Macs are a closed architecture, which will never change as long as Jobs is in charge.
It's simply not worth anyone's time to develop a major and expensive game for a system that's not enthusiast friendly, since those people are the ones who buy the games when they first come out. If you want to play games on a Mac, you dual boot with Windows. If anything, crossfire and parallels will likely crush Mac game development even further, since the people most likely to want to play games are the same people who will set up a dual boot.
I'm not saying "don't". I'm saying that these is a more likely scenario.
If you're just building games for people who like to tinker inside their computers, you're not going to be in business as long as you'd like. Also note: Apple is a successful company which has been around for 30 years making and selling computers.
I would never buy a Mac (at least, not for gaming, but probably not for anything else either), but I'm beginning to understand why some people would prefer one. Almost no viruses, dual-booting is getting easier by the day, and you get more power for less money.
But for me, safe browsing and shopping for parts at newegg gets me all those things and more.
I just wish Apple weren't so damn smug in their commercials :P
"PCs can do this this and this, but Macs do it better!" Sounds like a grade-school arguement.
Apple's commercials usually don't make sense logically, but they're still kind of funny and I like them. Even though I think they're being stuck up, and often wrong. Macs are still useful though, don't get me wrong.
"PCs can do this this and this, but Macs do it better!" Sounds like a grade-school arguement.
"Our product can do something better than competing product X" is pretty much the foundation of advertising. Of course, advertising in general is frequently juvenile, but I wouldn't use your argument to call Apple on it more than anyone else.
Actually, price comparisons often show the exact opposite.
However, I will have to agree with most of the things you said. With the number of bugs that a typical WinXP computer gets, I can't blame someone for spending $1000 on a computer that just WON'T CRASH.
Macs and Dells are pretty price competitive at this point, at least for the higher end stuff. If it came to Macs vs a computer that you build yourself from parts from Newegg and Fry's, I imagine there'd be no contest.
If you're going to be a gamer, you really shouldn't get a mac...
Dang, I wish you'd mentioned that sooner. I wouldn't have spent all that time playing World of Warcraft and Sims 2 or Civ 4 and Half-Life 2 (in BootCamp) on mine. Now I feel dumb.
I'd like to see Mac-native ports of Sam & Max, too. I'd like my Windowless friends (and Candle) to be able to play it.
Don't get me wrong, my friend is a mac lover and plays everything from Quake 4 to STALKER in boot camp, but I don't consider it a legit excuse to say you're able to install an entire OTHER OPERATING SYSTEM to play games. That just takes the cost out the roof, unless you already have a good XP license.
Okay, sorry. I should've stopped. I don't want a PC vs Mac debate here. Someone else can get their final word in, but that's it.
"Our product can do something better than competing product X" is pretty much the foundation of advertising. Of course, advertising in general is frequently juvenile, but I wouldn't use your argument to call Apple on it more than anyone else.
That's not exactly what I meant, though. Their commercials give absolutely no information on WHY John Q. Public should buy a Mac over a PC. Take their one ad campaign where a Friends reject insults a guy in his late 30s/early 40s.
All I'm getting from those ads is that buying a Mac will make me an insufferable smartass with more hair gel than wits. If I were a computer-illiterate consumer, I'd want to know exactly what my cash is going towards besides the ability to make snarky comments about virus protection.
Let's say McDonalds was doing these ads.
"Hi, I'm McDonalds."
"And I'm KFC."
"My menu is easier to look at because I don't have as many confusing food variations."
"Darn. You are too smart for me, McDonalds. You truly are the better product."
If you knew nothing of McD's or KFC, would that make you want a hamburger?
I would love to see a osx version of Sam&Max but i also wouldn't like to pay for it on top of the pc version, as in my opinion this is milking. After all i bought the content, the game and if the game is available for different systems then i also should be able to get it running on those. Due to the licencing issues on consols this is only practical on computers at the moment. It's nice to see that more and more app developers turn into this direction and sell cross licences to you.
In fact if you look at the Get a Mac ads, it's just an humoristic and sarcastic way to show that lots of common ideas are totally outdated. Because everyday I hear that you can't use Office on Mac, there is just a single button on the mouse, there is no programs at all, it's ugly, not user friendly, on and on...
And I know what I say, I was like that three years ago. And someone show me his Mac. And believe me or not, a few weeks after, I got a PC crash. So I bought a Mac. Now I'm working on PCs every day, I do maintenance for my parent's PC, and when I'm at home, I'm glad to see I don't have all those things to do for me. Simple to connect, very easy to use, the UI is slighty more logical, I save lot of my time I was wasting with my PC. I read something like that a few months "Macs are for people who don't want to take their time in maintaining their computer, while they could do so much things". Yep, don't have to think of viruses (updates, scans, and for some, bills), defragmentation, scandisk, missing dll, database (regedit) etc. most of the programs are just icons, I install : I drag an icon to my beloved folder, I uninstall : I drag it to the trash. Every day and night, I don't power off anything, just put it in sleep, and in five seconds everything's back, I just reboot sometimes (about every two weeks) when there is system updates or just to clean-up the ram.
