Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Multimedia, Software, iTunes, Apple, Apple TV
Five things Apple can do to bring gamers back
Apple is releasing games for the iPod. EA and id show up at the WWDC keynote. And the rumors say Nintendo may team with Apple for the iPhone. All signs point to an Apple that seriously wants to reenter the gaming market, an arena that has been dominated by PCs and consoles for quite some time. But exactly how can they do it?They're doing some of the right things already, and we can expect them to do more in the future. But here's five suggestions (or predictions, if you will) about what Apple can do to attract gamers back to the Cult of Mac.
1) Put (even more) games on iTunes. Steam is a nice digital distribution system, and Xbox Live Arcade is a better one. But no one has done digital distribution like Apple has with iTunes-- first music, and now movies and television shows. What they need to do is add games to the software, and even go so far as to create a kind of "iTunes Arcade," where you can buy games for your iPod, your iPhone, your Mac or MacBook, and even your Apple TV. And I'm not talking dinky downloads like Lost-- I'm talking EA's Madden, Need for Speed, and even Battlefield 2142. Run patches and updates through there as well (EA's Link might not like that, but it hasn't been successful enough that they wouldn't consider joining iTunes if asked), use CoverFlow as a cool browsing and launching interface, and you've got the key not only to a solid revenue system, but also a promotion and distribution channel.
2) Casual is the way to go. Take a look at this recent list of the ten most popular massively multiplayer online games. Yes, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Lineage are on there, but look what it's mostly made up of: Puzzle Pirates, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin. Casual games are where the real money is right now, and Apple should specifically target not the Counterstrike or the Far Cry players, but the Peggle and Bejeweled crowd. The second Apple sets up a game distribution system in the iTunes client, they should make sure all of Popcap's games are in there and working right away. Imagine Bejeweled not on the iPod's scroll wheel (where it, frankly, sucks), but with the iPhone's touch interface, purchased and installed through iTunes. Or Peggle, installed and paid for on your Mac with one click, all through iTunes. Pure gold.
3) Have to get faster. Apple's hardware is much faster than almost any standard Windows PC out there-- just ask any Photoshop or Final Cut guru. So why don't the games run as fast? The differences are complicated, but they mostly lie in the gap between Directx, Microsoft's proprietary gaming engine, and Open GL, the 3D engine that runs on most Unix-based systems, including OS X. Applications like Cider are trying to bridge that gap through high level emulation, but the basic fact is that Open GL is getting on ten years old-- Apple needs to seriously reconsider the way they run 3D games on their hardware. Leopard's brand new Core Animation looks great-- so why are we still running games with Open GL?
4) Break out the gaming hardware. Apple is a software company that makes great hardware, and yet even though hardware can make or break a gaming experience, they've stayed away from it completely in terms of gaming. Photobooth is a great example-- here's an application and an interface (builtin iSight) that could lend itself to amazing games, but instead it's stuck as a novelty inside a chat program. Apple TV is another place games could make it big: put EA and Popcap games on iTunes, and release an Apple iPad (or a bigger version of the Apple Remote) to control them with, and suddenly Steve Jobs' hobby has become a serious foothold in the console market.
5) It's all about the experience. Finally, no matter what games they decide to sell or how they decide to sell them, Apple has to remember what they're best at: delivering a great computing experience. Windows is pilfering OS X with Vista, and is ready to make headway into how games are bought, loaded, launched and played on PCs, especially with Games for Windows Live. But with the coming of iLife and iPod + iTunes, more people are using Macs for recreation than ever. If Apple can leverage what they've already got to present a terrific (and terrifically easy) gaming experience, gamers will find their way to the Mac. It may be a while before hardcore gamers, with their Alienware machines and their fragging and their noobs, make their way back over. But if the Second Lifers and the Puzzle Pirates end up choosing Macs as their platform of choice, Apple will be able to afford to wait.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Billy K said 8:12AM on 6-20-2007
This piece makes a couple shaky presumptions to begin with:
"Apple is releasing games for the iPod. "
This has nothing to do with the "gaming market."
"And the rumors say Nintendo may team with Apple..."
