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Why Valve games are not coming to Macs..

phytonix said:
Maybe this saved my time so I can focus on work instead of gaming. So I can have a better career.
Click to expand...

Amazing how a multitude of Apple fans deny themselves gaming on a Macintosh, just because :apple: is more focused on profits, rather than giving the option to its consumers if the want to game or not.

Gaming gives you a break from reality, which in turn makes you more productive. Unless you are an addict and then that could be said for work as well. :)
 
Boot Camp really is a good solution for this. I use it for CoH, and now Coh: opposing fronts. I run C&C on there too. The only benefit I can see to having the games on the Mac side is that I won't get as much Windows-based crashing BS as I do now!
 
Westside guy said:
I hate articles that basically amount to "Yeah, Company X sucks because we asked them to do stuff and they never do". I don't care if it's Apple or Microsoft or Adobe or Joe's Pizza and Pasta. If there's really a problem, tell us what the friggin' problem actually is! Otherwise it simply amounts to whining and wasting everyone's time.
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Good possibility that this gaming company recommended :apple: get on the DirectX bandwagon. Which will never happen, unless the last time I checked water and oil mixed without intervention. ;)
 
Until Steve allows Macs to have upgradeable video cards, gaming won't be good on the Mac platform.

The gaming world moves too fast for Apple. Sure, they could release an iMac with a top of the line video card....but that would only get people a year or so until that card is slow in the gaming world.

Steve doesn't want Apple users opening the box....that's a fact, and that's a problem if you want to be a gamer.

Personally, I don't think Apple cares about gamers, and it's a little sad. Gamers are early adopters and will buy the best equipment.....you'd think Apple would want to sell to this segment.

-Kevin
 
Hopefully now that someone with some respect in the industry is saying what a lot of us have been harping on about since the iMac was released, some effort will be made on Apple's part to stop talking things up and not delivering. Wake up Apple, promises only get you so far.

Newell is 100% right on what he says, you only have to look at the entire Mac hardware line up as evidence that the Mac platform is in a poor shape when it comes to gaming on a level that can stand up to, or attempt to surpass, gaming on the PC. I feel compassion for Newell, and I believe that Valve truly wanted to bring gaming to Macs in a much more concerted effort.

Posts on here telling members if they want to play games buy a console or PC is just plain ignorance. I don't want a poxy console to play games with another monitor alongside my Mac. My beautiful Mac should be capable of doing it all, and I have every right as a consumer to demand that it does so. Saying that "Macs aren't built for gaming, get over it" is simply a poor poor excuse, covering up for a lack of effort and vision by Apple with blind loyalty. It's not as if money can't be made through gaming. Apple could make a lot of damn money from gaming, it being such a massive industry now.

I love a lot of Apple's stuff. But I will not argue their corner or support Apple in decisions that contrary to the blindingly obvious. Obviously my one little voice won't do much in the big world of Apple HQ. But perhaps more should speak out now after Newell, someone Jobs has a face to put to the words, that he can't ignore. And maybe someone will finally wake up at Apple, see some common sense and just make the decision.

It's a shame, because I would love to have a Mac that's a great gaming machine, as well as doing all the other stuff right.
 
You can't expect games on Macs that rival those of PC or XBox 360 when Apple ship crappy graphic cards that aren't up to task.

Of course, you'd get Apple shills saying its not Apple's fault - instead, it all gaming software house's fault for asking for unrealistic requirements.... :-\
 
Valve has long been anti-Mac. How lame of them to blame Apple for that :rolleyes:

I was going to buy Orange Box for Xbox 360 but this comment has me thinking twice. If I get it now I will wait until I can find it used.
 
Developers for Apple Platforms

Developers, in the main, have been very slow on the uptake, very needy and not so much of a profit center for Apple, except for Microsoft Office or Photoshop.

The Game SDK was a market failure to all our dismay.

The Mac SDK(s) have been successful mainly due to so high an existing activity level and the interesting market adoption on PC's Apple is enjoying.

I would like to see an iPhone SDK someday. but to be honest it is not in Apple's short term advantage. Long-term, yes.

Rocketman
 
As others have said, the hardware is holding gaming back more than anything. Why would ANYBODY want to spend time porting a new game that can only run with full potential on ONE Mac? That would be like making a game that only runs well on the Dell XPS, nobody is going to do it.

