Civ4 Simultaneous PC & Mac Release: Join Discussion Now
- Thread starter dojoboy
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Somewhataller
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2003
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Yeah I agree. I hate having to wait months (or years *cough*AOE2*cough*) for a game to come out on mac. Everyone should be like blizzard.
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Hellfire
Prince
Making simultaneous releases for Mac and PC is an investment, but oh what a sweet investment it is. Here's some good information on simultaneous releases:
1) You need to have a portable code base. The more portable the code the easier it is to release on both platforms.
2) You need to plan to port the code early in the development cycle. Waiting for PC sales is a cop out because by that time, you miss all the "early adopter" sales that go along with game releases. Now all you have are the casual mac players but without a near simultaneous release, you have lost sales, period.
3) Mac users in general are 5 times more likely to purchase software than PC users. Mac users are far more prevalent at home than at business, and game manufacturers simply cannot target businesses. Especially when it comes to games, the PC to mac market share percentages are the wrong figure to look at.
4) Respect Mac users, like any user, and they will respect you.
5) Parity parity parity parity!
6) Do market research ahead of time. All this waiting to see how PC sales do will not save you any money.
7) Learn X-code!!!!!!! It's brilliant and comes with each and every 10.3 install CD.
8) Don't just do this with one game, establish a business around it, just like with any long term investment, and learn to streamline it. The more time you spend on a good process, the better it gets.
9) The attitude your employees should eventually have is "Duh, of course it works on the mac, too." The process should be well defined, automated, streamlined, and not too complicated.
10) They did this years ago with the apple IIs, commodores, TRS-80, and all the other computers of the age, you can do it now!
Of all the things Blizzard does, they do ports the absolute best. They may have problems with design balance or deep nasty bugs here and there which break functions, but they have no problem keeping mac and PC versions on the same level.
1) You need to have a portable code base. The more portable the code the easier it is to release on both platforms.
2) You need to plan to port the code early in the development cycle. Waiting for PC sales is a cop out because by that time, you miss all the "early adopter" sales that go along with game releases. Now all you have are the casual mac players but without a near simultaneous release, you have lost sales, period.
3) Mac users in general are 5 times more likely to purchase software than PC users. Mac users are far more prevalent at home than at business, and game manufacturers simply cannot target businesses. Especially when it comes to games, the PC to mac market share percentages are the wrong figure to look at.
4) Respect Mac users, like any user, and they will respect you.
5) Parity parity parity parity!
6) Do market research ahead of time. All this waiting to see how PC sales do will not save you any money.
7) Learn X-code!!!!!!! It's brilliant and comes with each and every 10.3 install CD.
8) Don't just do this with one game, establish a business around it, just like with any long term investment, and learn to streamline it. The more time you spend on a good process, the better it gets.
9) The attitude your employees should eventually have is "Duh, of course it works on the mac, too." The process should be well defined, automated, streamlined, and not too complicated.
10) They did this years ago with the apple IIs, commodores, TRS-80, and all the other computers of the age, you can do it now!
Of all the things Blizzard does, they do ports the absolute best. They may have problems with design balance or deep nasty bugs here and there which break functions, but they have no problem keeping mac and PC versions on the same level.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
I don't believe this holds true for the Mac game market.
Xcode is good if you're already comfortable with gcc and gdb and want something free. If you're looking for a polished GUI (and a much better PowerPC compiler), then CodeWarrior is currently the way to go.
Just so it works well in OSX.
I loved Civ2, continually played new games, then started downloading mod packs and scenarios. It was wonderful for years. Even found some people to play on line with but was never quite able to actually get a game together.
Then CIV3 finally came out for mac and I was terribly excited only to find it was very bggy and the interface was very PC like (yech). Even so I played it and tried to download scenarios or maps and none of them work right. There is no playig on line. And all the good expansions have passed us macs by. Needless to say i have longs ince stopped playing Civ.
Because of the poor product they provided in Civ3 I am wary to purchase it again (that's what happens when you put out a shoddy product) bt if the reviews are good I'll give you guys one more chance. If the mac version sucks you wont see me as a customer anymore.
I loved Civ2, continually played new games, then started downloading mod packs and scenarios. It was wonderful for years. Even found some people to play on line with but was never quite able to actually get a game together.
Then CIV3 finally came out for mac and I was terribly excited only to find it was very bggy and the interface was very PC like (yech). Even so I played it and tried to download scenarios or maps and none of them work right. There is no playig on line. And all the good expansions have passed us macs by. Needless to say i have longs ince stopped playing Civ.
Because of the poor product they provided in Civ3 I am wary to purchase it again (that's what happens when you put out a shoddy product) bt if the reviews are good I'll give you guys one more chance. If the mac version sucks you wont see me as a customer anymore.
Blizzard does it right.
And it's no coincidence that they also generate tons of sales and have established themselves as kings of game developers... ...World of Warcraft will be just as successful as Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft series...
Other game makers could learn a little from their model... ...I'm tired of Mac game releases that include only a subset of the PC version and/or come to market months afterwards...
And it's no coincidence that they also generate tons of sales and have established themselves as kings of game developers... ...World of Warcraft will be just as successful as Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft series...
Other game makers could learn a little from their model... ...I'm tired of Mac game releases that include only a subset of the PC version and/or come to market months afterwards...
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