Game time for Apple Macs - Maybe Linux is next?

[Clay_Banger]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/games/game-time-for-apple-macs/2007/06/12/1181414289767.html

Apple Macs could finally become viable gaming machines after two of the biggest players in the video games industry announced they were embracing the platform.
As a summary, EA (makers of The Need for Speed series, Command & Conquer) and id (makers of Doom & Quake) have both announced that they will be making some current games mac playable and in the future some games will be released for mac at the same time as the windows versions.

I see this as a great plus for the mac community and the linux community, as another operating system has been considered for games instead of windows.

could this lead to game devs considering linux as a gaming platform?

[DeadSuperHero]

I think it'll definately lead to Linux gaming in a couple years. It'd be great to cash in all my Windows games for Linux ones, that'd be sweet.
Ones that I want to see
-Valve's Games
-EA
-Flagship Studios
-Blizzard
-Sierra/Vivendi

I can't think of any other big ones at the moment.
But gosh, that'll be cool.

[tehkain]

id is already a great company in that they have created many linux versions of their games. The thing that gets me is the transgaming thing, us linux users pay for suscriptions and they make deals for the mac. Lets hope they do plan on asking EA to allow them to port to linux.

[DeadSuperHero]

Transgaming's not bad, I mean they work hard on making games work on Linux.
Still, I'd rather see more native ports. And on shelves, too. Not just in some online store.
I'd also like for Adobe to port Photoshop and the Flash making thingy.

[starcraft.man]

I am sceptical. Until I actually see new games coming out for the Mac it won't mean much I don't think... Lets wait and see how it goes. I mean it may be a big flop and they won't sell many copies and then abandon it... can't ever know these things.

[DeadSuperHero]

And, you can always write letters of encouragement to companies. Nothing boosts morale more than a friendly letter to a company.
Except, maybe a paycheck.

[starcraft.man]

And, you can always write letters of encouragement to companies. Nothing boosts morale more than a friendly letter to a company.
Except, maybe a paycheck.

LOL! Something tells me they don't care if the handful of Linux users write to them and say "Hey nice game makers, can you port your game to Linux so a few hundred thousand (I don't know exact numbers) gamers can play it..." I somehow don't think they'll see that much market for it. I would love to see the response if someone wrote them a note like that :D.

I mean the Mac from their latest estimates have 22 Milion individual computers actively used. Thats a serious market, and lots are young folk.... anyway, I'm a curmudgeon what can you expect out of me? :p

[DivineOmega]

If they are porting more games to Macs (which uses OpenGL) that should make Linux porting easier.

[Clay_Banger]

If they are porting more games to Macs (which uses OpenGL) that should make Linux porting easier.
that is the main thing that has excited me about this, using opengl instead of microsofts directx greatly increases our changes of getting big name native games.

[TheMono]

When a game is written in OpenGL, how hard is it to port to Linux? I gather from Doom3 that it isn't that big a job at all, that once the game is written in OpenGL, most of the system calls you need to make are going to be there anyway, so porting to linux is more or less just writing an installer and a wrapper-ish executable.

[DeadSuperHero]

Well also, you've got to remember to tell them: The reason to port to Linux is no different than their reasons to port to Mac.

[the_darkside_986]

As long as linux gamers are using products such as Cedega and Wine, the companies will only focus slightly on Wine/Cedega compatibility and never consider a native port. Of course, I refuse to support companies that are too lazy to make native ports. It is just silly. I mean, when was the last time a Windows user had to setup cygwin on their system to run a killer Unix app?

[mech7]

it's not going to happen to many distro's for linux to support..

[v8YKxgHe]

AFAIK, they are _not_ making native Apple ports for their games. I read an article about it (I'll try and find the link), that said one of the EA guys confirmed they will be using Cider (Mac version of Cedega, afaik) to make the games work.

[DoctorMO]

See if game developers come out and say their going to use SDL/OpenGL instead of DirectX then it's a boon for ANY platform from Linux, Mac and Consoles in general.

If I was a game maker I'd be seriously hitting myself over the head over their moronic attachment to DirectX when all it does is limits the scope of the games deployment; instead they should have focused on getting the features they needed into SDL/OpenGL or some similar game stack.

Fortunately I think SDL is now good enough for any major game to be made on it and thus mostly portable to Linux/Windows/MacOSX with not much effort.

