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Mac games Pay... – guategeek

guategeek

Member

Posts: 107
From: Guatemala
Registered: 11-08-2005
Ok I know that here most people make games for PC and many don't even want to think twice about Mac games, second the only ones that think about Linux games are those fan-boys, same as Mac. So I want to show you all some really cool figures that should open your eyes.

Ever heard of the game "Tribal Trouble" its an Indy game developed by some Danish guys. Well they were so kind as to let gameproducer.net post there financial information on the game. Go and check it out guys http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/04/06/sales-stats-tribal-trouble/

As you will notice PC downloads were well over double of the Mac downloads. But if you look at sales Mac sales were 16% more than PC sales. Thats right 16%, so then you say yah but look at all those Undefined sales. Even if you add the 11% of undefined sales to the PC sales (and its impossible all 11% were PC sales) its still less than the Mac sales. So I would greatly encourage you all to shoot for cross platform with your games.

Then take a look at Linux, at 11% thats still quite large considering PC sales were only 20% more. So if you have a game for PC only, you are missing out at around 58% of the sales you could have if you supported Mac and Linux. Thats an incredible amount of profit you could be benefitting from. Or if profit isn't your goal people you are reaching with a wholesome christian message.

Also if you think about it just because so many PCs are bought each year doesn't mean the market share of indy or casual games on PC's is very high. Why? Because the majority of new computers purchased each year are for offices and biznesses, places where people won't be playing games. Another big factor is competition. There are millions of PC games, that means you have to get your name out there along with those millions, well good luck. But on the Mac and Linux you will be covered by the press, passed around by the community and will be a much larger fish in the sea.

Just thought I would point this out to you all and try to encourage you guys to go with cross platform games as much as you can. Take care, Jeff

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CPUFreak91

Member

Posts: 2337
From:
Registered: 02-01-2005
One of the problems with Mac and Linux games, is that you have to have someone who own's one to test it out and fix bugs and stuff for their platform.

Unfortunately for me... I don't have a mac, so I can't make my games fully cross platform.

Donations are accepted though.

Good point, guategeek, on most computer's being bought for buisness.

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"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

pabloaiz

Member

Posts: 48
From: Tulsa, CA, US
Registered: 12-06-2003
I would like to see figures with more popular games. Mac & Linux users tend to look more for games that are compatible with their software because of the fact that it is the only that they can run, thus those smaller games if they run on Mac might show up more with the bigger more popular games. (But for small-game dev like most of us, that should be a plus!)

With bigger numbers I am sure your market share will be dominated by
PC-users. Also look at the downloads. That's where you see true compatability, but I guess Mac users are richer, lol-which again, that should be a plus. But I do have to say, with all the people that I've worked with and tried to get games to, only 1 owns an iMac, most run Windows, and a few Linux.

But hey, if you can do cross-platform, then great, and for small games, Mac figures might be up there-but if the trouble of conversion out-weighs the advantage, there's not much point to it.

Plus the whole DirectX support feature...

I do plan to switch to C++ because of the multi-platform functionality and power of it, but I will most likely still be using DirX.

Not to bag iMacs at all, but from a financial viewpoint:

Apple Macintosh Sales 2004 = 3.5 Million Units
GTA: Vice City: 6.5 Million
Grand Theft Auto 2: 5.3 Million

GTA ran only on consoles & PC. One could say that most of taht money could be from consoles, but even if it was, Xbox was runnig DirectX...

Remember these game sales are not to corporations, governments, or schools like Apple has to include in their numbers. Take just the "buy for home" crowd into consideration and their sales figures take a further nose dive.

But, I have to admit all this may be a different story for us smaller independant developers.

[This message has been edited by pabloaiz (edited April 07, 2006).]

GUMP

Member

Posts: 1335
From: Melbourne, FL USA
Registered: 11-09-2002
I would love to support the Mac but unfortunately we'd have to port our entire game module from C# to C++ and we'd have to completely rewrite the renderer library for OpenGL.
HanClinto

Administrator

Posts: 1828
From: Indiana
Registered: 10-11-2004
Gump:

C# runs on Linux just fine in my experience -- unless you're doing something really funky, it could likely run on Mono with very little trouble.