And every month, I reboot it to go on windows, to play Sam&max. And just the time it takes when I'm on the desktop, to see the antivirus scanning, searching updates, windows saying it's not up to date and my PC can die at every moment (while it's downloading updates), then the UI's blinking, but I'm waiting, I know Windows, and bingo, there is a beautiful sandglass, out of nowhere.
But after all that, I play, and when I play to sam&max, as long as I don't see or use Win interface, I think that Windows is a wonderfull thing
Ahh. The browser I use at home (Camino, a Mac Mozilla variant which is a bit faster than Firefox or Safari on my crappy old 2001 PowerBook G4) isn't animating it... but Firefox does animate it at work. Weird.
It's simply not worth anyone's time to develop a major and expensive game for a system that's not enthusiast friendly, since those people are the ones who buy the games when they first come out.
A Mac isn't enthusiast friendly? Obviously that depends on how you define enthusiast. The Mac user isn't building his own computer, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about my MacBook. Apple includes their development environment XCode on the OSX DVD. I'd like to see Microsoft do that with Visual Studio. Then there's Garage Band and iPhoto - programs that are clearly aimed at enthusiasts.
Ok, that was completely beside the point. I just thought it an odd choice of words, since enthusiasts seem to be where Apple are aiming, while a lot of Windows' focus is on office use. Had you said gamer, I wouldn't have objected as much but I think that's more of a chicken and egg thing. People don't play games as much on Macs because most games aren't released on Macs.
I did get your point. Consider however that Telltale's games seem to be aimed at least as much to the casual gamer as the "enthusiast" that upgrade their system once a month to play the latest FPS with full eye candy. Or that adventure games in general have lower system requirements and adventure game enthusiasts in general don't mess as much with their computers as the FPS crowd.
People don't buy a Mac to play games, but that doesn't have to mean that they won't play games if they become available. I personally was planning to keep my Windows computer to play games on when I bought my Mac, but I've given up on getting it to boot so any gaming for me will have to be on the Mac.
A Mac isn't enthusiast friendly? Obviously that depends on how you define enthusiast. The Mac user isn't building his own computer, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about my MacBook. Apple includes their development environment XCode on the OSX DVD. I'd like to see Microsoft do that with Visual Studio.
Um... .NET Framework, DirectX, 500 SDKs, free developer tools, XNA Framework, Web Development Kits, and who knows what else?
DO NOT EVER try to take on Microsoft on the ability to code for them.
"Our product can do something better than competing product X" is pretty much the foundation of advertising. Of course, advertising in general is frequently juvenile, but I wouldn't use your argument to call Apple on it more than anyone else.
Not in the UK - that's illegal - so having an advert blatantly doing it (and without humor like the nPower Gritish Bas (British Gas) adverts just without using a trademark is odd. So in the UK asside from nPower's humorously juvenile adverts (that only point out verifiable fact - IE cheaper) Mac vs. PC adverts are the most juvenile in the UK.
Especially since many of their points are unsubstantial or just pointing out benefits of PCs indirectly:
I'm a PC being upgraded - it's daunting for some people, I'm a mac - you just can't upgrade me - therefore I'm better, I'm also more expensive in the first place and date just as fast, so skipping upgrades and replacing me is more expensive than the same with PCs.
I'm a PC you use me at work too, I'm a mac - I'm more fun
(because of the better interface perhaps - well finding that fun is rather geeky, the fact that Windows can play virtually everything Macs can (and without additional expense and techno hassle of multiple O.S.s (some ways of doing which may be against the Vista EULA) a lot more video games)).
B.T.W. I couldn't afford a mac (even though there is something enticing about MacBooks) and would need to be able to run Maple even if I could.
Give me "there are less viruses for Macs than the leading brand any day"
Bring out Sam and Max for the Mac if it makes economic sense - if not follow sensible business practice and don't subsidise people who bought normally more expensive computers knowing full well (hopefully) they would have a smaller range of games available when they did.
Comments
How about some Mac Love?
Please?!?!?
I predict that will change very soon. Regardless, that doesn't change things.
It's simply not worth anyone's time to develop a major and expensive game for a system that's not enthusiast friendly, since those people are the ones who buy the games when they first come out. If you want to play games on a Mac, you dual boot with Windows. If anything, crossfire and parallels will likely crush Mac game development even further, since the people most likely to want to play games are the same people who will set up a dual boot.
I'm not saying "don't". I'm saying that these is a more likely scenario.
But for me, safe browsing and shopping for parts at newegg gets me all those things and more.
I just wish Apple weren't so damn smug in their commercials :P
"PCs can do this this and this, but Macs do it better!" Sounds like a grade-school arguement.
"Our product can do something better than competing product X" is pretty much the foundation of advertising. Of course, advertising in general is frequently juvenile, but I wouldn't use your argument to call Apple on it more than anyone else.
Actually, price comparisons often show the exact opposite.
However, I will have to agree with most of the things you said. With the number of bugs that a typical WinXP computer gets, I can't blame someone for spending $1000 on a computer that just WON'T CRASH.
