Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Apple
Current and future gaming on the Mac
MacNewsWorld has a pretty good in-depth overview up about Mac gaming: where it's at and where it's headed. The basic story is that the three things that have historically held Mac gaming back behind PCs (the technology differences, the OS, and the smaller installed base) are slowly disappearing. With Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel, the introduction of Boot Camp and increasingly easy development in OS X, and the growing popularity of the platform, gaming is actually bigger on the Mac than it's ever been.But there is still a huge obstacle, and that is DirectX. Though there are ways around it (Freeverse actually mentions the Unity engine in the article), many developers are stuck developing in DirectX, and that leaves the Mac platform out of the loop. And there really isn't anything comparable to it in OS X, either. Graphics hardware remains a problem, but that just harkens back to the biggest problem of getting games on the Mac: support from Apple. Some developers say that there aren't games on the Mac because Steve doesn't want them there, and until Apple shows evidence to the contrary, PC will always be the gamers' platform of choice.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
TEG said 11:18AM on 2-22-2008
Obviously, someone forgot about OpenGL. If programmers were to use OpenGL, one game could run on ALL platforms.
DirectX sucks anyway, only morons use DirectX.
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Shunnabunich said 11:30AM on 2-22-2008
"...however, the number of games ported for Mac computers continues at a relative trickle, with only six to eight top-tier games coming out in a given year."
The mere fact that these guys are counting Cider-wrapped Windows games as "ports" deals a crippling blow to their credibility, though the rest of the article seems OK. There are zero to zero "top-tier" games coming out for the Mac platform anymore, considering just how wonderfully Cider seems to have worked out. Until Apple gives a crap, casual games are all we will ever see on the Mac, if that.
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/2064/macgamingvj8.jpg
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Vasco said 11:36PM on 2-22-2008
@Sabon -
You propose a nice little solution, but it's not the game developer's burden.
Apple must give in to making its system more game-developer friendly.
Until that happens the fault and blame lies solely in Apple's lap.
potato said 11:52AM on 2-22-2008
I'm a game developer, and TEG, you're the moron here. OpenGL, while being nice, fuzzy, and heart-warming in its open-ness, doesn't hold a candle to the ease of use that is DirectX. The game industry is no longer a bunch of nerds hacking in a basement - it's a real trade where costs matter, and in that way ease of use is paramount.
There is only one thing holding back Mac games, and that is Apple. They have ZERO developer support for games, outside of a poorly put-together page on their website (a single page!). Compare with MS, who has invested millions in developer programs, made their own (superior) graphics API, continually push out things like XNA, and generally support developers in both tools and documentation.
Whereas the Mac... gets absolutely nothing.
I'm telling you right now, if Apple got hardcore about this, threw, say, 40 guys into a "Mac game dev support team", we'd see Mac gaming take off in a huge way. We need more documentation, more samples, more tools, more libraries.
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Sabon said 3:09PM on 2-22-2008
"potato said... I'm a game developer ... I'm telling you right now, if Apple got hardcore about this, threw, say, 40 guys into a "Mac game dev support team", we'd see Mac gaming take off in a huge way. We need more documentation, more samples, more tools, more libraries."
Potato - I'm making zero excuses for Steve Jobs. Yes I too wish he would have a gaming division. I guess he just doesn't do games.
So ... since he won't consider it, is there ANY way for developers to get together to create this themselves?
If one person from each developer could get together and create an outside of Apple group to do this instead?
I know they wouldn't get access to everything they would want but ...
punkassjim said 4:13PM on 2-22-2008
Thanks for the voice of reason. The crux of the argument (that hardware barriers are coming down, so gaming will be awesome now) came up back in the day when Apple switched from NuBus to PCI, and they were wrong then too.
Jon said 11:54AM on 2-22-2008
Wrong. There is an equivelant, the GLSL (OpenGL Shader Language). Doom3 proved OpenGL was as capable as DirectX. What's probably missing is a kick ass GL development environment (I've been waiting for years for a startup to design something like Scetchup for OpenGL shaders). The other problem is we need a few more game studios to quit their DirectX smoking habit.
What Microsoft is doing with DirectX is the same thing they did with IExplorer and web standards. They want to take the market, make it propritary, than sit on their asses and do nothing (effort and innovation cut into profits once you have the marketshare). Everyone will whine, but we'll be stuck because we drank along with the developers and used Boot Camp and Cider to play games, instead of demanding something better. And for the record, Cider sucks.
Steve, you should have your leumurs over there create a game changing application for the design of GL shaders. It's another small chunk of microsoft's monopoly that you could take away, further destabilizing an already crumbling empire.
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Jon said 11:57AM on 2-22-2008
FTR, I Wasn't saying wrong to the previous poster (who seems more knowledgeable than I) but the article. :)
potato said 8:32PM on 2-22-2008
Jon, you're right. GLSL is every bit as powreful as HLSL... Except that nobody writes raw shader code anymore, or at least in commercial settings all efforts are made to minimize it. With Unreal Engine 3 it's the Kismet tool, but graphical HLSL editors are very common. GLSL needs the same, and the support just isn't there.
OpenGL *can* do everything DirectX can do, graphically, but it takes the long scenic route there, which means real costs to companies developing software.
