280 000 000 users is not for you? Message for 2k CEO

[thestevehere]

-- This message for 2K CEO, dear 2K team please send it to Strauss Zelnick.

For a long time i was Windows user, than I change platform to a Mac (I have iMac 27") and don't want to came back. I found more profit on Mac platform and have all necessary software on it. But when I looking on new games system requirements I don't see Mac OS X. This is strange for me. We, Mac users, have amazing powerful computers with huge bright screens, we love technology, love games and we have money. I want to ask you, Strauss Zelnick, why you loosing more than 280 000 000 customers? Why you don't sell 2K amazing games on Mac App Store, like BioShock Infinite or Borderlands 2 or XCOM: Enemy Unknown? Look at the Mac market - who need Angry Birds? We almost don't have games here, amazing, big games. Please, pay attention on it.

P.S. For those, who want to answer me something about: Install Parallels or Windows by using Boot Camp I answering now: I don't want to spent my hardware space on stupid windows and don't want to spend time on this poor software, I want to have Mac OS X games, this is clear? Because I already have OS on Mac I want games on it.


-- This message for 2K CEO, dear 2K team please send it to Strauss Zelnick.

[Codex]

Recently 2K has been getting it's games localized after release by Feral Interactive. Whilst it's not perfect (and sometimes takes a good deal of time to get them recoded) they are doing something. Very few companies do same day release for Mac.

I'm sure Illusion will pop in here and post something (he's a mac user too) but other than letting you know about Feral, I don't know what to suggest.

Edit: I'm going to note that the following 2K games have been localized for Mac; Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Mafia II and Borderlands GOTY Edition.

[headkase]

The problem is that from start to finish a game takes about 3 years. At the very beginning it is decided which technologies it will run on. When a developer uses off-the-shelf engines and middle-ware like Unreal Engine, Havok, DirectX, and others, that imposes some constraints right away. These tools that games are based upon have dependencies, for example, DirectX is a Microsoft technology and only runs on Windows and the Xbox 360. When the various components are tightly-coupled to those dependencies then porting the title to another system quickly becomes a huge task. Some components aren't even available on some platforms. It is a rare event now that a game developer will develop the entire stack required for all of the functionality contained within their title. Games are just so technologically complex that writing everything from scratch is impracticable. So, that's where a company like Feral Interactive comes into the picture. The main developer brings the title to its primary platform and then the porting company takes the title and rewrites what is needed to base the title on components that are available on another platform. In the case of the Mac this usually means rewriting DirectX code to OpenGL code. It would be more complex to develop all platforms simultaneously so generally a title is completed for its primary platform first and then that completed code, without adding to the primary target's development time, is then handed-off. When the primary target takes, like said, about 3 years to develop then once it is handed off then that takes another amount of time - say 1 year.

A publisher is the incorrect place to place pressure for cross-platform titles. With the fact that very few titles are built from scratch now the correct place to apply pressure is engine and middle-ware developers. As an example, hundreds of games are based off of Unreal Engine 3. If Unreal Engine 3 itself fully supported as "first class" both PC's and Macs (and Linux!) then when starting with that existing base the amount of effort for a developer to port their title to the supported platforms would be significantly lessened. Epic Games (Unreal Engine 3 and upcoming 4), Crytek (CryEngine 3), Bethesda (id Tech 5), Gamebryo (Elder Scrolls/Fallout 3-NV) are the exact place that will make a difference. Those are the major engines. If they all supported multi-platform deployment then not only would titles be available for Mac much sooner but also there would be a lot more titles that made it too. Instead of having to expend 100% more effort to port the title, engine support for multiple platforms would reduce that to a metaphorical 10%.

[IllusionOfLife]

The industry is starting to make steps towards releasing games cross-platform, but unfortunately industries are slow moving creatures. The problem is that for a long time Apple had such a small market share that they didn't have much voice in the personal computing world, much less the video game world. Because of this, as headkase said, many of the tools and industry standards for making games evolved around technology that was localized for Windows PCs. Making games for Mac was never a consideration because such a small percentage used them, why bother?

