Came across this old article from 2001, PPC era, where Tim Wood, a programmer who worked on Quake 3: Arena, Star Trek: Voyager — Elite Force, Oni, and American McGee's Alice talks about why to port to Mac. Still interesting!
"The first reason is obviously economics. Sure, writing games is one of the most exciting and most challenging jobs around, but if you aren't generating income, you are either independently wealthy, or you won't be doing it for very long. Every developer should strive to write portable and modular code as a matter of course. The benefits of doing this are many and diverse. One of the benefits is being able to move your code easily to a new platform and attract an audience that you wouldn't have attracted otherwise. If your game is written correctly from the beginning, a port to the Mac will generate much more money than the cost of porting it. If you don't do the port, you might as well toss money in the trash."
"Revenue in the Mac market will certainly not be as high as in the PC or console markets, but neither are costs. Advertising does not cost millions of dollars in the Mac market. Due to the high level of community, the word-of-mouth advertising, and possibly piggybacking on your PC marketing, if you have a simultaneous release date it can yield very good market penetration. The Mac market also doesn't demand that you produce a game with a $3 million budget. If you are looking at original development on the Mac, you can build games very cheaply that will be well received (and perhaps focus more on gameplay rather than having to spend time on all the latest graphics effects just to get on the shelf). Simple and well-designed titles are possible on the Mac."
"The Mac market has a longer shelf life for titles than the PC market, and there is less overall competition. Thus, while it is very easy to lose money on a PC or console title, it takes much more effort to do so on a Mac title."
"Also, if you license your PC publication rights, you can often hold back the Mac rights. Many PC publishers will not see the economy of scale on the Mac that they need in order for them to turn a profit. By doing so, you can either publish on the Mac yourself or find a publisher that specializes in the Mac market and knows how to make money there. This will give your development house additional income beyond the advances and royalties you get from your PC publisher."
"There are other, less obviously money-grubbing reasons to port to the Mac. If you plan on licensing or reusing the engine that you are using for your current title, the work in making your engine run on the Mac can be amortized over multiple titles, and it can generate more licensing interest."
"Finally, moving your code to another platform can help uncover many latent bugs in your code. In this case, the extra effort involved in supporting multiple platforms can actually reduce the amount of work at the tail end of a project by ensuring that the base you are building your game on is as stable as possible."
"The first reason is obviously economics. Sure, writing games is one of the most exciting and most challenging jobs around, but if you aren't generating income, you are either independently wealthy, or you won't be doing it for very long. Every developer should strive to write portable and modular code as a matter of course. The benefits of doing this are many and diverse. One of the benefits is being able to move your code easily to a new platform and attract an audience that you wouldn't have attracted otherwise. If your game is written correctly from the beginning, a port to the Mac will generate much more money than the cost of porting it. If you don't do the port, you might as well toss money in the trash."
"Revenue in the Mac market will certainly not be as high as in the PC or console markets, but neither are costs. Advertising does not cost millions of dollars in the Mac market. Due to the high level of community, the word-of-mouth advertising, and possibly piggybacking on your PC marketing, if you have a simultaneous release date it can yield very good market penetration. The Mac market also doesn't demand that you produce a game with a $3 million budget. If you are looking at original development on the Mac, you can build games very cheaply that will be well received (and perhaps focus more on gameplay rather than having to spend time on all the latest graphics effects just to get on the shelf). Simple and well-designed titles are possible on the Mac."
"The Mac market has a longer shelf life for titles than the PC market, and there is less overall competition. Thus, while it is very easy to lose money on a PC or console title, it takes much more effort to do so on a Mac title."
"Also, if you license your PC publication rights, you can often hold back the Mac rights. Many PC publishers will not see the economy of scale on the Mac that they need in order for them to turn a profit. By doing so, you can either publish on the Mac yourself or find a publisher that specializes in the Mac market and knows how to make money there. This will give your development house additional income beyond the advances and royalties you get from your PC publisher."
"There are other, less obviously money-grubbing reasons to port to the Mac. If you plan on licensing or reusing the engine that you are using for your current title, the work in making your engine run on the Mac can be amortized over multiple titles, and it can generate more licensing interest."
"Finally, moving your code to another platform can help uncover many latent bugs in your code. In this case, the extra effort involved in supporting multiple platforms can actually reduce the amount of work at the tail end of a project by ensuring that the base you are building your game on is as stable as possible."
