[osiris]

For those who read today's MacNN comment by John Carmack - If you missed it, here it is again for the slow of mind:

"on Sunday, August 19, 2001 @ 5:50pm

MacNN reader Eric Cherry notes some interesting comments from John Carmack, lead developer at id Software, about the Macintosh platform: "It has been pretty clearly demonstrated that the mac market is barely viable and the linux market is not viable for game developers to pursue. Linux ports will be done out of good will, not profit motives. From an economic standpoint, a developer is not making a bad call if they ignore the existence of all platforms but windows." However, Carmack adds that he is still targeting both the Mac OS and Linux. "

It's nice to see John Carmack doing us loser Mac users a favor, again. I do appreciate the (lack of) sympathy.

In fact, I am shocked that ANY game company even has a SINGLE game for us bottom-of-the-barrel citizens of the tech world.

Let's see, first, it was the lack of standardized PCI hardware that prevented Mac games from appearing,

Then it was a lack of standardized graphics - OpenGL- and when Apple did switch - they had to PULL FU*KIN TEETH FOR DRIVERS from card makers

Then it was lack of AGP. same thing again with the drivers (which still SUCK)

What now? What the hell does it cost to port a frickin game? 10Gs?? What is the excuse this time?

If a company cannot afford 10G to hire a couple of prgrammer's for a month's work to port - or better yet - actually write games for the Mac then I don't know what the hell is going on.

I am sick at all gaming/port houses - those that make ports and make us wait for YEARS for some games.

I am sick of excuses from an industry with standards that get changed at the whim of those FU*K FACES AT MICROSOFT for doing this to us.

And now we are reduced to listening to John Carmack whine in vain to the deaf ears of an industry without a single care or concern for the Mac market. What the FU*K happened?

It's disgusting and typical of American business - the winner's have 95% - so screw the losers - let them die.

What can Apple do???

4+ billion in cash - BUY BUNGIE BACK! Buy programmers from all the major players - DO SOMETHING - we are dying fast. Games are the market to get - not DTP. We have that already, dammit. We are the ones who kept the company alive during the dark days.

And please - no flames or bullsh*t - I want an answer. Explain, like you would a child.

[ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: osiris ]

[rampant]

You should mail something to him. I'm pretty ****ing tired of hearing Caramack whine and moan about mac's ineffiancies while continuing to make software for mac. I'm starting to like ID less and less as they become more like M$. Ignore them because they won't make as much profit? **** you! I won't buy a stinkin PC and be forced to run windows to support your company when you don't support me.

[Daishi]

The Mac market is much smaller than the PC market, and the demographics tend to not favour the gamer crowd. That's a fact, folks. The money is available in that market, but the margins are a lot tighter. I very much doubt that the Mac gaming market could support the capital needed to develop a game like Doom 3.

The reason we'll get games like that is because the cost of porting a game is substantially less (usually) than the cost of developing a game from scratch. And the mac market is big enough to support the capital needed for a port. But it's still risky business. The mac market is easy to saturate with titles. There is very little room left in the mac market for a current-generation FPS arena title with UT and Q3A already present.

Carmack is right. It's very hard for most companies to make good money in the mac gaming market. It's definitely not impossible. But it's still harder than on the PC side.

[theEnigma]

It seems every time John Carmack opens his mouth about the Mac he's saying at best something non-derogatory, but the implication is there. But leave it to a game developer with no formal training to state the obvious: that the PC market is larger. Most Mac developers have more on their minds, such as community, design, and other issues. We have to accept, however, that the vast majority of computer users simply have no taste or aesthetic sensibility. Game players, esp. FPS players, are even worse en masse--although many mod makers are notably exceptions.

I figure that people so accustomed to working in Windows have long ago lost the sense of how rotten it looks to those who work with alternatives. Carmack doesn't care about what platform he works on; he's interested in his field. If Apple actually did some good work, like osiris suggests, to really give developers of games incentives to switch--like better tools, better support, better documentation, better features, and being informed of the state of things in advance--then stars like Carmack would be less rare, and many more ports would be done faster and better.

Hey, good news: Omni Group has shown that it's dead easy to make Mac ports quickly, and to make them better than their original versions (like by adding support for multiple processors). If they can inspire more developers (like me in a couple more years :-) then we won't need John Carmack to be generous to us. But it does really come down to Apple to win new users and new developers--get one group and the other will follow.

