There is a set of ultra geeks that really has trouble getting into Mac OS X, the gaming crowd. While a case can certainly be made for the idea that Windows gets all the good games first is fueled by inertia, it certainly doesn’t hurt that Microsoft created a set of APIs to help speed game development. Few game developers speak of alternative forces, but Gabe Newell of Valve (Half-Life 2) has laid it down.
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.
Ouch. Honestly, I have to give Valve props for repeatedly meeting with Apple despite the apparent run around. Newell goes on to describe how Apple never delivers on its commitments for game developers. If that’s the reason I have to reboot into Windows, color me disappointed.
Apple can barely get Leopard and iPhone out the door because resources are tight. If it were to make a real gaming effort, it have to drop something important.
It would be nice to know what those three things that Valve asked for were..
OK... Why doesn't Blizzard have problems producing games at the same time for Mac and PCs? Why do I suspect that this is Valve basically saying that they don't want to have to work at a Mac version of their games without actually saying it? I do think that Valve would see more problems than Blizzard and id since they use DirectX in their engines but then Epic also uses DirectX in their Unreal Engine games and they bring those to the Mac.
Honestly, I just think that Valve realise that they don't have any Mac experience and either don't have the resources to gain it or are scared of making a mess of it. Either way I don't think that Apple are the problem if other gaming companies cope well enough.
Before someone throws in with a comment about how gaming is really only important to a very small group of PC owners, I would like to say that no matter how small that group may be, I have no doubt it's several times the size of the entire Mac community. I really can't imagine any of them giving the Mac any thought when buying a computer because of the complete lack of options it has. There's also the fact that for half the price, they could get twice the machine. And EA's "return" to Mac gaming is hardly that. Just like farming them out to Aspyr, EA still just makes a Windows game and hands it off to someone else to bring it to the Mac (now just via Cider).
This is a pleasant fiction, but Valve's absence from the Mac has precious little to do with Apple. It's all about the Benjamins.
Valve has been approached in the past by Mac game publishers who want to bring Half-Life 2 to the Mac, and the money they've asked for to license the game is beyond ludicrous. It's well above anything that anyone else, including Id Software, has ever asked for, and well outside the realm of what any Mac game publisher could pay and still expect to make a profit.
As far as Apple's commitment to the Mac game market, well, you won't get a lot of argument from me, but at the end of the day we have games based on Id's engines (Doom 3, Quake 4, the new Idtech 5 tech) and Epic's engines (including Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War in the next few months) on the Mac, yet Half-Life 2 and other Valve tech is missing. What does that tell you?
I gave up on Mac gaming a few years ago. I used to be upset that the new games were inevitably not going to run on my two or three year old machines, but I'm a lot happier just playing games on the Wii and leaving the Mac for work.
Valve's description of Apple's support for gaming has the ring of truth. Apple has announced gaming initiatives at many keynotes, but there never seems to be any followup. Apple even let their flagship games developer Bungie be acquired by MIcrosoft.
It truly isn't Apple's fault that every game developer uses DirectX and then cries about having to recode it for OpenGL...