Finger info for icculus@icculus.org...



Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 has shipped! It's Windows only (sorry, mod fans),
 but the Linux server is available. Get it through Steam's HLDS Update Tool:
  http://steampowered.com/index.php?area=getsteamnow

Universal Mac patches for Spidey2 and Shrek2:
  http://insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=12960

ArmyOps 2.6.0 Linux server (Mac and Linux clients coming soon):
  http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=2577

Second Life Linux client alpha test:
  http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=2571

Postal 2 patch...Universal binaries, working mirrors, AW crashes fixed, and
  other goodness:
  http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=2569

Universal Binaries and the Epic Mega Pack for UT2004/mac:
  http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=2565



Other stuff:

So I guess I should talk about this Apple Boot Camp thing.

For a basic summary of the Boot Camp experience, Tuncer's Blog is pretty
 much spot on. It makes booting Windows dirt simple.

As far as I can tell, the most important bit in Boot Camp isn't actually in
 Boot Camp itself. It's in the firmware update that Apple requires you to
 install. It adds the legacy BIOS compatibility to the EFI that has
 been hampering efforts to boot Windows on the Intel Macs, until recently.

Remember all those forum people that got smacked down for saying "why don't
 you just insert a WinXP disc and hold down 'C' while booting the Mac?" The
 response was always this sarcastic, "Oooooh, we never thought to try THAT,
 moron." It didn't work, because there wasn't a legacy BIOS interface for
 booting these sort of discs, which the EFI spec allows for, but Apple
 didn't supply. Mac OS X and its install disc don't need it.

The firmware update adds this.

So now you can pop in a Windows disc, or a Linux disc, or (yes, even) a BeOS
 disc, hold down 'C' and power up...and it will boot with varying degrees of
 success.

This is interesting but also a little unfortunate, because it puts us right
 back to complacency about updating OSes and hardware to use EFI...this
 offends my techie soul, but somehow I'll still manage to sleep at night.

The other benefits are an officially-sanctioned WinXP driver pack from Apple
 and the only thing that was really honestly and truly sweet innovation in
 this whole endeavor: a program that resizes your Mac partition without
 nuking it.

It's a really compelling package from Apple. Half Life 2 runs great on the
 iMac, as does just about anything else you've been missing as a Mac user.
 Sharing this information with various Windows-using friends, they are
 universally responding that this absolutely, without hesitation or doubt,
 settles it: their next computer is going to be a MacBook Pro.

To be clear, there isn't any great love of Windows out there, people, there's
 just wants and needs that Windows happens to satisfy at the moment. I think
 it's fair to say that most people that are dual-booting to Windows because of
 that One Application They Can't Live Without will start finding themselves
 using Mac OS X more and more, as they find acceptable alternatives and get
 sick of closing everything to reboot...not to mention fighting off spyware
 on the Windows Half when the Mac Half just works.

Except, of course, with video games.

When you're in the casual space, people aren't going to reboot. Solitaire and
 Bejeweled and Zuma all need to work in a window next to your email, your IM,
 your term paper you've been putting off finishing, your 17 web browser tabs,
 etc. For these apps, nothing changes. And frankly, I wouldn't be terribly
 shocked to find these titles have a massive profit margin over other Mac
 games anyhow, making it a compelling market in any case. Dual booting isn't
 really interesting to this bunch (and frankly, they'll find themselves
 happier with some Virtual PC/VMWare/Parallels solution for the Windows things
 anyhow).

The Big Name titles, however, are a different story. Those that want to
 play Counter-Strike will boot their system into what some call "Wintendo
 mode", in the same way that they might walk away from their PC to sit
 in front of a GameCube...in those cases, they don't care that they have to
 abandon their Mac desktop for an hour or two.

I think that this is a reasonable scenario for Big Name, Triple-A Mac
 titles, probably over the next year or three:

Some percentage of original publishers will say "oh, they can just boot
 Windows." Take it from the Linux guy: these people weren't doing a Mac port
 anyhow and they just got a free pass to avoid it...but there will be a few
 well-publicized incidents where someone at EA or whatever will get nailed in
 an interview when unexpectedly asked about Mac plans.

Some will port anyhow. The Dooms and Unreals and Warcrafts and such.

