Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, Developer
Lugaru shows why game devs should support OS X and Linux
Jeff Rosen of Wolfire Games has an intriguing post up about why developers of videogames like himself should go out of their way to support the OS X and Linux markets. Their game, Lugaru, is available on Windows, OS X and Linux, and the upcoming sequel, Overgrowth, is also being developed for OS X. Rosen says right out that the prevailing opinion, that the smaller markets aren't worth developing for because the audience isn't there, is just plain wrong -- Mac sales accounted for a full half of Lugaru's sales. The people who are buying software, his data seems to say, are using Macs.
And he has five main points why it's worth the time and effort to release builds on these smaller platforms: you have sites like ours (and the great Inside Mac Games) to talk about your game for you. We Mac gamers respect companies that take the time to make sure we have just as great a gaming experience as our PC counterparts, and we talk about it when they do. He says that a Linux version gained them a mention on Slashdot, one place they'd likely never have been mentioned if they were "just another Windows game." And power users are often Mac users as well -- you want someone who will spend an entire night coming up with new content for your game just because they love it so much? Mac users are nothing if not disturbingly obsessive about the software they love.
Good points all around. Many game developers, both large and small, continue to scoff at the Mac markets as too small while at the same time wondering why they can't get a foothold of a community on the Internet. Of course, releasing a Mac version doesn't guarantee you higher sales and a rabid group of fans -- you have to make a good game first and foremost. But some of the most influential and insightful game players online are Mac users, and by shrugging them off as "not a big enough audience," you're shooting yourself in the foot.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Johnny Thrash said 3:08PM on 12-30-2008
It just drives people to play World of Warcraft.
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Johnny Thrash said 3:10PM on 12-30-2008
^^ *Referring to the lack of options on the Mac*
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Kila said 3:14PM on 12-30-2008
"The people who are buying software, his data seems to say, are using Macs."
Haha. What a daft quote.
Let's not forget the market share and that games have never really been a thing on OS X. Aside from Cider ports (for Intel Macs) the time to develop a game for OS X is just the same as creating it for Windows. Yet, the revenue generated from just producing Windows games is huge - where has the Mac version would provide next to nothing.
Now Macs have the ability to boot into Windows (2006 - present models), the requirement to bring a Mac version of a game isn't as high as it was prior.
It would be nice to be able to play my favourite games in OS X instead of rebooting into Windows, but at least in Windows, I know that I can get the best graphics drivers and that 100% of the people playing that game will on Windows so any issues affecting those users will be a high priority.
Look at Tiger Woods 2008 for the Mac - how crap is that. Crashes, sluggish. Does EA care? No. As long as the Windows version is working, then it doesn't matter.
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Bart said 7:13PM on 12-30-2008
Daft? Not really. Piracy is a big thing on the Windows platform. On other platforms, not so much. His figures seems to support this.
Besides, Mac users actually do have options. If you can afford a Mac, something like a 360 is dirt cheap. In fact, I built myself a Crysis-eating PC that costs less than half a MacBook (the white one).
JerNor said 3:53PM on 12-30-2008
The game was part of the Mac Giving Tree from MacHeist. Does Mr. Rosen's sales number for the mac include the number of copies that were given away through MacHeist? If so, I believe there is a spike in sales on Christmas and a few days following the 25th. And, the proportion of Mac sales is skewed because of this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a Mac user and I think the game is fun & I'd love to see more game development for OS X. I just wonder how many people who got a free copy will pay for the sequel or other similar games. I want to know if the source of the info is good enough to support this article.
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Jeffrey Rosen said 4:12PM on 12-30-2008
Hey JerNor, our recent free Lugaru promotion was not included, and even so, Lugaru has been around for ~four years now, so there is a lot of data to draw from. MacHeist is big, but it's not that big. ;)
Also, David Rosen (my twin brother) deserves full credit for Lugaru -- I simply work on the sequel, Overgrowth.
Dani Reader said 6:31PM on 12-30-2008
To be fair jeffrey, you have to take into account that people getting Lugaru for their macs may very well be doing it in lieu of there being any other games available for their platform, which could very well explain your sales. That said, I do think that many freeware/shareware games would prosper massively from being released for the mac, mostly for that very reason.
Nick Catalano said 5:01PM on 12-30-2008
Blizzard has made their entire library cross-platform and, according to them, it has worked out wonderfully. Or at the very least it has made them enough money to warrant continuing to develop for the platform.
World of Warcraft was not only one of the first games to work on the intel platform, it was one of the first major applications to go universal period. They aren't joking around with Mac development.
Of course, when people installed WoW on their Linux boxes Blizzard suspended/banned all of their accounts. Although that situation ended happily.
