39 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

The Globe and Mail has published a new article focused on the current state of gaming on Apple's Mac computer platform. Starting with a flashback to Halo's early days as a Mac title, the article explores the current status of emulated titles, casual games, and more hardcore gaming fare on Apple computers. The examination includes commentary from Transgaming's Vikas Gupta, PopCap Games' Edward Allard, and Blizzard Entertainment's J. Allen Brack.

“There is definitely a large group of customers on the Mac who crave simplicity and ease-of-use,” explained Edward Allard, vice president of development at PopCap Games. “This fits very well with PopCap's emphasis on extremely fun and accessible games that are designed for a very broad audience.”

“We're making games for whatever platform makes sense,” explained J. Allen Brack, production director for WoW. “If you're looking at the Mac, there are certainly people who would not play World of Warcraft if there were no Mac client.”

While developers such as Blizzard recognize the Mac's casual reputation, World of Warcraft's success has proven the platform is just as viable for the hard-core crowd. More importantly, the Mac may prove even more influential than its PC counterpart, introducing formerly casual users to a new world of gaming.

After all, the days of Halo are now but a footnote in Macintosh history, but perhaps it is the casual gamer that will ultimately determine the platform's fate.

“We're making sure that we target games that fit really well for the Mac,” Gupta concedes. “We know that from a hardware perspective and from a performance perspective, we're not going to be able to do what a 360 or PS3 can do.”

Read the full article at the page linked below.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[Janichsan]

IMG News, on September 30th 2009, 09:22 AM, said:

After all, the days of Halo are now but a footnote in Macintosh history, but perhaps it is the casual gamer that will ultimately determine the platform's fate.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mac Gaming is Dead!!!™


Dumbest sentence in that article:

Quote

While you won't find many of the past decade's hit titles, including Half-Life , Grand Theft Auto or anything with “Mario” in the title, the company's online store has an section dedicated to Mac games that appeals to a less hard-core fan base.

Neither will you find anything with "Mario" in the title on the Xbox, the Playstation or any PC. Does that mean that Xbox Gaming, PS Gaming and PC Gaming are also dead?

[Eric5h5]

Janichsan, on September 30th 2009, 04:19 AM, said:

Does that mean that Xbox Gaming, PS Gaming and PC Gaming are also dead?

It's worse than that.  All gaming, everywhere, is dead.  In fact everything is dead, period.  Might as well just sit in the corner and stare at the wall.  

--Eric

[charmin]

I was going to post, but I'm dead.

[Frost]

I'm undead.

[the Battle Cat]

What th... this thread was somehow posted in the IMG News Discussion forum.  I'll move it over to the Mac Gaming Is Dead™ forum right now.  Sorry for the confusion everyone.

[rhywun]

I wasn't aware that Valve targets PCs that are no more than "months" old. That seems rather limiting.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

IMG News, on September 30th 2009, 01:22 AM, said:

“We're making sure that we target games that fit really well for the Mac,” Gupta concedes. “We know that from a hardware perspective and from a performance perspective, we're not going to be able to do what a 360 or PS3 can do.”

I guess Aspyr, VP and Feral didn't get this memo when they decided to port the upcoming games we are looking forward to.

I'm calling BS on this. It's more because of the market than the hardware that limits the Mac I would say. Most modern  video cards are already more powerful than the ones in those two consoles for one. For another thing computers including Macs still have more RAM and VRAM than either console. It also has multi-core bringing up the rear. If anything it's the software that is most likely the limitation.

People on the PC are bemoaning the perception that games these days are no longer taking full advantage of their hardware because many of them are console ports. The Mac may not get parity with the PC when it comes to hardware but it's not 100x slower.

[nagromme]

The Mac market is growing. The gaming market as a whole is growing. Unless one of those two trends reverse, I don't see the Mac gaming market doing anything but continuing to increase. Even if others are even bigger, Mac gaming is hardly dying.

