Wolfire blog writes: “It’s ‘common knowledge’ that Mac and Linux gaming are so unimportant that they might as well not exist. Everyone ‘knows’ that Mac games sell a tiny fraction of the amount that Windows games sell, and that Linux games simply don’t exist. But are these ideas based on reality? Where did these figures come from? Anyone who has ever worked with statistics knows that it’s unwise to trust ‘common knowledge’ without data to back it up. I decided to ask some developers about their sales distribution, and get some real data about Mac and Linux game sales.”
It is noble to fight for the cause of having more Mac and Linux games available, but the situation is never going to change.
I do have inside knowledge from the gaming industry, by knowing some studios, and already had the pleasure to attend a couple of GDCs.
Nowadays most studios only focus on the consoles, because of the lower development costs, when compared with desktop computers. The variety of desktop computers hardware leads to high technical support costs and test configurations.
Only afterwards they focus on the desktop systems, which again due to costs, means Windows PCs.
Mac and Linux systems are at the end of the list.
There are even many Indie studios targeting the XBLA, XNA Creators Club, Wii Ware, PSN downloads.
The Mac has to thank the iPhone and now the iPad for its increased visibility in the gaming area.
There are already more commercial games to Android based systems, than to desktop Linux.
Wolfire advocacy is good, but it won’t lead anywhere.
With the Steam platform being released this year for Mac and possibly Linux, its entirely possible that it will spark a change towards Mac and Linux.
Wine is already decent if do not run the most up to date games. Crossover Games is also a good alternative to Windows.
Depending and where you buy the PC from you can buy it without Windows and save the cost of an OEM licence.
Spot on. When you are a game studio, and released successful PS3 and XBox 360 versions of your game. Maybe you’ll put in the effort for a Windows version, since it is relatively close to XBox 360 and the market is big. But then you get to decide whether you are going to develop for the marginal Linux and OS X markets, or put all the effort on your next blockbuster with splendid Playstation and XBox sales. What would you do? Add to that the messed up sounds/graphics/library situation in Linux.
Things will only change with marketshare. For instance, if marketshare of the iPhone and iPod grows, it will see more and more titles. It’s a big market, and people tend to buy application frequently.
True, yet I’d love to see the break down of blockbuster games if they were to simultaneously release their products for Windows, OS X and Linux and then come back after two months of sales to see the distribution breakdown.
However, the notion of hardware variety becomes somewhat less significant on Mac, since all machines legitimately running MacOS are made by Apple and there are only a relatively small number of models (and you can automatically discount any model not powerful enough to play a given game too). If anything, it is more console-like than linux or windows.
I fully agree with the point the author is trying to make (good job on the figures, too). Gaming is quite platform-independent, hence the coexistence of so many game consoles. Regarding gaming on a computer, a befriended avid gamer has admitted to me he’d rather have a Mac if the availability of games was equal to Windows.
With there being dedicated Mac gaming sites and Apple reserving a special place for games in their store, I think advertising directed at Mac-users would not even be too difficult. I do indeed hope that game developers will increasingly understand the gains of a cross-platform (console & computer) game, such as Guitar Hero.
On a side note, I myself am not much of a “modern” gamer. I’m a sucker for old DOS games like Keen, ROTT and GTA1, so hooray for DOSBox. I also LOVED “Digital: A Love Story” — http://www.osnews.com/story/23142/Digital_A_Love_Story
Hmmm you bring back so many memories of the good old days of gaming. These young ones could never understand how good it once was.
Thank you, you’ve made me smile.
The young ones of today will look back too one day and they will remember Bioshock and Bejeweled with fondness, and the young ones of that day will not understand how good it was.
I don^aEURTMt think modern games are worse than their predecessors, but that gaming evolves and drops old features whilst adding new ones. What we look back to is those features that are no longer around^aEUR”the surrealism that came with the first forays into 3D rather than gritty realism now, for example.
Also, we look back at games fondly because they represent a compressed, boiled-down like concentration of the world at that time, representing indirectly the styles at the time, the news, the technology.
Ergh. Right you are, Kroc, although I’m so frequently reminded the average age of the OS News audience seems to skews younger than I am (I’m 35).
My early childhood was more or less when the second generation of consoles started. So the major players weren’t Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft; they were Atari, Magnavox, Coleco, and Mattel. That’s right. The toy company that makes Barbie made the Intellivision. And I’m not even mentioning the dozens of systems between those two times.
