Mac gaming
Encyclopedia
Mac gaming refers to use of video games on Macintosh
personal computer
s. In the 1990s, Apple computers did not attract the same level of video game development as Windows
computers due to the high popularity of Windows and, for 3D gaming, Microsoft's DirectX
technology. In recent years, the introduction of Mac OS X
and support for Intel processors has eased porting
of many games, including 3D games through use of OpenGL
. Virtualization technology and Boot Camp also permit the use of Windows and its games on Macintosh computers. Today, a growing number of popular games run natively on Mac OS X, though most require the use of Windows.
would aggravate the impression that the graphical user interface
made the Mac toy-like. More critically, the limited amount of RAM
in the original Macintosh meant that fitting a game into the operating system would be very difficult. Eventually, Andy Hertzfeld
created a desk accessory
called Puzzle that occupied only 600 byte
s of memory. This was deemed small enough to be safely included in the operating system, and it shipped with the Mac when released in 1984. Puzzle would remain a part of the Mac OS for the next ten years, until being replaced in 1994 with Jigsaw, a jigsaw puzzle
game included as part of Mac OS 7.5
.
During the development of the Mac, a chess game similar to Archon
based on Alice in Wonderland was shown http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Alice.txt&characters=Bruce%20Daniels&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium&showcomments=1 to the development team. The game was written by Steve Capps
for the Apple Lisa
computer, but could be easily ported to the Macintosh. The completed game was shown at the Mac's launch and released a few months later under the title Through the Looking Glass, but Apple failed to put much marketing effort into ensuring its success and the game was not a top seller.
Subsequent game development on the Macintosh included titles such as Dark Castle
(1986), Microsoft Flight Simulator
(1986) and SimCity
(1988), though mostly games for the Mac were developed alongside those for other platforms. A notable exception was Myst
(1993), developed on the Mac (in part using HyperCard
) and only afterwards port
ed to Windows.
(also known as the Bandai Pippin) was a multimedia player based on the Power Mac that ran a cut-down version of the Mac OS designed, among other things, to play games. Sold between 1996 and 1998 in Japan
and the United States
, it was not a commercial success, with fewer than 42,000 units sold and fewer than a thousand games and software applications supported.
, Blizzard Entertainment
, Brøderbund
, Linden Lab
, and Microsoft
. In many ways this is an ideal situation: those creating the Mac version have direct access to the original programmer
s in case any questions or concerns arise about the source code
. It also increases the likelihood that the Mac and Windows versions of a game will launch concurrently or nearly so, as many obstacles inherent in the third-party porting process are avoided. Another benefit of in-house porting, if carried out simultaneously with game development, is that the company can release hybrid discs, easing game distribution and largely eliminating the shelf space problem.
Among the Mac versions of popular Windows games that were developed in-house are Diablo
, Microsoft Flight Simulator
, Second Life
, Stubbs the Zombie, Call of Duty 4, and World of Warcraft
.
, MacSoft Games
, Red Marble Games
, Coladia Games, and MacPlay
. A critical factor for the financial viability of these porting houses is the number of copies of the game sold; a "successful" title may sell only 50,000 units.
The licensing deal between the original game developer and the porting house may be a flat one-time payment, a percentage of the profits from the Mac game's sale, or both. While this license gives the porting house access to artwork and source code, it does not normally cover middleware
such as third-party game engines. Modifying the source code to the Macintosh platform may be difficult as code for games is often highly optimized for the Windows operating system and Intel-compatible processors. The latter presented an obstacle in previous years when the Macintosh platform utilized PowerPC
processors due to the difference in endianness
between the two types of processors, but as today's Macintosh computers employ Intel processors as well, the obstacle has been mitigated somewhat. One example of common work for a porting house is converting graphics instructions targeted for Microsoft
's DirectX
graphics library
to instructions for the OpenGL
library; DirectX is favored by most Windows game developers, but is incompatible with the Macintosh.
Due to the time involved in licensing and porting the product, Macintosh versions of games ported by third-party companies are usually released anywhere from three months to more than a year after their Windows-based counterparts. For example, the Windows version of Civilization IV
was released on October 25, 2005, but Mac gamers had to wait eight months until June 30, 2006 for the release of the Mac version.
