[lpkmckenna]

Oct 13: Mac release of Batman: Arkham Asylum. And, thank God, Feral Interactive is doing the port and not Aspyr.

My only excuse to install Windows on my Mac has evaporated.

Also, the most recent release of the Unreal Development Kit now supports creating Mac applications, so we should see some releases: Mass Effect 1 & 2, Unreal Tournament 3, Bulletstorm, and War for Cybertron are all possibilities.

[P]

Arkham Asylum is a two year old game by now, and they're still charging $40 for it. Mass Effect is closing on five years old, and it's an EA game: EA uses Cider for a lot of Mac games (including DA), so why would this news trigger them to make a Mac port? The good news with Mac support in UDK is mostly that we might get some more Mac games at the same time, or only slightly later, as the PC version.

[lpkmckenna]

Arkham Asylum is a two year old game by now, and they're still charging $40 for it.

That doesn't bother me. Batman on Steam is $30 right now, and I'd say an extra $10 at launch for a new port is reasonable. And the price will drop: Bioshock (also ported by Feral) launched at $40, and since dropped to $30, and Borderlands (Feral again) launched at $50 and dropped to $40. Of course, the Windows versions of Bioshock and Borderlands on Steam are $20 and $30. A game ported by a third company will always cost more.

But it's better than buying Windows 7 for $200 just so I can save $10.

Mass Effect is closing on five years old, and it's an EA game: EA uses Cider for a lot of Mac games (including DA), so why would this news trigger them to make a Mac port?

Cider ports of Unreal Engine games are terrible, which is probably why no one is selling them. DA is a different engine.

If Feral goes to EA and asks to licence Mass Effect, I'm sure they will. Or EA might just do it themselves, since it likely won't be much work.

[-Q-]

Ah, that is good news. Won't make me uninstall my windows partition but it'll be a nice game to pick up and not have to go through the hassle of rebooting.

[P]

While I'm sure Batman is $30 on Steam right now, it's a fraction of that on any sale. That's how you trigger sales on a game far after release, and making a new version for $40 isn't going to do it. I just don't see how it will sell a lot. Pretty much their only shot is being featured on the Mac App Store as a new and hot or whatever they're called, and I'm not even sure that Apple will do that given how old the game really is.

I understand that the porting houses don't like Steam, but really, they need Steam more than Steam needs them. Boot Camp means that they can no longer release a Mac game years after the Windows version. They need to work closer with the developers to make a version sooner after release, and if they didn't, everyone involved needs to understand that there is less money in it.

Cider ports of Unreal Engine games are terrible, which is probably why no one is selling them.

You obviously didn't play DA:O Mac. EA has no scruples about the quality of its ports. None.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by P 

I just don't see how it will sell a lot. Pretty much their only shot is being featured on the Mac App Store as a new and hot or whatever they're called, and I'm not even sure that Apple will do that given how old the game really is.

Every port by Feral has been featured on the store. Pretty much every AAA port is.

But Batman will sell. C'mon, it's Batman! It will probably be the most successful title on the Store.

I understand that the porting houses don't like Steam, but really, they need Steam more than Steam needs them.

I don't think they need Steam at all. For a Mac user, Steam is a place to buy Valve games, indie games, and Windows games. If you want Mac ports of AAA games, Steam is almost worthless, unless you wanna buy Two Worlds II and Duke Nukem Forever. I think they've all been scared away by SteamPlay.

Boot Camp means that they can no longer release a Mac game years after the Windows version.

Have you noticed that Rockstar released a bunch of GTA ports? From 2004!

They need to work closer with the developers to make a version sooner after release, and if they didn't, everyone involved needs to understand that there is less money in it.

The real solution is for more developers to make their own Mac versions. Valve saw the light, iD is coming back, Epic might too.

You obviously didn't play DA:O Mac. EA has no scruples about the quality of its ports. None.

I know. They would sell a cider port of Mass Effect if they could, but even they aren't that stupid. But DA:O isn't Unreal Engine 3, it's Eclipse.

[P]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

I don't think they need Steam at all. For a Mac user, Steam is a place to buy Valve games, indie games, and Windows games. If you want Mac ports of AAA games, Steam is almost worthless, unless you wanna buy Two Worlds II and Duke Nukem Forever. I think they've all been scared away by SteamPlay.

Civ IV and V are there. Admittedly that may be distorting my perspective slightly, because I've spent an insane amount of time in Civ IV and I keep hoping that Civ V will pull together in the next patch. Lots of EA games used to be there, and were lost only because of that spat EA is currently having with Steam.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Have you noticed that Rockstar released a bunch of GTA ports? From 2004!

That I think they might do with Mass Effect: release all three in a big pack. They have already ported ME2 to the ME3 engine for the PS3, after all.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

The real solution is for more developers to make their own Mac versions. Valve saw the light, iD is coming back, Epic might too.

This I can agree with, and I think that this is what EA wanted to do with Cider: Release a Mac version with a minimum of work and soon after the Windows version. That didn't work out so well for them, but I think that that's the way they want to go somehow: a wrapper on top of an existing Windows game.