There were plenty of clunker games back then for those consoles. I should still be able to utter “E.T. for the Atari 2600, Toys ‘R Us, and Massive Fail” and someone should know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, hey, the Angry Video Game Nerd can school you just fine. His reviews on the adult games for the 2600 especially are gems… that dirty little side of the early console years that would never fly with the ESRG ratings now.
I wistfully remember the arcades; they really started biting the dust around the time I was finishing up high school. Werecat mentioned emulators; heh, being a M.A.M.E. enthusiast– yes, I see there are plenty of clunker arcade games too.
Nostalgia isn’t just a compression of the zeitgeist of the times; it’s very often a compression of the creative talent, too. And there are plenty of generation gaps, all right. Notice I didn’t utter much of anything Nintendo or Sega related. Yeah, it was good. But I was a teenager by that time, and not a young child.
But yes, I do remember when a lot more games were developed for the Mac. And I remember the years between the Apple II and the Mac… but that’s just a whole ‘nother story.
I’m not much into modern games myself; in high school we were swapping Doom floppies and loading it onto the new 486 machines in the lab, and playing deathmatch tournaments between classes. The last console I cared about was my Dreamcast and it’s still in use today, 11 years later, by my kids. On the PC side, Thief II and System Shock 2 are my all time favorite action games, with World of Warcraft and the Elder Scrolls series rounding out the RPG arena and Star Trek Armada II for strategy. So far I’ve not been that impressed with recent games; apart from admittedly stunning graphics and better physics there’s really nothing new.
Of course I still fire up Doom, Star Trek Armada, and Thief from time to time just for some nostalgic fun.
LOL…
Every time i bring home a new (old) console, or some old PSX game or something – my kids rave over it…
Lately they’ve been on a Spyro kick – it’s fun watching kids go nuts over old console games.
My oldest daughter is working her way through Super Metroid now – I like taunting her when she can’t figure something out
Edit: clarification
Edited 2010-05-09 03:05 UTC
Yeah, I find it simply amazing that with all this fancy new tech, my kids are more interested in a game system that was made a year before the elder child was born. In fact, the “game” they play the most on the Dreamcast is a Sega Genesis emulator with about 500 ROMs, most of which are twice as old as the kids.
Then again, I was born in 1977 and at their age I was more into my Atari than my NES (until I got Final Fantasy anyway), so maybe it’s not just something with this generation.
Good Lord. How young are all you people?! 1977?!
I must be the oldest person on OSAlert.
1965 here.
What really stinks is my kids are probably younger than yours. LOL!
Good Lord. How young are all you people?! 1977?!
I must be the oldest person on OSAlert.
1965 here.
What really stinks is my kids are probably younger than yours. LOL!
Oo, we have a fossil here!
Hey, can you tell me, were dinosaurs in your youth really as horrible as they’re usually depicted?
No, the small ones made great pets!!
I think that^aEURTMs awesome. You have much better perspective on the computer landscape than the kiddies who have only ever known a world with the world wide web.
Well I know there are others out there who are even older.
I’ve heard them talk about punch cards and such, and the good old days at DEC for example. So I know I am not alone.
I play games on Linux. It runs all the current gen games like bioshock, oblivion, fallout 3, cnc 3/4/red alert 3. the only real issue with wine is .net support for some installers, and games for windows live support for certain games. Pretty much all the other current gen stuff runs now. Directx9 titles especially so. I think the only games that have actually failed due to graphics have been the Crysis games and they were pretty rubbish anyway. The main issue I’ve had with wine has been running directx 5/3 titles like Warhammer: Dark Omen, and Fury3. Dosbox handles all the old games, there’s going to be a fork of dosbox to handle windows9x/glide games soon so that’ll solve most of the dx3/5 compatibility. I think the arguments are becoming irrelevant. Virtualisation is taking over the market and Windows has shot itself in the foot by having the xbox 360. There is no compelling reason for companies to use directx 11. Directx9 won and has killed directX 10/11 for companies. If there is an xbox 720 and it has directx 11 then it will change. Right now however wine is pretty complete for gaming. If people want games on mac/linux I suggest they start filing bug reports to wine. Most games I’ve run have worked using cracks. Very few new titles don’t run at all. Noone is trying to fix the deeper issues in wine with regards to older game compatibility and usability and there needs to be more advocacy for this stuff. I want to see things added to wine like a Pulseaudio driver, Using alsa/oss for midi support. Better networking support and more robust audio support. All of these things could be added quite cheaply and will fix most of the gaming issues in wine. If I won the lottery I’d be also funding the development of directx 1-7 features to get them finished.