I also love how some people try to make excuses for Apple. "Thanks Apple for making a system that can't play games so I can do other things!" By that logic Windows is the best OS on earth. "Thanks Microsoft for making an operating system that crashes so much I can't use it! Now I have friends and got laid!"
 
pooryou said:
Valve has long been anti-Mac. How lame of them to blame Apple for that :rolleyes:

I was going to buy Orange Box for Xbox 360 but this comment has me thinking twice. If I get it now I will wait until I can find it used.
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Valve is anti-Mac? I assume because they didn't release one game for the Mac they hate Macs? Great logic. I guess Blizzard hates Linux too.
 
bjweeks said:
Valve is anti-Mac? I assume because they didn't release one game for the Mac they hate Macs? Great logic. I guess Blizzard hates Linux too.
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I guess you don't know the backstory here, so maybe you should ****.

Not to mention, if the guy had a real point he would have said what they asked Apple for.
 
pooryou said:
I guess you don't know the backstory here, so maybe you should ****.

Not to mention, if the guy had a real point he would have said what they asked Apple for.
Click to expand...

Since your telling someone to **** - you must know the full story - so please tell us?

Or do you not like this article because its not favoured towards Apple?
 
bjweeks said:
Valve is anti-Mac? I assume because they didn't release one game for the Mac they hate Macs? Great logic. I guess Blizzard hates Linux too.
Click to expand...

Valve hasn't released ANY games for the Mac. So yeah, you could say they're anti-Mac.

As for Blizzard, I wouldn't say they hate Linux, you could say they're anti-Linux by not developing for Linux though.
 
IscariotJ said:
<Rant>The only thing I've seen holding Mac gaming, is the retailers trying to fleece Mac gamers by charging RRP; WoW was a prime example of this, retailers selling a Mac version for full price, and a PC version for half, when they are they same thing!
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There is no Mac and PC version of WoW - the included discs have BOTH the OS X and Windows binaries on them.
 
Soulstorm said:
Oh, and... I think that now we can't complain about games with poor performance on the Mac OS X. I think that the latest games are all with good performance. So, I can't believe we are still hearing these crap from Valve. These are all lame excuses for not being able to port a game to OpenGL.
Click to expand...

Apple downgraded the video cards in the new iMacs Vs the old ones.

Maybe valve asked for at least SOME macs out there to be able to RUN some of their games, before they release them.

The Macbook can't even run Counterstrike Source.
 
I'm curious what Mac OS X is lacking that Valve needs to port their games to OS X. What does Valve need that Blizzard, id Software, Epic, etc can get by without?

Maybe these other developers just have more talent on their staff. After all, we haven't heard about any of those developers having their source code stolen, either (For those not in the loop, the Half-Life 2 source code was stolen in October, 2003 - a year before the game was released. Apparently the same hacker broke in 6 times, utilizing different exploits each time).

I'd suggest Valve just doesn't want to invest in developing for OpenGL, but I imagine the PS3 port of The Orange Box uses OpenGL, so I can't explain their issue now. Either way, I seriously doubt Apple is to blame in this case.
 
Lacking decent hardware to output the quality graphics that the developers think their games deserve.

You can have all the quality developers in the world, but your games are as only as good as the hardware allows.

I really, very much doubt the software houses you list hire second rate developers. I've played Valve games, and they produce excellent games, with great graphics.

PygmySurfer said:
I'm curious what Mac OS X is lacking that Valve needs to port their games to OS X. What does Valve need that Blizzard, id Software, Epic, etc can get by without?

Maybe these other developers just have more talent on their staff. After all, we haven't heard about any of those developers having their source code stolen, either (For those not in the loop, the Half-Life 2 source code was stolen in October, 2003 - a year before the game was released. Apparently the same hacker broke in 6 times, utilizing different exploits each time).

I'd suggest Valve just doesn't want to invest in developing for OpenGL, but I imagine the PS3 port of The Orange Box uses OpenGL, so I can't explain their issue now. Either way, I seriously doubt Apple is to blame in this case.
Click to expand...

synth3tik said:
It's because Apple has very strict policy on programming for OS X. Value Software is just too messy with it's programming
Click to expand...

yeah right...
keep telling yourself that.

( PS. I hope your joking )
 
Bottomline: Apple hasn't done the heavy lifting, [Game Libraries] and such to entice them to port or develop yet for OS X.

Leopard is OpenGL 2.1 optimized. Core Animation, Core Audio, Core Graphics, but no CoreGaming.

They want the heavy Cocoa work done for them. Period.
 
mdriftmeyer said:
Bottomline: Apple hasn't done the heavy lifting, [Game Libraries] and such to entice them to port or develop yet for OS X.