I wouldn't be so quick as to jump on the MS hate-wagon in this case. Microsoft won the DirectX battle fair and square - they innovated their way to victory, by providing superior documentation, tools, and even outright lending MS coders to high-profile middleware projects, to get the job done. DirectX all the way up through version 6 was crap, but then MS really pulled it together for DX7... and the rest is history.
Let's see Apple do that, 'cos really, MS out-innovating Apple? Someone check for horsemen in the sky.
Andre said 12:01PM on 2-22-2008
"...PC will always be the gamers' platform of choice."
Console + Mac FTW.
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EMoShunz said 12:44PM on 2-22-2008
works for me. got an imac, 2 mini's and a *nix box, plus a wii
emilygrae said 6:58AM on 2-24-2008
Absolutely. From what I've observed, desktops are horrible gaming machines. When people talk about games, they almost almost mean console. Save yourself some aggravation and get an xbox 360 or a PS3. Or heck, for the price of a decent game playing pc, which if you are actually into it will cost you a TON of money, you can get BOTH an xbox 360 AND a ps3, a large hdtv and a LOT of games. All for the price of the stupid pc hardware you would need. Plus you'd end up with a blu-ray player. Games that play better on a desktop, like WOW or Age of Empires III are already available on the Mac. Everything else plays better on a console. But that's just my opinion. =)
chicco said 12:10PM on 2-22-2008
openGL can do what directX does, but directX grants faster developing times because of its better tools and documentations. Not that i love MS, but i admit they did a good job over time with directx and they spent lot of resources on it. More than openGL will ever had.
Nobody seems to remember, anyway, that the gaming market on pc is really falling down, with few big games like the sims and WoW taking the majority of sells. PC game companies (or pc divisions of them) are turning their heads to mac thanks just to cider and to the fact they desperately need to add numbers to their sales in order to keep budgets at the same levels of past years.
The real market is now on consoles, that are fare more easy and confortable to program and to use than any regular computer around. That's a fact.
Apple is just addressing casual gamers with ipod games and few other things. Maybe casual gaming is the only gaming market right now making some money on desktops.
I think, realistically, while having bought something like 15-20 games for mac, plus lots of "casual" ones in my life, that if you seriously want to play, you'd better go to a supermarket and get a console home.
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potato said 4:42PM on 2-22-2008
That entirely depends. The definition of casual gaming changes quite often anyways. Before it meant inane match-3 style Flash games, but now casual gaming has proven itself to be much larger in scope. Casual games s till require 3D engines, still require networking, sound, etc etc. Perhaps not to the same tune as AAA titles, but the logic still stands.
We still desperately need better tools and documentation.
PetroleumJ said 2:30PM on 2-22-2008
Bootcamp works for me. Playing HL2 at full res on my 24" iMac in WinXP suits me fine.
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EMoShunz said 2:33PM on 2-22-2008
there's a video on youtube of a guy running crysis in parallels on a 24" extreme imac...albeit at a low frame rate...but if they can live render directx to opengl, just think what could be done with opengl given the support and attention that directx receives.
Russell said 12:24PM on 2-22-2008
There seems to be a misconception here that OpenGL does the same thing as DirectX. It does not.
OpenGL does:
1. Graphics
DirectX does:
1. Graphics
2. Sound
3. Input
4. Network
... and a whole bunch of other media stuff
There are cross platform APIs available that do all of those things, but none of them are particularly easy to use and none of them (well, none that are widely accepted) come all wrapped up in a nice package that is almost guaranteed not to break significantly.
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EMoShunz said 12:39PM on 2-22-2008
it all comes down to tools. once there are better tools for developing on cross-platform models, game companies would be stupid to not use opengl. free increase in user base by instantly adding bsd, linux, and apple, along with the potential of consoles.
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Doug McIntosh said 1:11PM on 2-22-2008
To the game devs. who have commented on the lack of DirectX being the stumbling-block to Mac game development:
Do the Wii or Playstation 3 support DirectX? Being as much competitors to MacroSuck(tm) as Apple is, I would guess they do not. So, developing the UI engine is essentially a rewrite for each of the supported consoles, right?
Do the Wii or Playstation 3 or the XBox360 share a development environment or API set? I would guess not. So, a developer porting a game to each of those platforms has to essentially support "x" number of source code versions anyway, plus a Windows version, which will be similar, but not in any way exact, to the XBox360 source, but is in no way object-code compatible.
So now what is the excuse? Are 30 million or so potential sales from a game-starved Mac userbase not enough to pour some development effort into? Apple gives away the IDE, the documentation, and the code examples. What's the problem?
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utterer said 6:19PM on 2-22-2008
How are there 30 million in potential sales Doug? There has been, in theory, 30 million in potential sales for years now. And no one is still buying games. There is not that huge a market for Mac games. You are comparing development kits for Wii and PS3 vs a Mac. The Wii and PS3 are SOLD AND MARKETED AS GAMING SYSTEMS. That is why developers produce games for them and invest in developing for them. Your Wii isn't running Photoshop and your PS3 isn't running Office (well unless you boot into Linux on it and install Open Office, but that is another story).
Not to mention these development houses now have MILLIONS of dollars to invest in separate programmers for each platform they support. Why invest millions on a Mac platform if only 50,000 copies are going to be sold.
The ridiculousness of your comments can only be topped by saying something along the lines of "Since Xbox 360 and PS3 use PPC style chips, how come they can't port X game to my G5????"