I have played games, like VTMB, on linux via Wine but the graphic are definitely choppier (but it could be the way I am configuring wine) and I seriously doubt I’d be able to play Bioshock 2 or Modern Warfare on it. But I could be very wrong!
Still, that leaves DRM’d services like netflix out of the picture.
On a side note, I myself am not much of a “modern” gamer. I’m a sucker for old DOS games like Keen, ROTT and GTA1, so hooray for DOSBox.
I do like modern games, but I also like to play oldies. I have ZSnes, Gens and Epsxe installed so I can play Marios, Sonics and Crash Bandicoot when I want some easy but entertaining gaming. And heck, those Snes games even look pretty good still if you enable SuperEagle mode in ZSnes!
Oh, as a sidenote, I just bought the Humble Indie Bundle from Wolfire Games a few days ago, got 5 neat games to play through. Aquaria and World of Goo are my favorites of the bunch so far
<3
Oh yes, Aquaria, here I come again!
I don’t know, am I the only one who doesn’t find the Linux download on the Aquaria webpage? I downloaded the open beta, filed a few bugs, finished it, but then it expired and even today, the site is still offering only the Windows and Mac versions.
I don’t know, am I the only one who doesn’t find the Linux download on the Aquaria webpage? I downloaded the open beta, filed a few bugs, finished it, but then it expired and even today, the site is still offering only the Windows and Mac versions.
I bought the Humble Indie Bundle (5 different games) and got downloads for all 3 platforms. So yeah, they have a finished, complete Linux version of it too. But maybe they’ve just forgotten to include the download link on their own websites too? Just pop them an e-mail and ask for it, I guess.
And this is why gamming on linux isn’t worth chasing after.
There are *NO* games worth buying anymore on a PC platform if you loathe FPS titles and garbage like Warcraft.
If you want a game that’s playable by a single player, that’s not internet connected forget PC gaming.
These games don’t exist anymore.
Just look further than the frontpage of mainstream gaming sites and you’ll find plenty of good games.
Edited 2010-05-08 15:02 UTC
Indeed. It would be nice for people to see the positive side of Mac/Linux gaming rather than talk about how they don’t have mainstream games.
Gaming is not all about mainstream gaming and Windows but I think it’s made that by a lot of people and greedy game houses.
There are *NO* games worth buying anymore on a PC platform if you loathe FPS titles and garbage like Warcraft.
First of all, there’s PLENTY of good games worth playing. If you only look at the latest and most advertised games then the issue lies with you, not the games. I personally have deeply enjoyed f.ex. C&C3: Tiberium Wars lately.
Go for example to Gamespot.com and browse through all the reviews. There’s loads of stuff there and many of those less-advertised games are actually really good. And hell, a few years old games can still be boatloads of fun, so don’t concentrate only on the newest ones.
There are some good indy games these days but pc gaming sucks compared to what it used to be. It not only lacks single player originals but it also gets skipped on some of the best multiplats.
Indeed. For console games, I usually wait until a given console is no longer sold or supported by game manufacturers, then I pick one (or two, or three) of them up at garage sales, and usually they come with a load of games, or they can be easily sought for a dollar or two elsewhere.
E.G. I just scored a perfectly working Dreamcast and several decent games for $10 last weekend
There are so many old consoles and games that were good, and I never played, that I don’t even have time or interest in PC games these days
FWIW, I picked up the Humble Bundle the other day when I saw it on /. – it was such a good idea, and the games looked good enough, that I felt it was worth throwing $ at. I haven’t even played any of the games yet
Indeed. For console games, I usually wait until a given console is no longer sold or supported by game manufacturers, then I pick one (or two, or three) of them up at garage sales, and usually they come with a load of games, or they can be easily sought for a dollar or two elsewhere.
