My $0.02: I think a lot of people are missing the point here. Valve only ported the games because they had to. The real motive here is Steam.
Selling Mac software is very different to selling PC software. For PC games, it makes perfect sense to put a boxed copy on a shelf where people can go to a shop and buy it. For the Mac, however, their users are much more spread out, and therefore putting a boxed copy on a shelf isn't such a good idea. Most Mac software houses realised this a long time ago and sell their software via digital distribution instead. Most don't even make boxed copies. Mac games however have never quite got there and still sell mainly boxed copies. The current state of Mac ports of games (with a few exceptions) is that a developer will develop a game for Windows, release it, and then pass their code to a third-party developer (Aspyr is an example), who will then port the game to OS X and sell it. The problem here is that it can take a team such as the one at Aspyr a year to port a game to OS X, by which time the game's hype is almost non-existant, and because the porter, the original developer, and the publisher all need to make a profit, the game is sold at full-price, while the prices of the other platforms is significantly reduced, making the OS X port very unattractive. While it make take a third-party porting company a year to port the game to another platform, the original developer could port the game much faster and for a much lower cost, especially if the Mac is a release platform. Problem is, they don't bother because they don't want to have to deal with trying desperately to distribute it digitally themselves. Valve have spotted an opportunity here. What they're doing is they're bringing a digital distribution platform that is mature and one that many developers already have experience using to the Mac. By doing this, they will (hopefully) entice many other developers to move their games to the Mac themselves because a distribution method that still gives them a higher-than-normal (compared to boxed copies) profit margin is available. So, why have Valve moved their games to OS X and not just Steam? Well, there's a number of reasons 1) They need something to launch Steam on the Mac with!! 2) If they didn't, other developers would have no reason to have any confidence in Steam for Mac. 3) Valve now have some valuable knowledge and experience in porting to OS X that they can use to help other developers in porting their games to OS X. This is useful because while Valve are giving away techniques that they've spent considerable money trying to develop, more Mac games on Steam = more profit! So, to sum up, the people who are looking at existing market figures shouldn't be. Valve aren't trying to move in on the existing market. They're trying to create one. On 11 March 2010 14:38, Jeffrey "botman" Broome <botman.hlcod...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm not so sure that a Mac port makes sense financially. According to > NPD (October 2009)... > > http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_091005.html > > 12% of U.S. households owning a computer, own an Apple computer. Lets > assume all of those are Macs with OSX and not Apple IIs. :) > > Of those Apple users, 85% *also* own a Windows PC. This means that many > of those Mac customers who wanted to buy Portal or Half-Life2 or Left 4 > Dead probably already own it, which means that you aren't going to have > much of an increase in sales by supporting OSX. Any customers that > bought it on PC who instead buy it on OSX just reduce the total sales > numbers for the PC (because they are buying it for a different platform > now). > > I really like the Mac and OSX. I've done some iPhone development on the > Mac... > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4HZT-gKDVU > > ...so I'm not an "Apple hater" or "Mac hater". I think OSX is really > neat. It is *very* user friendly and has a lot of really nice features > (which Windows Vista and Windows 7 clearly "borrowed" from), but I just > don't see supporting OSX as making much sense financially. > > Here's the way I think things went down... > > About 6 or 8 months ago, Gabe was looking to buy a new computer. Gabe > is a Microsoft guy from *way* back, and had never really messed around > much with Macs, but this time he decided to get a Mac running Snow > Leopard. After a few minutes of playing around with it, Gabe goes > running down the hall to grab people and tell them how AWESOME the Mac > was!!! Gabe said "OMG! We HAVE to port our games to this > platform!!1!11!". Some people replied and said "But Gabe, we're not > going to be able to make any money selling games on Macs and it's going > to cost us money to port our engine and all of our old games to OSX." > Gabe said "I don't care. We make enough money from Left 4 Dead, > Counter-Strike and revenue from all the Steam sales to cover it. I want > to see some of our games running on a Mac within a year." So a small > team was formed to look into what it would take to port all of the > engine DirectX and shader stuff to OpenGL and get the engine game code > ported to OSX. Gabe decided they should pick something smaller that > would appear more to "Think Different" type people and everyone agreed > that Portal was the one game that would most appeal to Mac-types. > > As I said above, I like OSX, but Valve's decision to support Macs still > has me scratching my head. Maybe Valve is doing this "out of the > goodness of their hearts", or maybe Valve sees it as more of a public > relations benefit. It still doesn't seem like a money making venture to > me. Maybe it will encourage other engine and game developers (I'm > looking at you Epic) to support OSX, but I doubt it. > > On 3/10/2010 4:49 PM, Jonas 'Sortie' Termansen wrote: >> Well, Mac support makes a lot of sense really. According to wikipedia >> Windows covers 88% of all desktop computers, and Mac OS X 6%. GNU/Linux >> only is only 1%. If you look at this pie chart >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg you >> can clearly see that if Valve supports Windows and Mac, they support >> almost every desktop computer able to run their games. I am really glad >> Valve are expanding the market for digital distribution to other >> platforms as well - personally I see Steam-like systems as the future of >> gaming. So whether how much I would like a linux port, I can perfectly >> see why they should focus on a Mac OS X port first. >> >> As for the whole no gaming on GNU/Linux thingey - the main reason >> developers don't make games for the platform is because gamers don't use >> it, and the main reason gamers doesn't use the platform is because the >> huge games don't get ports for the platform. If Valve shipped their >> Source games for GNU/Linux-based operating systems I am sure it would >> cause more gamers to use the platform, including myself. >> >> Again, I am really glad Valve is doing a Mac OS X port of Steam and >> Source and I appreiciate their efforts put into this. >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please > visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > > -- Bucky _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