Anyway, keep buying Mac games. The PC side can afford a large percentage of pirates, but we can't. Don't steal games and don't help others to steal them!

theEnigma

[SpeedRacer]

Oh c'mon. Somehow i knew this topic would come up after the usual spin by the Mac news sites.

You have a profession of building "X".
You make money by selling more of "X".
You are given limited time tables to create "X".
What to do?
Create "X" for both 95% of the market and be content that you take care of the other 5% when you have a spare moment to catch your breath.

Or risk having the carpet pulled out from under you b/c you decided to spent 50% of your time divided evenly between both the 95% population (in which games are an established, lucrative market) and the 5% population (in which games have traditionally taken second place to other apps).

Carmack is telling it like it is.
If you don't like the fact that he divides his coding time based on pragmatic market demographics then either:[list=a][*]Start your own Mac-only gaming company to put ID out of business[*]Get a job at Apple marketing and build the Mac market up to an more even 50%[/list=a]

But please stop b*tching about one of the most influencial game developers of our time explaining how the typical game developer makes decisions while simultaneously breaking that mold by striving to port his most popular releases to platforms that any other developer would probably never even give a fleeting glance to.

If you want to point fingers direct them to the source. The fact that Apple shipped a puck mouse and mini-me keyboard for 2 years, refuses to offer a multi-button mouse as a BTO option on new machines, only a year ago convinced nVidia to bring 12 month-old technology to the Mac market, and currently markets only LCD-based displays (known for their lackluster abilities in scaling between different resolutions) should give you a fair indication as to how crucial the FPS gaming market is in Apple's overall strategy.

Carmack has every right to say every word of that article.
Relatively speaking this is a guy who is still one of the best allies we've got in the gaming industry.

Writing a letter like that to ID does nothing but p*ss people off and ruin hard-won alliances between the Mac gaming market and a very influencial gaming company.

Don't kill the messenger.
Fight to change the message.

Speed

[ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: SpeedRacer ]

[osiris]

SpeedRacer: Sure, Carmack has been one of the few supporters - but c'mon, he's on Bill Gates board for X-Box. And Yes, I'm grateful for all he's done - my exclusive POV is I shouldn't be a dog jumping up & down for a bone.

If you ship a product at a MSRP of $29.99 and sell 40,000 copies you make $1,199,600. Say a company spends $500,000 for programming, development, advertising & packaging. That still leaves a tidy sum of 699,600 for profit. Sure, this is a simplistic and naive example, but how far from the truth could it be? I do not write software, I merely buy it. If more software was out there, I would buy more of it. But there isn't, and that's why the Mac market is small.

BTW, this was never intended for ID or Carmack - this is an open letter to MacNN Forum members. I would have placed an full-page ad in PC Gamer if I wanted their attention (or whatever they call that magazine)

I'm a Mac Addict, dammit, and I can't control myself.

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

The fact remains that regardless of the small profit in the mac and linux markets, Carmack still supports these platforms. Id doesn't have a porting company write mac and linux versions, 1 year later, Id actually writes the mac and linux versions themselves. This is EXCELLENT mac gaming support.

Carmack doesn't do it for the money, he does it because he wants to. I find that very nobel and commendable. According to rumor, one of Carmack's personal computers is a powermac running OS X. He has stated in the past that he "loves" OS X.

I really don't see how you all can misinterpret what Carmack said. He was merely stating the truth: that the linux gaming market is non-existent, and the Mac gaming market is just barely viable. But as far as support goes, Id gets out the Mac updates almost as fast as the PC updates. We should be thanking Carmack for his Mac support, since it is obviously not driven by profit incentive.

In fact, the state of Mac gaming would be piss poor without Carmack. It was Carmack who initially persuaded Apple to adopt Open GL as their gaming API. Where would the Mac be without Open GL? Carmack speaks his mind, and his criticism of Macs is always constructive. IMO he does this because he want's the mac to be a viable alternative to windows.

[osiris]

OverclockedHomoSapien: So you're saying the entire Mac Gaming world exists solely because of Carmack? I'm sorta agreeing with you, and that's the point - why do we have only Carmack?

