Destineer Secures USD$12 Million, Promises More Mac Games

[MacRumors]

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In a time when many game publishers and studios are taking a wait and see approach to Mac games since Apple's Boot Camp software was released, Destineer has announced that it has secured USD$12 Million in private-equity investment, which will help enable the gamemaker and publisher to continue development of Macintosh-native games.

In an interview with Macworld's Peter Cohen, Destineer's president Peter Tamte explains how they are in a unique position to make profit since they are both game developer and publisher.

In a traditional game industry setup, the developer creates the game and gives away a huge chunk of revenue to the publisher in order to get their game on store shelves — publishers often keep 80 percent of the revenue...

Destineer also re-affirmed that the Mac remains a pillar of their business, and gamers can expect them to continue to not only bring the latest hits from the PC world to Mac, but also bring more original releases to market.

"The MacSoft business has been a pillar of our organization since we incorporated in 2001,” said Tamte. “It has provided us with stable and growing profits. And we’ve turned that cash into product development for our core technologies — that’s being used now to create games for a whole bunch of platforms, including simultaneous Mac releases.”

This doesn’t mean that MacSoft will stop porting high-profile Mac games, said Tamte, but he said that gamers will see a shift in Destineer’s portfolio from licensed titles to original titles.

Destineer is the parent company of MacSoft and Bold, which have brought hit titles such as Halo: Combat Evolved and Zoo Tycoon 2 to Mac. Destineer has also recently developed an original title, Close Combat: First to Fight, which saw a simultaneous release for PC and Mac.

[paddy]

Does this mean more PPC games are what?

[Gurutech]

Nice...
I want to see more mac games!!

[sbrhwkp3]

This is great news. Mac does have a future in the game department.

[MrCrowbar]

Meh...

Hope they will run under x86 . Rosetta is just too slow for 3D gaming.

[p0intblank]

Awesome! No one better vote this a Negative...

[Platform]

Just...................thank you

[jzeiders]

That's great news. I was worried about the implications of Boot Camp with game developers - but if people continue this investment and pronounced support of Mac games, then I see a bright future, especially as power is becoming more affordable for Macs.

[Marx55]

Destineer, way to go!

[longofest]

The interview with MacWorld doesn't talk about PPC vs. x86, but just about "Mac" games.

I think in today's modern world, you can assume that Destineer will be going Universal Binary from here on out. That's not any kind of inside info, but just an assumption...

[bilbo--baggins]

Originally Posted by longofest

The interview with MacWorld doesn't talk about PPC vs. x86, but just about "Mac" games.

I think in today's modern world, you can assume that Destineer will be going Universal Binary from here on out. That's not any kind of inside info, but just an assumption...

Good assumption. With the Mac community in the middle of a transition from PPC to Intel the developers cannot afford to exclude a proportion of the Mac community. Universal Binary is the only way to go.

For how long this will be the case is difficult to say though, because it wont be long before cutting edge games are too demanding for todays PPC Macs and so it will become unnecessary to make them PPC compatible.

[Kingsly]

This is great news, but I hope their new games aren't as big of a flop as CC:FTF

[longofest]

Originally Posted by bilbo--baggins

Good assumption. With the Mac community in the middle of a transition from PPC to Intel the developers cannot afford to exclude a proportion of the Mac community. Universal Binary is the only way to go.

For how long this will be the case is difficult to say though, because it wont be long before cutting edge games are too demanding for todays PPC Macs and so it will become unnecessary to make them PPC compatible.

Once you have your staff trained to stop writing directly to hardware API's and use the OS frameworks (so, instead of using Altivec or SSE directly, use Accelerate framework which chooses based upon which platform you are on), it shouldn't be too tough to keep doing that.

That being said, I myself have never programmed a universal binary. I am a programmer however...

[bousozoku]

Yes, we need more John Deere games.

What does it matter? They haven't done a whole lot, regardless of Peter Tamte.

[nagromme]

More ports from MacSoft, and more simultaneous releases--great! Keep it up

They also brought us my favorite game: UT 2004. It's not just a game but a platform for thousands of free downloadable mods that provide totally different gaming experiences. Now let's have UT2007, which is reported to have Mac editing/mapping tools

As for PPC, I expect some titles, especially casual games, WILL still run on PPC for some time--but high-end 3D games (more so than most other apps) often demand the latest hardware, and that's probably going to mean some games will be Intel-only before too long.

Originally Posted by bousozoku

What does it matter? They haven't done a whole lot, regardless of Peter Tamte.

I'll try to figure out what you mean, but I'm too busy playing UT 2004 and Halo

[7on]

I personally want to see a Halo UB before too long...

[longofest]

Originally Posted by bousozoku

Yes, we need more John Deere games.

What does it matter? They haven't done a whole lot, regardless of Peter Tamte.

Bringing Halo to the Mac == 50 of Aspyr's games in my book. Not only is it a GREAT game, but it was well coded on MacSoft's part.

Originally Posted by nagromme

As for PPC, I expect some titles, especially casual games, WILL still run on PPC for some time--but high-end 3D games (more so than most other apps) often demand the latest hardware, and that's probably going to mean some games will be Intel-only before too long.

I personally believe that my Quad should be able to run any game that they put out there for a good long time...

[jsw]

Originally Posted by longofest

I personally believe that my Quad should be able to run any game that they put out there for a good long time...

I hope so too (I've got a Rev A dual-2), but I suspect, soon, that it'll just take a good long time to run any games they put out there.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by 7on

I personally want to see a Halo UB before too long...

I think it's coming. UT 2004 is Universal too.

Originally Posted by longofest

I personally believe that my Quad should be able to run any game that they put out there for a good long time...

With multiple CPU cores becoming common and mainstream, we might see better multi-threading by game programmers

[Aaon]

I think this is fantastic news for the Mac community. There is a lot of promise in the Mac gaming market, as the Mac marketshare increases. I hope a group of good developers can coax some amazing performance out of the new Intel hardware.

[bousozoku]

Originally Posted by nagromme

...
I'll try to figure out what you mean, but I'm too busy playing UT 2004 and Halo

It's been a very long time since those two arrived. Since then what has Bold/Destineer or MacSoft done? The John Deere series is the only new software I've seen from them.

As far as patching UT2004, who would know if Ryan Gordon hadn't let everyone know. MacSoft barely acknowledges the game. I suspect he's working on it on his own.

[longofest]

Originally Posted by bousozoku

It's been a very long time since those two arrived. Since then what has Bold/Destineer or MacSoft done? The John Deere series is the only new software I've seen from them.

As far as patching UT2004, who would know if Ryan Gordon hadn't let everyone know. MacSoft barely acknowledges the game. I suspect he's working on it on his own.

Close Combat comes to mind...

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by bousozoku

As far as patching UT2004, who would know if Ryan Gordon hadn't let everyone know. MacSoft barely acknowledges the game. I suspect he's working on it on his own.

Ryan Gordon works for Epic (developer of UT 2004). He handles the Mac and Linux versions. MacSoft can't take credit for Epic's much-welcome ongoing support, but MacSoft did put the game in my hands, and so I'm very glad they plan to keep it up.

[Lollypop]

I think this generation of games will be writen as UBs, but as soon as they start wiht the next generation they wil go intel only. It happens so often in the windows world that people have to upgrade when a entire new generation of games comes out, dont see why that wont happen for mac titles as well.

[Roller]

I think that this is good news from more than just the game perspective. People are worried that Boot Camp (and, to a lesser extent, Parallels) will dissuade developers from writing Mac OS software. The fact that a developer, especially one who produces games, is willing to continue supporing the Mac platform may encourage others to do the same.