Leopard is OpenGL 2.1 optimized. Core Animation, Core Audio, Core Graphics, but no CoreGaming.

They want the heavy Cocoa work done for them. Period.
Click to expand...

Why would a game dev want to use Cocoa when they can use OpenGL that supports many platforms?
 
MagicWok said:
Hopefully now that someone with some respect in the industry is saying what a lot of us have been harping on about since the iMac was released, some effort will be made on Apple's part to stop talking things up and not delivering. Wake up Apple, promises only get you so far.

Newell is 100% right on what he says, you only have to look at the entire Mac hardware line up as evidence that the Mac platform is in a poor shape when it comes to gaming on a level that can stand up to, or attempt to surpass, gaming on the PC. I feel compassion for Newell, and I believe that Valve truly wanted to bring gaming to Macs in a much more concerted effort.

Posts on here telling members if they want to play games buy a console or PC is just plain ignorance. I don't want a poxy console to play games with another monitor alongside my Mac. My beautiful Mac should be capable of doing it all, and I have every right as a consumer to demand that it does so. Saying that "Macs aren't built for gaming, get over it" is simply a poor poor excuse, covering up for a lack of effort and vision by Apple with blind loyalty. It's not as if money can't be made through gaming. Apple could make a lot of damn money from gaming, it being such a massive industry now.

I love a lot of Apple's stuff. But I will not argue their corner or support Apple in decisions that contrary to the blindingly obvious. Obviously my one little voice won't do much in the big world of Apple HQ. But perhaps more should speak out now after Newell, someone Jobs has a face to put to the words, that he can't ignore. And maybe someone will finally wake up at Apple, see some common sense and just make the decision.

It's a shame, because I would love to have a Mac that's a great gaming machine, as well as doing all the other stuff right.
Click to expand...

You said it! Exactly!!
 
slughead said:
Apple downgraded the video cards in the new iMacs Vs the old ones.

Maybe valve asked for at least SOME macs out there to be able to RUN some of their games, before they release them.

The Macbook can't even run Counterstrike Source.
Click to expand...

Nice for you that you run a game on your laptop.

Personally, a 30 in Cinema Display running the latest 8800GTS card with optimized drivers is what people most associate with Extreme Gaming.

They want the gear and drivers and all the heavy lifting done for them. It's that simple.

They want to develop the Levels and port their specific gaming engine to play well but rely heavily on code from Apple.

It sure shortens the time-to-market, but what is in it for Apple?

HALO 3 written for OS X would be a different story.

That won't happen.

Ex-Bungie Guys wanted all the heavy lifting done by Apple with Sprockets and everything else.

Microsoft buys Bungie, opens ups tons of resources and enters new markets, bleeds billions to try and crush SONY and has a following.

However, they are bleeding money profusely.

If SONY drops the price of PS 3 by $200 and has an equivalent Live experience you'll see Microsoft lose twice what they've already lost.

Read the 10-Q statements some time.

Microsoft has never made a dollar with their XBox systems.
 
kbmb said:
Until Steve allows Macs to have upgradeable video cards, gaming won't be good on the Mac platform.

The gaming world moves too fast for Apple. Sure, they could release an iMac with a top of the line video card....but that would only get people a year or so until that card is slow in the gaming world.

Steve doesn't want Apple users opening the box....that's a fact, and that's a problem if you want to be a gamer.

Personally, I don't think Apple cares about gamers, and it's a little sad. Gamers are early adopters and will buy the best equipment.....you'd think Apple would want to sell to this segment.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

Apple does allow upgradeable video cards. Mac Pros use full size PCI cards.
iMacs Use the MXM style cards with Desktop class GPU's instead of the Laptop class GPUs normally normally found on these cards.

The only thing stopping you dropping a different card into the Mac is that almost all the cards on the market only support the BIOS firmware, where Apple uses the newer EFI on Intel based Mac's and Openfirmware on the older PowerPC.
Find a card that supports designed to work with EFI and you have a new video card for your Mac. Which is pretty hard except for the cards Apple already offers.
 
bjweeks said:
Why would a game dev want to use Cocoa when they can use OpenGL that supports many platforms?
Click to expand...

Why would anyone want to use Microsoft's advanced Frameworks? Why would anyone want to use Frameworks that do the bulk of the work for you?

Do the math.

The low level code in C wrapped around ObjC interfaces to leverage Core APIs.

It's simple.
 
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