They are just that - rumors. And pretty unrealistic ones at that.
Apple will never be big on gaming. It's just not in their DNA. It's wonderful EA is going to emulate some of their titles, but nothing I've seen recently says Apple is going to make a real push into the gaming market. If anything, they're just trying to provide a little comfort for folks like me who like to play a game now and then.
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James Donevan said 8:15AM on 6-20-2007
"All signs point to an Apple that seriously wants to reenter the gaming market..."
I doubt your premise is correct. Rather a more accurate reading would be: all signs point to other companies that seriously want to re-enter the Apple market.
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Justin said 8:25AM on 6-20-2007
How about putting graphics cards in Macbooks and Mini's that can actually play games? My macbook can't even handle enemy-territory so I'm guessing id Tech 5 isn't going to exactly be snappy. I have an LCD panel so I won't be getting an iMac for a desktop and the mini's graphics card has the same limitations as the macbook. My best bet for playing computer games is to go pick up a $400 Dell at Walmart or buy a Wii.
I'd have to agree with the other comments that Apple doesn't view games as a priority.
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Pedro said 8:38AM on 6-20-2007
" Open GL is getting on ten years old-- Apple needs to seriously reconsider the way they run 3D games on their hardware. Leopard's brand new Core Animation looks great-- so why are we still running games with Open GL?"
OpenGL was stagnant when they wrote that article in 2002, but now it's not. And for cross platform is a better choice than Direct3D, that it's tied to Windows.
Now OpenGL it's evolving again. The last spec (2.1) is from 2006 and has all the features that Direct3D has.
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Joakim Nygård said 8:51AM on 6-20-2007
Speed has nothing to do with using OpenGL over Microsoft DirectX. OpenGL and DirectX are merely low level languages for talking to the graphic cards in a standardized way. OpenGL is an open industry standard whereas DirectX is controlled only by Microsoft.
The reson Macs are relatively poor at 3d gaming is due to the midlevel graphic cards Apple continue to put into their machines. On top of that, they are not upgradable as in a PC.
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basscadet said 8:57AM on 6-20-2007
With bootcamps and parallels I need not worry about a Mac port of any PC based game. So should be the case for the videogame companies as well. They'll save their resources by not building a mac port and just doing some extra testing on the PC version running on Parallels. iPhone casual games is a totally different market than full blown gaming.
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Austin said 9:03AM on 6-20-2007
Just IN: YouTube Application!
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/youtube_coming_to_iphone_on_june_29_live_on_apple_tv_today/
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Damien Guard said 9:12AM on 6-20-2007
Games do not have the same digital distribution requirements as films, tv or music.
Games still required updates and patches and both Xbox Live and Steam have this support built-in.
Apple's current iTunes/iTMS mix does not have support for updating files. This is not a trivial thing to add as to be efficient it should be able to handle binary delta patching and perhaps even P2P for the mamoth sizes involved.
[)amien
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Monolife said 9:29AM on 6-20-2007
I agree with this article, or at least the notion that Apple might be looking more closely at the gaming audience.
The fact that Apple is releasing games for the iPod is relevant to the "gaming world": Apple is starting to distribute content to a new audience, even if it isn't you're hardcore "gamer." Look at the iTunes store: in it's earliest iterations, music videos could be watched in their entirety for free. Once Apple got distributing that content down, they phased in TV shows, and now they have movies.
I think this is the same track for games: start small, target a certain "not-to-small" audience (it doesn't hurt that you can't turn around without seeing an iPod these days), then build up from there. What I hope they do is what they did with the TV shows: bring back the "classics" first (a la Wii's virtual console), then push new stuff once they have a fan base.
The real problem, I think, is motivating the developers to optimize their games for the Mac. But if they can show up at a developer's door step saying "hey, we've pushed 'x' many 'casual' games through iTunes, we're pulling EA and id on board (to a degree), let's deal..."
It's a pain in the rear when Unreal Tournament 2k4 runs beautifully on my 3 year old PC laptop, but is like molasses on my 1yr old desktop Mac. Please, Apple, make my laptop obsolete.