That’s a pretty good idea there. I myself have been hoping to get PS3 and LittleBigPlanet for it for atleast a year now, but it’ll probably take 2-3 more years before they’re cheap enough. Too bad, I really loved LBP
They exist, they just aren’t hyped or advertised as much as they should be. Besides, there are rarely single-player non-networked games in the console world anymore; every modern console has internet access and developers will add network features whether the game needs it or not.
What I would like to see is the breakdown of Starcraft II sales, a high profile, highly advertised ‘blockbuster’ game that is made with equal consideration for both platforms (sorry linux).
Since Blizzard is the only company that makes such games it’s the only way we have to gather statistics for big profile game. I couldn’t find any information about marketshare for Mac vs PC for WoW and Warcraft III came out in 2002 when the OS landscape was very different.
Most likely we won’t see. Blizzard hasn’t published WoW user shares and most likely they use DVD which has both versions(PC and Mac) for Starcraft 2. One estimation I found was GM that said 90/10 ratio based on activity in mac tech forum compared to PC. Also source of original article is huge Linux fan so keep that mind when looking figures.
I completely forgot that Blizzard puts both versions onthe same disc. Still they must have fairly representative numbers from Battle.net, so it’s a shame they don’t publish them.
The Mac market is really a laptop market. Just because some indy companies have had good sales of their 2D games does not mean that a company like Rockstar should port GTAIV.
The recent Mac refresh boosted their igpus to a level that can play Valve games but not much more. The typical Mac is still going to have an older igpu which is going to limit the scope of the market.
He is also being too optimistic on the issue of porting costs. His game was built on a Mac with OpenGL so his porting costs are going to be much lower than a game built around DirectX.
But with that said I think it is great that he has had success selling his game on Mac and Linux and it’s an interesting look at indy game sales.
Well, I had never heard of this bundle. I went to the link, thought it was a good deal, and bought it. I made sure to give a good amount so the Linux side would keep up its higher rate of contribution (you choose how much to pay)
Go Wolfire!
I want to think that games would arrive that I could play on whatever Mac or Linux machine I had available but it just doesn’t seem to happen.
When I upgraded my PowerBook to Leopard, a lot of the games I’d had for quite a while would no longer run and Aspyr, among others, had no interest in working on them. Thanks to Epic and id Software for providing patches to UT2004 and Quake III for Intel-based machines. They still work and on an Intel-based machine, even work on Snow Leopard.
Given the right game, I’m willing to buy. Right now, it seems easier to buy a US$4.99 or US$9.99 game for my iPod touch and if it’s not a great success, I remove it and re-sync it when I’m really bored.
You’d think with the relationship between Mac and iPhone/iPod touch, that more developers would consider moving the games to Mac OS X. They might not make a fortune, but if they re-coup their development money and get goodwill, isn’t that enough sometimes?
This is exactly the problem with the state of gaming software for OS X and Linux. If they could use the same development resources to produce a PC/PS3/XBox title that would make much more than their development money, why would they ever bother with OS X/Linux? I think this problem applies only to games since they have to sell right now (the studio will release the Next Big Thing in six months).
Contrast this with other software, e.g. an office suite, that is more or less expected to have stable sales for 2-3 years. In this case it makes perfect sense to port to other platforms, since it will probably bring in more money than just the development costs.
This is why Blizzard always releases their games for both Mac and PC. I think their development process is closer to traditional software than games. They spend an enormous amount of time in development, so much that it would outweigh the effort of a well planned port, and they expect their games to sell for a lot longer than other games (Starcraft and Diablo II are still going strong, released in 1998 and 2000 respectively).
That’s certainly reasonable.
I believe that Blizzard’s philosophy goes against the old thought that if you’re not typing, you’re not doing anything. Most game development seems as though they sit down and start typing immediately, then think about design later, possibly when it doesn’t work. That would explain why ports are so difficult.
The biggest complaint I heard about the Halo port was that it wasn’t designed for a computer. That’s some serious irony since it was originally shown on a PowerComputing Mac clone.
The industry is too big to care and open source is too small to do anything about it. It’s time for that winning lottery ticket to change it all.
Actually, linux gaming is quite good. Most of the popular games run on Linux or run in wine. And while I might not be able to play left 4 dead 2, far more people are playing counter strike 1.6 and counter strike source. It is a shame that iD gave up on the linux platform. Guess they won’t be getting my money in the future. I own every quake title they put out. So yes, some linux people do play games.