[SpeedRacer]

Originally posted by osiris:
<STRONG>OverclockedHomoSapien: So you're saying the entire Mac Gaming world exists solely because of Carmack? I'm sorta agreeing with you, and that's the point - why do we have only Carmack?</STRONG>

I couldn't agree with OCHS more so i'll just say this:

We're 5% of the market. One might even say the least-lucrative 5% of the gaming market. So instead of asking why developers like JC don't spend enough time catering to us, perhaps its more appropriate to ask why they docater to us at all.

If what JC says about the economics of the Linux and Mac markets has any shred of truth to it at all certainly it's not b/c of profit.

And if that's the case then you're basically asking why JC doesn't spend more of his time developing out of pure goodwill than for a market that has traditionally been a non-player in his primary field of work.

Speed

[osiris]

Good answer, so what next? It's my feeling that Apple should do more to encourage development in these markets- or do we need to rely solely on goodwill?

[Elvin]

There have been quite a few good posts here and this is turning out to be quite an interesting debate!

Another point is Quake 3 itself. I think what ID did, to program a game and have one cd work on three operating systems (only having to download a 'point release' for your OS (Windows/Mac/Linux) was a technological feat in itself. Now mind you, lets see where that led...

Loki, who was publishing the Linux version, is now in Chapter 11 and just before announcing that, they dropped all support and distribution of Quake 3. Not a promising site for Linux fans. Even when they got the tin box version and us Mac users didn't (*phoey!*).

Activision, who was doing the Mac version, recently announced that they no longer will be producing a Mac boxed version, and re-called all copies off store shelves.

So now if Mac or Linux gamers want to buy Quake 3, we have to buy the PC version AND the PC expansion pack. Feels dirty doesn't it?

So now we can't buy a copy, nor did we get the expansion cd with a Mac point release on it....which goes to show that ID is a lot more impatient than say...Blizzard, who delay their games until they are right. A shame really!

Anyway, just wanted to add that point. I find that frustrating as a Mac user, and makes me want to support companies like Blizzard all the more!

[tg-007]

Originally posted by osiris:
<STRONG>SpeedRacer: Sure, Carmack has been one of the few supporters - but c'mon, he's on Bill Gates board for X-Box. And Yes, I'm grateful for all he's done - my exclusive POV is I shouldn't be a dog jumping up & down for a bone.

If you ship a product at a MSRP of $29.99 and sell 40,000 copies you make $1,199,600. Say a company spends $500,000 for programming, development, advertising & packaging. That still leaves a tidy sum of 699,600 for profit. Sure, this is a simplistic and naive example, but how far from the truth could it be? I do not write software, I merely buy it. If more software was out there, I would buy more of it. But there isn't, and that's why the Mac market is small.

BTW, this was never intended for ID or Carmack - this is an open letter to MacNN Forum members. I would have placed an full-page ad in PC Gamer if I wanted their attention (or whatever they call that magazine)

I'm a Mac Addict, dammit, and I can't control myself. </STRONG>

Actually, I am in college to become a Video Game Designer...(yes i will actually have a degree with "Video Game Designer" as the course program on it)...

and I can tell you that the average budget right now for a new game is about $2 million -$5 million for the project

And I am hoping someday to be working for Blizzard in their Mac division, hehe...can't wait!!!

[osiris]

2 to 5 million????? That's sounds a bit over the top, surely you're joking.

I can make at least three feature length, union-made movies on 35mm Panavision cameras for that sum.
What justifies that ridiculous cost of 2-5 mil for a GAME?
Something is horribly wrong with that figure, not to attack you - but could you explain, because if that is what it really costs, well, there is definately something wrong with the way games are being developed. How much of that budget is advertising? How much of that budget is in 'bonus money' ?



But tons of luck to you - I hope you get in at Blizzard!

[blizzard]

When the market for video games as a whole is measured in billions of dollars, development budgets of single-digit millions don't seem that bad...

[oranjdisc]

I know we all love to bitch and moan about Microsoft, but when it all comes down to the stone-cold truth, I wish I could wake up tomorrow and MS's grip on the computing industry would be gone. I can't stand the fact that they alone essentially write the rules for the industry, simply because they are the dominant operating system and fight any/every competitor tooth and nail, often through illegal practices.