[B0rsuk]

Id Software games have native Linux versions anyway.
EA games I don't want to see on Linux. Although I appreciate that a big publisher wants to support other operating system, EA games are notorious for bad quality, bugs etc. EA has very bad reputations when it comes to support, patches etc. They have done a lot to deserve it. And they still do (booster packs make you pay for something other games get for free, and they're made instead of patches. Very bad multiplayer balance in games like C&C 3. Lack of innovation in Battlefield serries. Bad design resulting in people routinely teamkilling each other to be the first in a vehicle. Etc, and so on, and so forth.)
More generally, more Mac games is very good for Linux. Sure, it's likely that Linux in some time will become recognized as a gaming platform. But in short time, what matters is that more Mac games mean more games with OpenGL renderer. This dramatically improves chance that a game will work with wine. It's great there's no DirectX for Macs.

You should support OpenGL games. There are few native games and OpenGL game is the next best thing. Once there's established Linux community playing a game with wine, your calls and petitions for native versions will get much more support.

[daynah]

As stated above, I think we'd have to first gain a bigger market for it.

But then, why still would they do it? I mean, you know quite well that Linux users have the rep of being hackers. Video game manufacuters are strugging enough with rips.

I mean, we know that we'd buy the games. It's too much work to get an auth code someone's else is going to get and then you both lose your characters, when all you really want to do is play the stupid game.

But I do think that's a legitimate reason why we're last. Mac users (as a stereotype) aren't going to hurt anybody. They're computers aren't powerful, just pretty (as a stereotype!!). I'm a girl, and when people find out I use linux, often I get the reply, "But you can't hack."

[mips]

If they are porting more games to Macs (which uses OpenGL) that should make Linux porting easier.

IF they use openGL it would be cool.

Edit:
Looks like EA is going to use Transgamings Cider.
id will use their id Tech 5 engine which works with OpenGL. The Mac screenshots look good i must say !
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/06/dsc_5202.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/06/dsc_5203.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/06/dsc_5201.jpg
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/06/dsc_5205.jpg
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/steve-jobs-live-from-wwdc-2007/

[B0rsuk]

IF they use openGL it would be cool.


What else can they use ? There was DirectX for Mac a couple of years ago, but Microsoft pulled out. Just like they did with Internet Exploder for Mac.

[racoq]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/games/game-time-for-apple-macs/2007/06/12/1181414289767.html

As a summary, EA (makers of The Need for Speed series, Command & Conquer) and id (makers of Doom & Quake) have both announced that they will be making some current games mac playable and in the future some games will be released for mac at the same time as the windows versions.

I see this as a great plus for the mac community and the linux community, as another operating system has been considered for games instead of windows.

could this lead to game devs considering linux as a gaming platform?

ID software are one of the few company's that are contributing for open source (releasing their engines open source after a few time), and providing linux binaries for the latest games.

You can officialy download quake 4 demo for linux.

The other gaming company's are the ones that need to invest more in linux.

[blah blah blah]

I mean, when was the last time a Windows user had to setup cygwin on their system to run a killer Unix app?

Probably today, people use things like gcc on windows quite much.

[nphx]

The industry is changing and Ubuntu's Desktop adoption is creating more opportunities for hardware vendors to reach out to the Linux. With both Nvidia and ATI announcing open drivers, we certainly will see game companies making Linux games.

[mips]

What else can they use ?

EA is not doing OpenGL, they are going to use Cider (http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/)

[daschmidty]

My only thought here is if EA is going to officially focus on CIder, maybe we will see official support of Cedega in the same vein(Not perfect cuz it's not free but at least the games might work). Either way it would be a start...maybe they could see that the linux crowd is viable as a game-buying market. I have been almost exclusively on linux for about 6 months now...and I miss some of my games(especially Battlefield 1942 which i can never get to work with wine).

[Extreme Coder]

Cider is not a program like Cedega or Wine, it is more like winelib, but for Mac. So instead of the windows emulation taking place at execution time, like Wine, Cedega or CrossOver, the emulation takes place at compilation time. Think how Google used winelib to make a Picasa port for Linux.

[Clay_Banger]

EA is not doing OpenGL, they are going to use Cider (http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/)
it didnt mention that in the article i read. i wonder if they deliberately ignored that fact? or have i missed something..?