Best way to increase games available on the Mac
Apple should buy a game company or create a game division in the company ala Microsoft/Bungie. Apple could make games for us and make money by making the games for consoles and then finally the Windoze crowd.
Whichever game company is bought should have at least 2 runaway hits under it's belt, have experience writing for consoles as well as Windoze and not currently writing for the Mac. The companies already writing for the Mac should be encouraged to compete (50% off hardware and reduced developer costs) to help draw gamers to the platform.
Also, Apple should consider remaking the cube as a LAN party style gaming emphasis Mac...basicly a mini G5 (1.6Ghz, whatever is the lowest on the Tower line when it's sold) w/ fast motherboard, 256MB minimum RAM, and the fastest card available on the Mac, small capacity hard drive (but fast I/O). Sell for same as low-end Tower.
I think these 2 actions would signifigantly increase the gaming presence on the Mac.
What do you guys think...should we send a petition to Apple?
Whichever game company is bought should have at least 2 runaway hits under it's belt, have experience writing for consoles as well as Windoze and not currently writing for the Mac. The companies already writing for the Mac should be encouraged to compete (50% off hardware and reduced developer costs) to help draw gamers to the platform.
Also, Apple should consider remaking the cube as a LAN party style gaming emphasis Mac...basicly a mini G5 (1.6Ghz, whatever is the lowest on the Tower line when it's sold) w/ fast motherboard, 256MB minimum RAM, and the fastest card available on the Mac, small capacity hard drive (but fast I/O). Sell for same as low-end Tower.
I think these 2 actions would signifigantly increase the gaming presence on the Mac.
What do you guys think...should we send a petition to Apple?
Comments
Apple making media software as it does today is a natural extension of Apple's existing business model. It caters to media professionals and has for twenty years. Macs have a HUGE presence in the creative market. Apple produced apps to maintain and grow that hold on this niche market.
In the gaming market, on the other hand, Apple has zero penetration. Apple would be starting from zero.
So, you have to ask yourself: is it really worth the large investment and even larger risk of trying (and quite possibly failing) at entering a new market like this? Would gamers really throw $1000+ at a box just to play a handful of games made by a company that has a reputation of making very poor gaming machines?
Gamers are not entirely a predictable bunch. They don't all use the same software as media professionals do. Media folks need just a handful of good apps like a video editor, compositor, DVD menu organizer. A perfectly good image editor is already available (Photoshop); so, Apple doesn't need to make that.
Gamers have a wide variety of tastes. They need variety. Can you really expect Apple to put out enough different titles to provide good a enough selection for gamers?
I just can't see it being a feasible business model.
Just a thought.
Originally posted by a_greer
iPlay gaming store
not a bad idea
On another note: gamers seem to think they make a platform. They don't. They buy their parts and put them together, pirate their OS and go from there. There's no money to be made off of them. Just a bunch of self-important tightwads. Let someone else cater to them.
Originally posted by torifile
Bundle a GameCube with every mac purchase.
On another note: gamers seem to think they make a platform. They don't. They buy their parts and put them together, pirate their OS and go from there. There's no money to be made off of them. Just a bunch of self-important tightwads. Let someone else cater to them.
[B] Gamers and games influence mindshare:
1) By how many software titles take up store shelves, aqppearing that Windows has far greater number of software titles available and joe sixpack cares about appearances.
2) People who buy computers either are gamers or have kids that play games, if there are far fewer and less recent games available, Macs won't be on their radar.
Money could be made by selling games the way a company like Aspyr or Bungie or Blizzard does, sell titles to multiple platforms, the difference is Apple would have them make the Mac an equal priority. Even if Apple only bought controling interest in a couple of companies to make them port their games over simultaneously would help things considerably.
This would help marketshare...which while not everything IS something.
And even if you don't play games...which I don't nearly as often (even w/ my PS2), they still influence the average computer buyer and with more people buying Macs, the more things will be availbel for all Mac users.
The current state of games availble on the Mac, while better than 1997 is still laughable.
anyways, i say dish out some g5's to software developers...
Originally posted by BRussell
Market share. It's got to be the primary factor stopping Macs from getting games.
It doesn't help, but the link I posted above Tamte talks about how more people stole Halo then bought it and that they would be able to bring more games to market if piracy wasn't such a big issue. We would have dozens of more games and release times that were closer to the PC version if there was more money to pay staff. More market share helps, but if 10% of people that stole games paid for it we would have a tremendous explosion games.
Would getting free hardware and developer package DEFINITELY be incentive to make all your games available on the Mac? Would you as a developer agree to make all of your game software available on the Mac at the same time (within 3 months) of the PC version? If so, then it's a good idea for Apple to do.
ipodandimac,
The reason I suggested GameCube is because it uses a PPC chip and they would have more incentive to work with Apple to increase both platform's marketshare.
Again the goal is to increase the number of games available to Mac buyers/users to increase marketshare...so any ideas to make that happen besides what has been listed above?
About piracy vs. marketshare: True enough, but the only solution I see to that is making the Mac more pirate-proof for games than PCs, and I think that would be an abject disaster for the Mac.
If you want more games, buy the games there are. There is not some awful conspiracy to deprive Mac users of games - in fact, in some large game houses, Macs are used to design significant parts of the games! Publishers encourage game companies to use Windows-specific libraries because it's the quickest and most cost-efficient way to target the Windows market, which is the only sure thing for them. All the porting houses can get around this obstacle; they've been translating DirectX calls for years (Westlake has almost completely reverse-engineered it in house). They just have to be paid to, and the publishers won't pay for a Mac port until they a) get enough sales from the Windows release to pay for the risk, and b) project enough Mac sales to pay for the risk. If the *Mac* market becomes a sure thing, publishers will ask game developers to use cross-platform libraries to whatever extent makes it most economical to target both.
If Apple became a game publisher, they'd be in the same position.
The most significant variable here is the Mac market for games. Publishers have the numbers on the size of the market, and that's what they're acting on. You want more games? Buy the games there are. Enlarge the market. Reduce the risk. The games will come.
id Software releases Mac (and Linux) versions because they believe it's "the right thing to do."
I think that's great, of course.