People look at me sometimes like I'm crazy when I bitch about MS, for they never even think of it. Don't see what's happening in front of their own eyes. It's so frustrating. And I'm not just saying this 'cause I've always loved Mac's, but because MS's grip is so unhealthy for the progress of this industry as a whole.

[edddeduck]

About cost of games I am on a QA team for DMA design for GTA 3 for PS2 and....

The QA testing department cost approx £8000 or $10,000 a week in wages.....

Thats £10 an hour to the agency for the temps (approx 12) and £15 approx for the main full time staff (approx 6).

Now there are also 70 programmers designer etc and the are on a bit more than us

So The buget suggested is far from wrong.


Cheers Edd

[OverclockedHomoSapien]

OverclockedHomoSapien: So you're saying the entire Mac Gaming world exists solely because of Carmack? I'm sorta agreeing with you, and that's the point - why do we have only Carmack?

No, I'm not saying this at all. I think that Mac gaming would exist without Carmack, but I don't believe that it would nearly as good as it is today without Carmack.

Supposedly, Steve Jobs met with Carmack a while ago and asked him what Apple needed to do for Id to release Quake for the Mac ( I don't remember which version of quake it was). Carmack replied, "Open GL", and today Open GL is implemented on the Mac. It may not be the most refined version of the API, but hopefully with OS X Apple will optimize Open GL even further. Wouldn't it be cool if Apple optimized it to fully take advanatage of Altivec?

Anyways, I'm not saying that Carmack and Id are the saviors of the Mac platform, all I'm saying is that we should be thankful for what Id's committment to Mac gaming. Could they do better? Hell yes! Many of us are still waiting for Mr. Devine's Quake 3 altivec optimizations that were promised months ago. But how many other game programmers would even consider coding for altivec?!?!? There simply isn't enough of a market for it to be worth the investment of programming time. But Id obviously is driven not just by market forces, but by ideals above and beyond money. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bill Gates!

I think MOST of the blame for the state of Mac gaming can be placed on one entitiy: Apple computer. Here's what I think Apple could do to improve the state of gaming.

1. Offer more video cards for the Mac. Apple has already come a long ways with this, particularly with powermacs, but they need to go farther. Apple should offer video card options for the iMacs (agp slot!), and for the laptops. We need more choice and competition with the iMac GPU chipset. How about an iMac with Radeon or GF2MX? How about more than 16 MB vRAM for the iMac?

2. Better performance and value. Apple needs to offer a Mac for under $2000 that rocks at gaming. Currently one must buy a PMG4 tower and monitor, that cashes in at way over $2000, and that's simply too much. And no matter how good the iMac is, a 15" display is no good for gaming. I'd like to see a "consumer tower" that one could buy for around 999. What would really blow me away is if Apple offered single processor models of the PMG4 starting at 999 and going through 1999. Then make the more expensive towers all dual processor. I know this won't happen, but it's a nice thought.

3. Altivec across the lineup. Apple needs to address the MHz gap, which is really a performance gap. Altivec can close the gap, but for now only graphic pros benefit from altivec. Apple needs to change this. For starters, Apple must create market forces that reward game programmers for altivec optimizations. The G4 should be in all Macs sold, period. Currently, the majority of Macs sold that will be used for games all use G3s (iMacs), thus few game makers see any benefit to altivec. But if Apple put G4s in all Macs, then suddenly game makers could make extra money off games that were optimized for altivec--it would be a feature that all mac users looked for.

4. Apple needs to work more closely with video card makers to ensure that drivers offer the greatest performance possible. This means more frequent driver updates, more frequent Open GL updates, and even technical assistance for coding altivec games. How much would it really cost Apple to have an "altivec swat team" that could be sent to developers for a few weeks to teach and aid them in coding for altivec? If an altivec accelerated game gains even a 10% increase in frame rates, then this would totally be worth it.

5. Kick Motorola's ass. Enough said.

Gotta go, someone's at the door. Hope what I said makes senseand gives you all something to chew on.

[osiris]

edddeduck :The whole budget thing still seems a little out of hand - but I guess that's what it takes to do it right. It would be nice if Apple would kick in 100 million to make some magic happen - in house ports at the least?

OverclockedHomoSapien: Great stuff! - G4 iMacs with a killer graphics card would be a huge seller for the average consumer who wants everything like iMovie and iTunes but also who want to enjoy games at their best.

