Originally posted by AlanH
This post is by the great Brad Oliver who lives inside the game development community and produced the Mac version of Civ3. I doubt if you will see a more definitive statement than his ...
Yes, to clarify there are really only two factors: how well the PC version sells and how expensive it would be to bring to the Mac.
If a PC game sells well, but is written entirely in x86 assembly language - like Roller Coaster Tycoon - then a Mac port is pretty much out of the question. Likewise, if a PC title has mediocre sales and the Mac port is more expensive than normal, then it would also be a hard business case to make. A further factor into this is that the Mac publisher also has to pay the PC publisher a licensing fee to do a Mac conversion. I'm probably not at liberty to give specifics, but this number can oftentimes be a fairly significant (sometimes majority) chunk of the overall cost, although it varies greatly depending on the game in question.
So a Mac publisher has to add up the cost of the port + the cost of the license and then guess how many Mac copies they can sell based on projections from the PC sales to determine if the port is worth it. If the numbers add up, things move forward as quickly as all the contractual stuff can be arranged. If not, then sometimes they play a wait-and-see game or pass.
There are other minor factors involved as well - are there PR issues with the PC version that make it "tarnish" the Mac publisher's brand? Does the bugginess of the PC product counteract any perceived profitability? Should the Mac publisher expect to dish out more money for Mac patches down the road, based on the rate of PC patches?
I also asked someone recently why, if a case can be made for a profitable Mac port, the PC publisher would want to pass on the rights and got an interesting answer. Some PC guys have a very hands-on approach to all their properties. This means that they would have to assign someone to "oversee" Mac production and QA the Mac title (involving their own Mac QA team and the purchase of their own Macs). Even though the Mac title would make money for the Mac publisher, it would deny the PC publisher/developer a few bodies that they could otherwise throw onto far more profitable ventures, like console ports or some snazzy new patch that would sell 2-10x as many titles. So then it becomes not a matter of just profits but of profit vs. even more profit. It's enough to make my head spin.
FWIW, I don't believe any of this is specific to Civ3-related stuff, so please don't read between the lines - there's nothing (intentional) there.
