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As the end of the year 2000 draws near, now is a good time to look back and reflect upon the year in Mac gaming, and look towards the future as well. Certainly 2000 was a banner year from any perspective, considering that Mac gamers enjoyed not only the release of many A-list PC titles (some simultaneous with the PC releases) but also the emergence of serious, Mac-savvy 3D hardware (the 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 and the ATI Radeon Mac Edition). However, we decided to ask the publishers and developers themselves what they thought of the year in gaming, from their industry insider perspective.

Our next Q&A is with Brian Greenstone of

Pangea Software, a company which has been making Mac-only titles based on the latest Apple technologies for the past six years. A champion of Mac-first development, Brian has created such worthy titles as Mighty Mike (a.k.a. Power Pete), Bugdom and the just-completed Cro-Mag Rally. Here are his replies:

IMG: What are you thoughts on the Macintosh game market? Was this a good year for Mac games? Or is it in a decline?

Brian Greenstone: I think it's sad that there is hardly any original development on the Mac anymore, but at the same time, I'm happy to see so many PC games being ported. It was a good year, for sure. The shelves at CompUSA have more stuff and more of a variety of stuff than I've seen in ages.

However, I don't see the Mac game market growing at all anytime in the for seeable future since I think it has reached it's maintainable saturation level, and with the old iMac's rapidly becoming obsolete due to their inability to be upgraded with better 3D cards, I think the marketshare will remain constant.

IMG: How has your company fared this year? Are sales going well?

BG: This was a very good year for us. We've sold over 23,000 copies of Bugdom which isn't bad considering that most people got the game for free with their iMac and iBook. So far, our Cro-Mag Rally sales are going very nicely as well.

IMG: Looking to 2001, what things need to be done (either by Apple or the market) to keep growing the Mac games market?

BG: Apple needs to have a way to upgrade the 3D chips in older iMacs. Developers needs to return to doing more original titles which will really make the platform shine. Right now the Mac is stuck as a "me-too" platform. The days of Myst and Marathon were far more exciting.

IMG: What's #1 on your wish list as far as the Mac market goes?

BG: More original development. I can't say that enough times.

MacPlay on Mac Gaming 2K

Pangea Software

Pangea Software

Bugdom

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