[bobbob]

rhywun, on September 30th 2009, 06:27 AM, said:

I wasn't aware that Valve targets PCs that are no more than "months" old. That seems rather limiting.

For the author, since no Valve game ever has been all that demanding.

[UmarOMC1]

charmin, on September 30th 2009, 05:37 AM, said:

I was going to post, but I'm dead.

I'm so dead it's not even funny.

[Janichsan]

UmarOMC1, on October 1st 2009, 08:02 AM, said:

I'm so dead it's not even funny.

So that's were that smell comes from...

[the Battle Cat]

UmarOMC1, on September 30th 2009, 11:02 PM, said:

I'm so dead it's not even funny.

He's dead Jim.

[J'nathus]

Since the latest 'next gen' consoles, I think PC gaming has less of a hold on the games that I prefer. Crysis may look great on a machine that can run it to the max, however Compared to Gears of War, Resistance Fall of Man, Uncharted, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, BioShock and the latest Prince of Persia . . . Crysis doesn't really stand out all that much (and yes, I know a number of those did end up on PC as well as Mac).  The cost of entry with a decent gaming PC is cheaper than it ever was, but at the same time people are buying the $300-500 machines and crappy SEVERELY underpowered netbooks.

I see a sort of parallel of PC gaming's higher cost of hardware entry vs Mac ownership / Mac Gaming's higher cost of entry.  Is that the wrong way to look at it? Either way, I prefer computer-based gaming - especially on my setup.

[The Liberator]

Janichsan, on September 30th 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mac Gaming is Dead!!!™…

Eric5h5, on September 30th 2009, 06:24 PM, said:

It's worse than that.  All gaming, everywhere, is dead.  In fact everything is dead, period.  Might as well just sit in the corner and stare at the wall.  

--Eric

charmin, on September 30th 2009, 07:37 PM, said:

I was going to post, but I'm dead.

Frost, on September 30th 2009, 09:32 PM, said:

I'm undead.

the Battle Cat, on September 30th 2009, 11:23 PM, said:

What th... this thread was somehow posted in the IMG News Discussion forum.  I'll move it over to the Mac Gaming Is Dead™ forum right now.  Sorry for the confusion everyone.

::Liberator reads each post after another, laughing more and more all the time::

One extremely funny post after another. I accidentally stumbled across this thread, only expecting to see what Janichsan wrote. I surely did not expect what everyone else wrote. Great joke guys, great joke.

Janichsan, on October 1st 2009, 06:14 PM, said:

UmarOMC1, on October 1st 2009, 04:02 PM, said:

I'm so dead it's not even funny.

So that's were that smell comes from...

the Battle Cat, on October 2nd 2009, 12:05 AM, said:

He's dead Jim.

This was also great stuff, great stuff. I deem this the single funniest collection of posts in one thread for quite a while now, maybe even as far back as the Three word story thread.

Liberator.

[yo-mike]

Frost, on September 30th 2009, 07:32 AM, said:

I'm undead.

I'm undead too. lol.
I still have a lot of fun playing the Mac games I like. Nothing like an arcade style game. - There's still plenty of those around. It's a process finding the games you actually like, and on Mac it's a bit more work
I guess. I'm happy though. Even without a top-dog-mac, there's still plenty to choose from of all the genres.  

-Mike

[Bernie]

I am willing to admit that I am a gay undead zombie killer as long as that is sufficiently confusing as to whether I am gay or I am a killer of gay undead zombies.

On a serious note, what is the criteria for determining if Mac gaming is dead or alive? And, if you apply that criteria over the last 25 years, was Mac gaming ever alive? If not, can one claim that Mac gaming is dead when it was never alive? Maybe the criteria a lot of people use needs to be redefined.

[charmin]

Schrödinger's Mac Gaming?

[The Liberator]

Eh?

Liberator.

[the Battle Cat]

The Liberator, on October 3rd 2009, 06:11 AM, said:

Eh?

Liberator.

Schrödinger said:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.