shy" ovr EA's announcement.
Of the games they announced, I might purchase Madden08. But, that's a game I can get more use out of playing w/ my sons on the Wii. A second copy just so I can sit at my Mac isn't really reason enough, I tell myself now.
However, six new games for the Macintosh platform IS a shot in the arm, especially when they're delivered by EA. Somewhere, there is a tipping point.
Posted by: Tom Herring | June 22, 2007 05:29 AM