Obviously, though, since Steve Jobs' return to Apple in the late 90s/early 2000s Apple has become a much more important voice and their market share, while still only a fraction of Windows PCs, is much more significant and steadily climbing every year. Because of that, we are starting to see more games available on Mac. Valve brining Steam to the Mac along most of their catalogue of games was a huge step, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II are both available for Mac and BioWare is saying that they want to bring SWTOR to Mac as well, and all of the Humble Indie Bundles to date have been cross-platform across Mac, Linux, and PC. Like I said, though, things move slowly, and it will take some time before the tools for developing cross-platform become standard. Hopefully the new engines that are starting to be showcased for the next console generation will be built with tools for the Mac.

[Darrknox]

must...agree...with...hivemind....

[AspyrRyan]

You know, 2K's latest game, the Civ 5 expansion Gods & Kings will be available on the Mac App Store tomorrow.

[Precarious]

I'm also a mac user and it's nice to see more things integrated. It gets a bit frustrating... While I can't give you definitive answers, I do agree with the problem. Might be nice to hear from someone that can give us better answers though.

[watchman]

280 million ... that cant be Mac users -- thats linux/unix users lumped in ????

Unfortunately the linux/unix world isnt as standardized to make games (which are more specific in using hardware/performance)

[hilltrot]

in order for me to get a halfway decent gaming machine, I have to pay $4000 on Mac. The same gaming machine would cost me at most $1200 to build. Now you might have $2800 to waste but I and most users don't. (And we all know that the extra 2800 didn't go to pay for highly skilled and well paid workers.)

It's simply not cost effective to produce games for Mac. If just 1% of the so called 280000000 Mac users went out and bought Diablo 3 at full price, the gaming industry would go fanatic in trying to get all their games to Mac first. But how many copies of Diablo 3 sold on Mac compared to Windows??

I could go on and on.

There is no grand conspiracy against Macs!

Games will be developed on Mac when it is commercially viable to do so. And not one second before. It's far more cost effective to translate a game afterwords, than to do duel development.

If you think Mac is such a hot gaming platform, go spend $2,000,000 developing a game for Macintosh and see how much money you make!

I don't want 2kgames to make some boneheaded decision bankrupting them to pander to a minority interest.

(BTW, I'm not talking about iPad and iPhone. That's an entirely different subject.)

[watchman]

in order for me to get a halfway decent gaming machine, I have to pay $4000 on Mac. The same gaming machine would cost me at most $1200 to build. Now you might have $2800 to waste but I and most users don't. (And we all know that the extra 2800 didn't go to pay for highly skilled and well paid workers.)

It's simply not cost effective to produce games for Mac. If just 1% of the so called 280000000 Mac users went out and bought Diablo 3 at full price, the gaming industry would go fanatic in trying to get all their games to Mac first. But how many copies of Diablo 3 sold on Mac compared to Windows??

I could go on and on.

There is no grand conspiracy against Macs!

Games will be developed on Mac when it is commercially viable to do so. And not one second before. It's far more cost effective to translate a game afterwords, than to do duel development.

If you think Mac is such a hot gaming platform, go spend $2,000,000 developing a game for Macintosh and see how much money you make!

I don't want 2kgames to make some boneheaded decision bankrupting them to pander to a minority interest.

(BTW, I'm not talking about iPad and iPhone. That's an entirely different subject.)

Im still not sure if they ever really work (havent seen them myself) but there was that gaming system that you played any solo type FPS game that ran on a server farm (with high power gpu) and the video of it was piped to your computer to allow you to play.

It should be thus no problem for 'mac' users to play any game they want (I assume a mac client for that system would be easily doable)....

Of course playing with extra latency delays might ruin alot of games and choppy/bursty video transmissions actually make such a system pretty awful to play, but heck its still probably better than trying to play a high end game on the limited mac hardward.

Ipad and Iphones -- great, we can play games we had on the PC 25 years ago

(though I see potential of MMORPG minigames (where isometric 2.5D graphics are fine) linked to the main online game as being a good addon feature -- allowing players access to their MMORPG game during those spare minutes during the day they cant be on their gaming PC).