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Quix said 9:30AM on 6-20-2007
Amen to what the previous posters have said: games don't run as fast on Macs because their video hardware is sub-par compared to the PC world. Period. The 20" Intel iMac has been running the Radeon X1600 since day one. That's a year and a half. People shouldn't have to buy a Mac Pro to get good gaming hardware performance, and until Apple pulls its head out of the sand and starts putting better 3D hardware in its consumer-grade Macs, gaming will go nowhere.
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Jon said 9:40AM on 6-20-2007
I'm not sure if Apple *wants* to enter the gaming market, but they're going to have to sooner or later.
I talk to a lot of Windows fanboys and they always say "Mac sucks". When I ask them why, they list off a lot of reasons like one button on the mouse, can't run Windows applications, etc - all problems that have been recently solved. I told them this. But the one problem I couldn't shoot down was the tiny game library on the Mac.
It's funny that the Get a Mac ads say that Windows PCs are boring and for business, yet Macs don't really play games. I think this is a major area that puts people off buying a Mac.
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Mike Schramm said 9:36AM on 6-20-2007
Yeah, you guys are right about the video card. Some high end macs have better cards in them, and it is possible to upgrade, though not nearly as easy as a PC. But whether it's an Open GL implementation or just a better video card, the problem is the same: Apple needs to get 3D running faster to compete, plain and simple. And there's no reason they shouldn't be able to do that.
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Dan said 9:46AM on 6-20-2007
If they do this, iTunes will definitely need a rename. Heck, do I smell a merge of iTunes and the Finder?
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Micheal Mullen said 9:49AM on 6-20-2007
I wrote something about this a few days ago on GameDaily. I used to work at EA so I understand how the internal intelligence works.
http://www.gamedaily.com/blog/2007/06/11/ea-bringing-games-to-os-x-or-new-distribution-model/
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Mattazuma said 9:54AM on 6-20-2007
Apple needs to give people more video card options. Even on the Mac Pro the options are slow, mediocre and $1650 workstation card.
Somebody please tell me why Apples can't use "regular" video cards.
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aj said 9:58AM on 6-20-2007
The game-store-in-iTunes concept is something I blogged about some time ago -- the closest parallel would be the Wii with its built-in store/collection of classic games. I think that's the route Apple should take; innovative, addictive, friendly, family, fun games don't necessarily need a kajillion textured pixels per second.
I'd go one step further and say Apple should go retro -- take the open-source MAME Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator project, and similar console emulator engines, give them a high amount of polish, cut licensing deals with whoever owns the rights to various titles, and/or make them available for Mac and iPhone (depending on what works best for that particular interface).
Right now the classic gaming market is exactly like the pirated MP3 scene; poor quality, you have to hunt around for downloads, and a lot of the makers haven't re-released their code (or it exists out there in intellectual property limbo).
A built-in "retrocade" in iTunes, or a parallel app (iGames?) could also even be a legitimate development target for new games -- plenty of homebrew enthusiasts write new code for old machines, after all.
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Jeff said 10:02AM on 6-20-2007
I don't want Apple making a video game unit. Apple seems to have lost the vision of what they started. It all started with the "Apple inc." name change.
I know they say they make the products they would want to buy, but really, I want a computer, not an iPhone or AppleTV
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DLevin said 10:10AM on 6-20-2007
So, as a switcher, I could care less about casual games and distribution through iTunes...that, IMO, is not a 'gaming strategy' and doesn't excite me as a long time PC and console gamer. The hardware is there, we just need the commitment to software development.
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Sabon said 11:06AM on 6-20-2007
"Leopard's brand new Core Animation looks great-- so why are we still running games with Open GL?"
Uh ... All 2D graphics on Mac OS X uses PDF. All 3D graphics INCLUDING Core Animation uses Open GL.
Why don't game perform better? Driver optimization!!!! The video card drivers are optimized for effects that Steve Jobs wants them optimized for. He isn't into computer games so this isn't a priority.
Sad but true.
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Will said 1:34PM on 6-20-2007
I hate to do this, but it really is how you succeed as a platform game software: Developers, developers, developers, developers. Hardware, as long as it's at all competent (which the Mac is), is secondary.
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