The Mac-only publishers will die out, and this has nothing to do with Intel
 chips or Windows. There, I said it. I used to think that Aspyr was just
 crushing out the competition, but then Brad Oliver said something fairly
 eye-opening:

  Astute observers will note there are no Mac ports planned for our
  current PC and console titles aside from Stubbs.


And here's Glenda:

  I think we're seeing the reality of the Mac gaming market in 2006.
  We plan to release about 8-10 Mac games, similar to last year. The market
  just isn't growing, shelf space is at a premium (if you have a local apple
  store, how much space did games used to take up that are now taken over by
  iPod accessories?), and increasingly complex games cost more and more to
  bring to the Mac.

  I don't see a big change, unless Apple radically sells more Macs (double or
  triple the unit volume), starts advertising gaming as something 'cool' to
  do on the Mac, ala iLife, iTunes, etc., or we find some way to convince the
  millions of Mac owners out there who just aren't interested in buying games
  to try a game or two.

  I see PC games come along that I'd just love to bring to the Mac, but we
  look at potential sales, costs, and time, and 90% of them just have to be
  passed over. Only the really big hits sell well enough.


I don't happen to think that Boot Camp, or Intel Macs, or anything else that
 might amaze the world will make the Mac a market leader, and that's the
 only way that games will show up by default. The path of least resistance is
 Windows, and there are no magic bullets to make this change. Will Boot Camp
 make a few people switch to Macs? Yes, I think so. Will it change the market
 drastically? No, I think not.

So here are some things that I think would help the situation, in no order.

- We need to stop mourning the shelf space and move online. Aren't Mac users
  supposed to be smarter and more likely to have broadband? It's time to
  recognize that brick-and-mortar stores are an outdated and inefficient
  problem; instead of fighting to get in there, we should just dump them
  entirely. Games need to be downloadable, and for those that want a physical
  CD, either for gift-giving or just the Touch Factor, we can try something
  like Amazon as a distribution partner. For the former, my nomination is...

- iTunes. It needs a Games section, the same way it has a Movies section and a
  Music section. They are perfectly positioned to be a games publisher of
  everything from casual titles for 3.99 to UT2012 for 24.99. They could be
  the Steam of the Mac. If they did this, I wouldn't be surprised to see some
  really talented people become millionaires over the course of a few weeks.
  Could you imagine what this would have done for Lugaru? All you would need
  is a few polaroids of an 18 year-old David Rosen's new mansion, and people
  would be falling over themselves to compete for the iTunes front page.
  The end user pays less than they would at Best Buy, the developers make a
  higher royalty, Apple gets a cut and gets more eyeballs spending more time
  browsing the iTMS. That last shelf in the Apple retail stores can finally
  be filled with gaudy-ass pink iPod cases. Everyone wins in this scenario.

- In line with that, we need original Mac titles. Someone's going to have to
  take one for the team here and make some killer games without a Windows
  port. They don't have to be Quake 4, but they will have to be impressive.
  We need more Brian Greenstones, basically.

- In addition to more Brian Greenstones, we need more Carlos Camachos, too.
  iDevGames seems to me to be a great indicator of who the most important Mac
  game developers will be.

- Indies, indies, indies! We can't discount the fact that all the really big
  names might flip the PC the bird and flee to XBox720 and PS9 or whatever
  someday, which levels the playing field enormously. The last man standing
  in case? GarageGames. Or rather, people that are doing crazy-cool things
  on a shoestring budget. Find these people and make them Mac Lovers NOW.

- When a publisher says he has no plans for a Mac port of their game, you
  should make your feelings known to that publisher: specifically, that you
  love their work and would buy a Mac version if it exists. Bitching on
  forums doesn't help, though: find the guy's personal email address and
  write him a polite note. This won't actually help, though, at least not in
  any immediate and tangible way. But I'm constantly amazed at how a constant
  trickle can eventually forge a canyon, and you should never doubt that
  eventually any developer or publisher can see a value in something if people
  keep up the mantra: "We are here, we came here to buy, we came here to play."
  Just because it's gradual doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

--ryan.


When this .plan was written: 2006-04-10 14:05:38
.plan archives for this user are here (RSS here).
Powered by IcculusFinger v2.1.27
Stick it in the camel and go.