nagromme
macrumors G5
BenRoethig said:
Yeah, that's pretty amazing--do the folks at Havok really hate the Mac platform?
Havok has already been ported to Mac, but Havok has decided to charge an impossibly high licensing cost that no Mac game company could ever afford. The same cost, as you say, as the Windows version--which sells to a much larger audience. And Havok seems to have been standing firm on this "no Macs" policy for over a year now. It's hard to see how that choice would be "just business" for Havok.
Luckily Havok isn't the only physics system--and I think UT2007 will support more than one (like Aegia which is already in Mac games)--but it's a very popular one for now. (And I seem to recall other middleware charging on the same unfair Mac=Windows scale, and really hurting other games in the past. GameSpy maybe?)
http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=351
"Today's second biggest threat to a healthy Mac gaming market is Havok (piracy, in case you were wondering, is the first), the physics game engine used by popular games such as Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, Halo 2, and oh yes, Half-Life 2. In at least a few cases, a few Mac ports have been shelved because of a lack of a Mac version of Havok. Ever wonder why Deus Ex 2 never made it to the Mac? Havok. To make matters worse, upcoming games such as Age of Empires III and HellGate and possibly dozens of other games will be using Havok.
It takes no genius to see that the Havok problem is now dire. So, what exactly is said problem? Why isn't Havok available for the Mac? As you might expect, it comes down to money. According to industry sources, the folks at Havok want a six figure dollar amount for Havok Mac. The issue, of course, is that there's no way any Mac game publisher could afford this, especially when you consider that the Mac publisher has to pay a PC publisher the rights for a game. Imagine having to pay $50,000 for the Mac rights to a title, then having to turn around and pay $150,000 just to have Havok on the Mac (my dollar figures are just examples, folks, I don't know the actual numbers).
Ok, now here's the worst part of it. According to my sources, the Havok code is already available on the Mac. That's right. It's pretty much ready to go. Havok just needs to get paid. The issue at hand, it seems, is the amount of money Havok wants for their precious physics code."