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reallycrazyguy said 5:12PM on 12-30-2008
It was great that they gave away copies of this through MacHeist just now.
But I have to say, they have the poorest registration setup I've seen in a while. You need to enter a 16 digit random number they email you, BUT you can only type it in (no copy-paste), and the app is in full-screen mode when you do (so you can't look at the email to type in the number). You need to write the number down or memorize it or have a second computer just to be able to register the game.
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chefgon_ign said 5:44PM on 12-30-2008
No DirectX = no thanks
If you have an extremely amazing game, then sure, it's less likely to get lost in the mix when there's less competition. If you have a game that's just "pretty good" then you're better off focusing your limited resources on the largest pool of potential customers, which also just happens to be the easiest platform to develop for.
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Dani Reader said 6:33PM on 12-30-2008
I suck for using very well twice in one sentence. My english teacher will be turning in his armchair
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travis.powell said 8:59PM on 12-30-2008
I love the name of their game: Lugaru...
...I'm sure that, since their company is called Wolfire Games, it is a reference to the french "Loup-Garou" aka the werewolf! Funny...
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Diego Viola said 3:03AM on 12-31-2008
I only buy games that have Linux support.
If you don't support Linux, then don't even bother in showing me your game.
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Daniel said 10:00AM on 12-31-2008
Yeah, I'd buy a Windows-only game and play it on Boot Camp, but I'm much more likely to buy a game if it has a Mac version, just for sake of convenience.
So for big gaming companies, I guess it kind of makes sense to make Windows-only, since it's more likely that people will know about it/buy it anyway, while an indie game, it if has the resources, might actually benefit more from making a Mac version.
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Jon said 12:31PM on 12-31-2008
The trouble with this article is that most of the reasons given are benefits only because of the Mac's small gaming market share. A lot of these reasons would go away if every developer did this.
I see a very big reason to support the Mac coming in 2009 though: Snow Leopard. Suddenly everyone who bought a Mac Pro in the last few years gets a massive performance bump. It will also be the first OS to support OpenCL, which is likely to be embraced by Mac developers quicker than Windows ones. A lot of consumers have passed on Vista - no-one knows how they will react when Windows 7 comes out. It's likely that the uptake will be much slower than that of Snow Leopard.
As for DirectX, remember that consumers need Vista in order to upgrade to DirectX 10. There are very few DX10 games because the market for Vista is so poor. If consumers pass on Windows 7 as well, developers may be tempted towards OpenGL instead to take advantage of more modern features.
So for the short-term at least, you suddenly get a hell of a lot of power inside a box that's near in price to an equivalent-specced (but ultimately slower due to lack of OS support) Dell. These are very good reasons for developing for the Mac.
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Stu L Tissimus said 6:04PM on 12-31-2008
Half the sales are on OS X because no Windows user would ever take a look at a game that looks like this.
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Rich said 2:41PM on 1-04-2009
Exactly my thoughts. It only sells relatively well on the Mac because there are no bloody games for the Mac, so it gets a bigger exposure. It says something that this simplistic run+jump+commit+bloody+murder game is being hailed as the pinnacle of Mac gaming...
sloppyJoe said 6:15PM on 1-03-2009
Blizzard gets tons of cred an loyalty by making a mac version of their games. Just by looking at the posters over at wowinsider you'll see that quite a few of the bloggers play wow on their mac, and overall I get surprised how many people hwo seems to be playing the game on a mac.
StarCraft (BroodWars) and Diablo 2 is also a quite interesting example. Nvidia decided it was a brilliant idea to remove support for 256 colours in one of their upgrades (it happened in 10.5.4) for MBPs, thus essentially breaking those two games. Blizzard on the other hand set out to fix the problem, something which basically entailed upgrading them to handle thousands or millions of colours, even if it wasn't their fault.
Combine it all with the fact that there isn't all that many good games on OS X and it isn't weird that quite a lot of mac gamers plays WoW or other blizzard games.
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smoke_tetsu said 3:32AM on 1-05-2009
I take exception to the assertion that there are NO games on the Mac. Sure there aren't as many and not as many come out for the Mac yearly especially during the PowerPC to Intel transition. However there isn't literally NO games on the Mac! Between native and emulated games I have so many games on my Mac that I don't have time to play them all! It would be nice however to see more AAA games be ported to the Mac each year than there usually is.
I'm sure people are interested in more than just the latest sim game.... guitar hero and the latest Call of Duty! Macsoft also needs to get the lead out and release UT3 and Gears of War for the Mac already! Epic and id software games tend to be ones that you can count on there being a Mac version. Of course if you like to play games it's a good idea to have a copy of windows on the side or a console but again there isn't literally NO games on the Mac!
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