Best way to increase games available on the Mac

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  • Reply 21 of 30
    tfworldtfworld Posts: 181member
    I spent the first 2 years learning to program on Windows while getting my BS degree... The next 3 years were spent on *nix machines. Once you learn how windows works and you have fun programming in *nix, you never want to go back. About a year or so ago I picked up Cocoa. WOW. I hope I never have to go back to windows again... I have a few games in the work, OS X only. They will be shareware and should be out this summer I hope. If Apple gave free hardware... It would make my week or maybe month. Since they wont... then I get to save up to get a new mac!
  • Reply 22 of 30
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iSushi

    Blizzard's games irritate me because they do not make efficient use of the Mac's hardware--compared to MacSoft or Aspyr, anyways.



    I don't think the blame lies necessarily with MacSoft or Aspyr, or porting houses like Westlake Interactive -- they have to do the best with what they have, and while in some cases they can make some improvements, they can only go so far with a certain game.



    That being said, I think certain companies *cough*MacPlay*cough* do need to be taken to task for the state of the games they release. I'd love to give them my money for NOLF 2, but I don't think I'd be willing to downgrade both Mac OS X and QuickTime just for one game.
  • Reply 23 of 30
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    I put none of the above as well.



    The PC of gaming is dying even more than the Mac side. It is all going to go to consoles because of the configuration nightmare that is PC gaming.



    In consoles the games cost just as much and there is really no fuss with regard to technical support. You can even bang on the hardware directly and get better performance that way without worrying about it breaking something and crashing the game, etc.



    Plus look at the buy in costs. PC gaming and the hardcore hardware guys are a dying breed for two reasons. One the hardware simply moves to fast and secondly it becomes ridiculous in terms of the justification. Why am I going to drop $400+ dollars on a video card to play a $50 game and that of course assumes my other hardware is already up to date.



    My wife plays more games than I do, and my 4 year old is a gaming fanatic. They do almost all their gaming at Yahoo games which is on the Internet, allows playing with tons of people. Most evening the number of people playing Dominoes is higher than the number of people playing Quake III as measured via Gamespy.



    The Mac is doing just fine for gaming. It gets major titles. Is compatible with most of the stuff on the internet and all of the great stuff is going to head for consoles anyway.



    Nick
  • Reply 24 of 30
    I really don't think the Mac will ever be a gaming platform simply due to the relatively small user base of which few seem to be gamers. I wish it were different because I could be completely MS free, but It's not going to happen. We may be in for some console ports in a couple of years though. I've read that ALL THREE consoles on the market are using IBM in there next machines! PS3, nintendo, xbox2 will all have g5's and that has to be good for us I would think....



    Please, someone correct me if I'm spewing out misinformation...
  • Reply 25 of 30
    Quote:

    Originally posted by HOM

    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.



    That's because games are just too damn expensive. It's ridiculous. If games were halved in price, they might sell twice as many, who knows. Piracy would almost certainly go down... m.
  • Reply 26 of 30
    myahmacmyahmac Posts: 222member
    To be honest almost everyone of my gaming friends think that acs are better for gaming. They translate good for GFx pros to mean good for GFx games. But they say it is too expensive to get a good mac. Which is true. If you wanted a refurbed G5 with a9800 and an apple LCD, that would be like 2500. and the g5 is 1399. If apple wanted to have a game machine they would need a verysimple model, Top end singlew G5 at all times. Highend GFX card with an open AGP slot. 5.1 out. and a price of 1500 or less. The lowend should dip down to 700 or 800. That would draw gamers. Oh yeah and at least support from top end games. ala blizard, and halo.
  • Reply 27 of 30
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BRussell

    HOM and rampancy -



    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.




    isn't that the EXACT same argument made about the problem and cure for music piracy on people's computers? and while microsoft/riaa kept trying to make the pc more pirate proof, apple just changed the system to reflect what people wanted and what the media was worth (in general).



    why not make an iPlay Gamers store? Gamers have no problems downloading 300-600 MB game DEMOs for crying out loud, so why not guarantee a rock bottom licensing fee for downloading and playing latest games on the mac (say $9.99 per game), you own it, you keep it, you can burn it to cd, you can network it up to three computers. "but why pay the same amount of money for good and bad games?" you say? well, i don't see anyone arguing that britney's songs are better than mozart, but they're still just $.99 in the iTMS's eye. the only true "fly in the ointment" that i can see is that songs don't usually require patches and upgrades like games do, so i don't know how you'd handle that.



    i also think apple NEEDS to have a new bungie. in other words, some house unashamed and unafraid to develop for the mac FIRST and ONLY. marathon made gamers envious. it was the '84 mac of first-person shooters. "say hello to my SPNKR missile!" apple needs someone like that again, and pangea isn't it. they make good games, but they don't appeal as much to the teen-to-30 yr. old male demographic that really spends a lot of cash.



    damn, where have i heard this business model before? now all you need is some mobile device where you can place some of the smaller games, something like a gameboy...



    hmmm...
  • Reply 28 of 30
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Merovingian

    That's because games are just too damn expensive. It's ridiculous. If games were halved in price, they might sell twice as many, who knows. Piracy would almost certainly go down... m.



    *sigh*



    Peter Tamte talked about this:

    Quote:

    Q: Could the problem just be solved by publishers such as MacSoft lowering their prices?



    A: Our industry has actually studied this. Price does not seem to be a factor in affecting piracy rates (partially substantiated by the willingness of people to steal $14.99 movies or songs they could easily get for $.99). The biggest factor seems to the size of the download, not the price of the product.



    It's a culture of theft, the cost doesn't matter. This time you're not taking money out the hands of rich rock stars, but small Mac publishing firms. 10-15 people make their living off of getting games to Mac and the people that are stealing the games are not only keeping more games from our shelves, but taking out food out of the mouths of these very talented programers.
  • Reply 29 of 30
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally quoted by HOM

    The biggest factor seems to the size of the download, not the price of the product.



    Perhaps game makers should resign themselves to a DVD format and make sure the disc is basically 100% full. This would make it impossible to download. The game would probably still only be 1 CD worth of stuff, but pack the disc with embedded stuff that doesn't even have to install or anything. The game could run with a checksum so that any disc in the drive would still have to include all of that garbage but it wouldn't ever be used by the game.



    Sure some crazy people would find a work around eventually, but it would be more of a headache than it's worth. And sure some people wouldn't be able to buy the game because it's on a DVD, but you can't have Garageband either. It's tough, but most machines capable of playing the games we're worring about getting pirated are being played on higher end machines with at least a combo drive.
  • Reply 30 of 30
    I'll go with the "games are dying on the computer" argument.



    It's absolutely true.
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