Adam, you're absolutely right...as I see it. This is much less about platform game support than it is about platform distribution support. But the latter is useless without the former. You accurately described the Mac dev food-chain so I won't be redundant, but the other key aspect of current ports to the Mac involves the code itself...native versus virtualization. The latest Sims 3 port for Mac is emulated. It's PC code thrown on top of a resource hungry virt environment (that's an over simplification, so don't get too upset) that runs horribly on all but the latest and strongest machines. So while some see "support for the Mac" means that it will run on all Macs, that ain't so. In fact, I'm venturing a guess that EA's support costs for the average Mac release is INSANE, all because of performance issues. If said code were native, most of the problems probably wouldn't exist. So I see Valve's decision to port, natively, their OB engine product to the Mac to be an effort to a.) throw more sand in Activision's distribution eyes, (go Steam!!) , develop a previously untapped market segment (Mac), and head off support nightmares with a little preventative research and development.
It shows how Valve's business model and management have matured in a very short time. Good job! -Kerry On 3/11/10 10:43 AM, "Adam Buckland" <adamjbuckl...@gmail.com> wrote: 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. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