I'd like to see Mac-native ports of Sam & Max, too. I'd like my Windowless friends (and Candle) to be able to play it.
Okay, sorry. I should've stopped. I don't want a PC vs Mac debate here. Someone else can get their final word in, but that's it.
That's not exactly what I meant, though. Their commercials give absolutely no information on WHY John Q. Public should buy a Mac over a PC. Take their one ad campaign where a Friends reject insults a guy in his late 30s/early 40s.
All I'm getting from those ads is that buying a Mac will make me an insufferable smartass with more hair gel than wits. If I were a computer-illiterate consumer, I'd want to know exactly what my cash is going towards besides the ability to make snarky comments about virus protection.
Let's say McDonalds was doing these ads.
"Hi, I'm McDonalds."
"And I'm KFC."
"My menu is easier to look at because I don't have as many confusing food variations."
"Darn. You are too smart for me, McDonalds. You truly are the better product."
If you knew nothing of McD's or KFC, would that make you want a hamburger?
And I know what I say, I was like that three years ago. And someone show me his Mac. And believe me or not, a few weeks after, I got a PC crash. So I bought a Mac. Now I'm working on PCs every day, I do maintenance for my parent's PC, and when I'm at home, I'm glad to see I don't have all those things to do for me. Simple to connect, very easy to use, the UI is slighty more logical, I save lot of my time I was wasting with my PC. I read something like that a few months "Macs are for people who don't want to take their time in maintaining their computer, while they could do so much things". Yep, don't have to think of viruses (updates, scans, and for some, bills), defragmentation, scandisk, missing dll, database (regedit) etc. most of the programs are just icons, I install : I drag an icon to my beloved folder, I uninstall : I drag it to the trash. Every day and night, I don't power off anything, just put it in sleep, and in five seconds everything's back, I just reboot sometimes (about every two weeks) when there is system updates or just to clean-up the ram.
And every month, I reboot it to go on windows, to play Sam&max. And just the time it takes when I'm on the desktop, to see the antivirus scanning, searching updates, windows saying it's not up to date and my PC can die at every moment (while it's downloading updates), then the UI's blinking, but I'm waiting, I know Windows, and bingo, there is a beautiful sandglass, out of nowhere.
But after all that, I play, and when I play to sam&max, as long as I don't see or use Win interface, I think that Windows is a wonderfull thing
I love my new mac Mini.
Wait... he's not talking. I saw him talk in that avatar somewhere else on the site.
Oh man, my brain.
A Mac isn't enthusiast friendly? Obviously that depends on how you define enthusiast. The Mac user isn't building his own computer, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about my MacBook. Apple includes their development environment XCode on the OSX DVD. I'd like to see Microsoft do that with Visual Studio. Then there's Garage Band and iPhoto - programs that are clearly aimed at enthusiasts.
Ok, that was completely beside the point. I just thought it an odd choice of words, since enthusiasts seem to be where Apple are aiming, while a lot of Windows' focus is on office use. Had you said gamer, I wouldn't have objected as much but I think that's more of a chicken and egg thing. People don't play games as much on Macs because most games aren't released on Macs.
I did get your point. Consider however that Telltale's games seem to be aimed at least as much to the casual gamer as the "enthusiast" that upgrade their system once a month to play the latest FPS with full eye candy. Or that adventure games in general have lower system requirements and adventure game enthusiasts in general don't mess as much with their computers as the FPS crowd.
People don't buy a Mac to play games, but that doesn't have to mean that they won't play games if they become available. I personally was planning to keep my Windows computer to play games on when I bought my Mac, but I've given up on getting it to boot so any gaming for me will have to be on the Mac.
Um... .NET Framework, DirectX, 500 SDKs, free developer tools, XNA Framework, Web Development Kits, and who knows what else?
DO NOT EVER try to take on Microsoft on the ability to code for them.
I think there's one thing we can all agree on:
I use a PC primarily and I'm used to left and right clicking. So when I do use a Mac, the mouse always throws me.
Can't we all get along..
The Linux guy creeps me out. :eek:
Especially since many of their points are unsubstantial or just pointing out benefits of PCs indirectly:
I'm a PC being upgraded - it's daunting for some people, I'm a mac - you just can't upgrade me - therefore I'm better, I'm also more expensive in the first place and date just as fast, so skipping upgrades and replacing me is more expensive than the same with PCs.
I'm a PC you use me at work too, I'm a mac - I'm more fun
(because of the better interface perhaps - well finding that fun is rather geeky, the fact that Windows can play virtually everything Macs can (and without additional expense and techno hassle of multiple O.S.s (some ways of doing which may be against the Vista EULA) a lot more video games)).
B.T.W. I couldn't afford a mac (even though there is something enticing about MacBooks) and would need to be able to run Maple even if I could.
Give me "there are less viruses for Macs than the leading brand any day"
Bring out Sam and Max for the Mac if it makes economic sense - if not follow sensible business practice and don't subsidise people who bought normally more expensive computers knowing full well (hopefully) they would have a smaller range of games available when they did.