There are so many improvements I would make to the current shipping lineup - and I'd add to your ideas a powerful advertising campaign - blasting old myths and prasing itself to a degree by showing the evolution of the Mac to it's current form. Show the frickin computers running the newest games, and I'd also bundle with it Virtual PC - for compatibilities's sake - and run a 'no excuse' campaign to ease people's PC to Mac transition. And show some servers too! Show the computers doing everything and get some damn marketshare so we can get more games!

I had too much coffee

[The Dude]

If M$ bought our crowned jewel in gaming (Bungie), Apple should just go out and buy Id. That'll REALLY piss off all them Wintel'ers and it should help us along.

Simplistic? Yes. Well thought out? No.

It costs maybe 5 million dollars to MAKE a game but a port to the Mac OS costs practically nothing. In fact the guy from WestLake is porting Unreal Tournament himself in his spare time. So I imagine labor is only a few thousand dollars. The Mac gaming market is viable because companies like MacSoft and MacPlay only have to pay for the Mac rights to distribute the game, the cost of the port, and then the manufacturing and distribution cost. So while it may cost a few million to make a game it only costs somewhere in the thousands for a Mac Port. Apple could probably inexpensively set up a game port division but they wouldn't do it because there are so many companies porting to the mac already.

[edddeduck]

Mmm....

Yes the cost of a port is lot less but a programmer (A good one) is on at least $52,000 per year and its more than a 2-3 week job. You also need a testing team and all the IO and GUI sections need total rewrites as the code is very different.

Approx per game 80/100 thousand US all told this does not include advertising.

You have to remember that's still very cheap for a game BUT some of the profits will go to the PC Publishers who licence the game 4 the mac.....

So overall they don't make as much money as you think thus higher prices

Cheers Edd

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by OverclockedHomoSapien:
[QB]
1. Offer more video cards for the Mac. Apple has already come a long ways with this, particularly with powermacs, but they need to go farther. Apple should offer video card options for the iMacs (agp slot!), and for the laptops. We need more choice and competition with the iMac GPU chipset. How about an iMac with Radeon or GF2MX? How about more than 16 MB vRAM for the iMac?

Sounds great but, Drivers suck now, what do you think will happen to the quality if we suddenly have a dozen different new cards?

2. Better performance and value. Apple needs to offer a Mac for under $2000 that rocks at gaming. Currently one must buy a PMG4 tower and monitor, that cashes in at way over $2000, and that's simply too much. And no matter how good the iMac is, a 15" display is no good for gaming. I'd like to see a "consumer tower" that one could buy for around 999. What would really blow me away is if Apple offered single processor models of the PMG4 starting at 999 and going through 1999. Then make the more expensive towers all dual processor. I know this won't happen, but it's a nice thought.

I believe they do. Remember that without altivec code the difference between a G3 and G4 are nill. I have and do play UT on a 400/500 Pismo and Rev D iMac (sucks the worst but still playable) and iBook 2.0. All of these systems played. Also lacking a beefy graphics card. So how well does a new iMac play?

Not to mention that this how debate about mac gaming seems to be focusing solely on the FPS, there are many other areas of gaming then this one, sure they make the most noise and are the most demanding of games, but even the PC side has only around 2 million of these die hard gamers. Some of my favorite games are turn based (civ, MOO, Starcraft, D2 as well)

3. Altivec across the lineup. Apple needs to address the MHz gap, which is really a performance gap. Altivec can close the gap, but for now only graphic pros benefit from altivec. Apple needs to change this. For starters, Apple must create market forces that reward game programmers for altivec optimizations. The G4 should be in all Macs sold, period. Currently, the majority of Macs sold that will be used for games all use G3s (iMacs), thus few game makers see any benefit to altivec. But if Apple put G4s in all Macs, then suddenly game makers could make extra money off games that were optimized for altivec--it would be a feature that all mac users looked for.

I couldn't' agree more, but don't' hold your breath, unless you think the G5 will show up at MWSF. And if this did happen then we would begin to see a major benefit to owning a G4 for gaming.

4. Apple needs to work more closely with video card makers to ensure that drivers offer the greatest performance possible. This means more frequent driver updates, more frequent Open GL updates, and even technical assistance for coding altivec games. How much would it really cost Apple to have an "altivec swat team" that could be sent to developers for a few weeks to teach and aid them in coding for altivec? If an altivec accelerated game gains even a 10% increase in frame rates, then this would totally be worth it.