--clint

Lava
Member

Posts: 1905
From:
Registered: 01-26-2005
did you guys see this?

http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/firstlooks/bootcampfl/index.php

and then after that:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/04/07/gamerreax/index.php

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guategeek

Member

Posts: 107
From: Guatemala
Registered: 11-08-2005
I was referring to Indy games not AAA games. As we all know AAA games make lots of money, cost lots of money, and have no real passion put into them. They are created by studios that are slaves of there greedy money centric publishing companies, EA or Ubi for example. But thats just my personal pet-peeve. I prefer the indy market, because it promotes creativity, innovation, and the people there love what they do, there not just in it for the money. I have heard of many indy developers that risk everything for there games because thats where there passion is.

Second point is technology. Technology is always getting better, take a look at the next gen consoles, they have incredible power and graphics potential. But also look at the pricing a good Xbox 360 is $400 and a good PS3 is 5 or 6 hundred. To be able to create games that are up to the new standard these systems create will take a much larger development team, people will have to specialize much more. With more people, and more specialization comes a greater development cost. With more people and more specialization comes the loss of creativity and innovation. With more expensive development publishers will be even more narrow minded, and nothing new or exciting and thus not a sure money maker will ever have a chance to live.

So it is my opinion as well as many others that are in the industry and sick of it. That Indy games are the future of gaming. And as that information I posted shows in the Indy game world Mac and Linux is worth shooting for. Now if you already have an engine, if you insist on using DirectX instead of OpenGL thats fine. Its your call after all. But if your starting a new project or planing one try and use technologies that are cross platform. If your want to learn a new technology learn one that is cross platform rather than one that is not. Don't be afraid to ask questions could be you have a lot of misconceptions about what is and isn't available on another platform.

I understand that hardware is a problem. I have that very problem myself I don't have a PC to test anything out on. But now with boot camp I'm looking forward to getting an Intel Mac and running Mac OS, having Windows for testing, and maybe even Linux. All on the same hardware. So just trying to interest you guys in cross platform development if you have questions I'm happy to try answer them (I'm more of an artist than a programer) and good luck to all of you in your projects. Jeff

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[This message has been edited by guategeek (edited April 07, 2006).]

Lava
Member

Posts: 1905
From:
Registered: 01-26-2005
I understand and agree with what you're saying, Guategeek, about indie dev, in fact similar points were made on this older thread on Codersworkshop, check it out:

http://codersworkshop.com/viewpost.php?id=42521#42521


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[This message has been edited by lava (edited April 07, 2006).]

Realm Master

Member

Posts: 1971
From: USA
Registered: 05-15-2005
Well, first off, i have a mac. Second, tried triable trouble, great game, expensive!

Thirdly, Macs are tough to work with. i mean TOUGH! With some luck, i could make some mac games, once i learn java, but im not sure of the compatabilty of a mac and C++... (I still don't know much C++, buyt its my next step...)

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pabloaiz

Member

Posts: 48
From: Tulsa, CA, US
Registered: 12-06-2003
I see your point guategeek, very valid.

I would actually like to be able to create cross-platform games, but like I said, my main hand is at the moment and probably in the future will be DirectX. Maybe if I can find an engine that supports both DirectX & OpenGL, or create one. (if I could even get good enough to do so!)

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"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

guategeek

Member

Posts: 107
From: Guatemala
Registered: 11-08-2005
RM check out Xcode its a visual C++ coding API thats made by apple specificaly for Apples Mac OS X. Also if you want to play with some game engines you could check out Unity www.unity3d.com and of corse many of the Open source engines also work with Macs and Linux.

Get good at DirectX pabloaiz its definetly a good thing to learn, and if you ever take a look at OpenGL my it be easy for you. Take care guys. Jeff

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kevryan
Member

Posts: 37
From: Shaver Lake, CA
Registered: 07-20-2001
I can't give specifics, but the direct Mac sales for Marble Blast were a little higher than Windows sales. A similar percentage division to what you see with Tribal Trouble. Well, at least they were up unti the point that Marble Blast got bundled with the Macs.

Now that the bundle deal is over it will be interesting to see if the Mac sales go back up above the Windows sales.

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Kevin Ryan
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