Defiantly.

5. Kick Motorola's ass. Enough said.

no **** ?

Seriously though kicking moto's ass will improve alot more then the gaming sector. This is still Apple's #1 problem. Perception of slower computers.

[jamesa]

Originally posted by osiris:
<STRONG>SpeedRacer: Sure, Carmack has been one of the few supporters - but c'mon, he's on Bill Gates board for X-Box.
</STRONG>

Yeah, but for what? Not for money! And not to develop for the XBox - he's already stated that he's not developing for it.

He spends time helping developers with their technologies. Does it with all the graphic card manufacturers. He's done it with Apple - he went to see SJ personally to convince him to use OpenGL.

I think Carmack's just calling it as he sees it. The way I see it, he's right. If you focused all your time on 95% of your market, you'll be doing well

And hey, you should have seen his comments on Linux as a market

-- james

[osiris]

Originally posted by jamesa:
<STRONG>

Yeah, but for what? Not for money! And not to develop for the XBox - he's already stated that he's not developing for it.

He spends time helping developers with their technologies. Does it with all the graphic card manufacturers. He's done it with Apple - he went to see SJ personally to convince him to use OpenGL.

I think Carmack's just calling it as he sees it. The way I see it, he's right. If you focused all your time on 95% of your market, you'll be doing well

And hey, you should have seen his comments on Linux as a market

-- james</STRONG>

...But there's still 5% that's being ignored. I can't imagine oversaturating the Mac market with games being a bad thing - if they are good games that is. Maybe most PC titles are lame - like "Deer Hunter", but I'm sure a large chunk consists of titles that Mac users want and are willing to pay for - they just aren't available and will never be. (And hey - for Linux users too!)

Even Microsoft 'promised' ports of ALL it's games to the Mac platform - where are they? It will never happen and I'm sure Microsoft makes sure other gaming houses do the same. Call it my "Second Joystick Theory" - where MS controls the market at 95% and will do anything to keep it that way (XP early release to defeat DOJ?)

That's all opinion, but I bet MS pays companies off. I only wish Apple were more aggressive and were the ones appointing Carmack to a Gaming Division. I'm just pissed at the situation, that's all.

[ 08-26-2001: Message edited by: osiris ]

[jamesa]

Originally posted by osiris:
<STRONG>
Even Microsoft 'promised' ports of ALL it's games to the Mac platform - where are they? It will never happen and I'm sure Microsoft makes sure other gaming houses do the same. Call it my "Second Joystick Theory" - where MS controls the market at 95% and will do anything to keep it that way (XP early release to defeat DOJ?)
</STRONG>

You're right. And when they do let these special games out onto other platforms, they're not as good:
The source claims that Microsoft has pursued a number of exclusive titles, some of which were originally meant for PC. If a company is contractually obligated to release a game for X-Box only (not PC, or PS2, or GameCube), then it won't appear anywhere else. MS has also pursued contracts for X-Box enhanced titles, where X-Box versions of the game will require better graphics, or X-Box only levels and characters, and so on.

"Even if a cut down version of the game were possible on GeForce 2, they [Microsoft] may insist that certain special effects be exclusive to the X-Box version, even if the effects were possible on GeForce 2. I won't list specific examples because these deals are private and under NDA, but I can assure you that these deals are cut; only Microsoft and each individual party knows the specifics of these types of contracts. This isn't unique to Microsoft - I've been doing console games for years, and Sony, Sega, and Nintendo hunt for these same kinds of deals. Many times the gamers never know why some games seem unfairly different on different platforms. Well, that's the answer, right there - exclusive contracts.

So there you have it.

<STRONG>

That's all opinion, but I bet MS pays companies off. I only wish Apple were more aggressive and were the ones appointing Carmack to a Gaming Division. I'm just pissed at the situation, that's all.
</STRONG>

It's easy to be pissed at the situation. I am. But you gotta remember, Apple's come a fair way over the past two years. From not giving a shyte about graphics cards to now having top of the line nVidia's as an option; the new found support for games manufacturers, and the all out plunge into OpenGL. I think they're doing ok.

-- james