's (Half-Life, Counter-Strike
, Team Fortress 2
and the Source engine
) Gabe Newell
included the question of why his company was keeping their games and gaming technology "a strictly Windows project". Newell answered:
In June 2010, Valve's Steam game-delivery platform was ported to OS X, along with Portal, Team Fortress 2
, Half-Life 2
and a variety of other Source-engine-based games over a succession of weeks. A small proportion of games available through Steam are now marked as being compatible with both Windows and OS X, and can be downloaded for either platform once a customer has purchased the game.
has developed a product called Cider which is a popular method among publishers to port games to Mac. Cider's engine enables publishers and developers to target Mac OS X. It shares much of the same core technology as TransGaming's Linux Portability Engine, Cedega. Public reception of games ported with Cider is mixed, due to inconsistency of performance between titles; because of this, “Ciderized” games are neither seen as either the work of cross-platform development, or as native, optimized ports. Electronic Arts
announced their return to the Mac, publishing various titles simultaneously on both Windows and Mac, using Cider .
software that handles certain aspects of games, making it easier for game creators to develop games in return for paying the middleware developer a licensing fee. However, since the license the Mac porting house obtains from the game creator does not normally include rights to use the middleware as well, the Mac porting company must either license the middleware separately or attempt to find an alternative. Examples of middleware include the Havok
physics engine and the GameSpy
internet-based multiplayer gaming
client.
Because of the smaller market, companies developing games for the Mac usually seek a lower licensing fee than Windows developers. When the middleware company refuses such terms porting that particular Windows game to the Mac may be uneconomical and engineering a viable alternative within the available budget impossible. As a result, some popular games which use the Havok engine have not yet been ported to the Macintosh.
In other cases, workaround solutions may be found. In the case of GameSpy, one workaround is to limit Mac gamers to play against each other but not with users playing the Windows version. However, in some cases, GameSpy has been reverse-engineered
and implemented into the Mac game, so that it is able to network seamlessly with the Windows version of the game.
directly into Windows XP
or Windows Vista
. The reaction from Mac game developers and software journalists to the introduction of Boot Camp has been mixed, ranging from assuming the Mac will be dead as a platform for game development to cautious optimism that Mac owners will continue to play games within Mac OS rather than by rebooting to Windows. The number of Mac ports of Windows games released in 2006 was never likely to be very great, despite the steadily increasing number of Mac users.
s for the Macintosh that allowed it to run MS-DOS
or Windows
software, most notably RealPC
, SoftPC
, SoftWindows, and Virtual PC. Although more or less adequate for business applications, these programs have tended to deliver poor performance when used for running games, particularly where high-end technologies like DirectX were involved.
Since the introduction of the Intel processor into the Macintosh platform, Windows virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop for Mac
and VMware Fusion
have been seen as more promising solutions for running Windows software on the Mac operating system. In some ways they are better solutions than Boot Camp, as they do not require rebooting the machine. VMware Fusion's public beta 2 supports hardware-accelerated 3D graphics
which utilize the DirectX
library up to version 9. Parallels Desktop for Mac version 3.0 has announced support for GPU acceleration, allowing Mac Users to play Windows-based games.
Another application is CodeWeavers
' CrossOver
products, which use a compatibility layer to translate Windows' application instructions to the native Macintosh operating system, without the need to run Windows. CrossOver is built from the open source
Wine
project and adds a graphical frontend to the process of installing and running the Windows applications through Wine. It is a similar approach that TransGaming
uses to run Windows games on the Mac OS. CodeWeavers is an active supporter of Wine and routinely shares programming code and patches back to the project.
PlayOnMac and Wineskin are free versions of the same technology, also based on Wine
. Wineskin creates self-contained ("clickable") Mac Applications out of the installation.
A list of Wine-compatible Windows software, including over 5,000 games and how well each individual game works with Wine can be found at appdb.winehq.org. 1,500 games are listed as "Platinum", which means they work "out-of-the-box", while 1,400 more are listed as "Gold", meaning they require some tweaking of the installation to run flawlessly.
, by Cyan
. It was ported to Windows the next year, and Cyan's later games were released simultaneously for both platforms with the exception of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
, which was Windows-only until a Mac-compatible re-release (currently in beta) by GameTap
in 2007, with the help of TransGaming's Cider virtualization software.
Another popular Mac game was the Marathon series of first-person shooter
s. These games were released in the wake of the popular DOOM
, which defined the first-person shooter genre, but contained many innovations new or uncommon in similar games from the time, such as weapons with two functions, and the ability for the player to look and fire up and down, swim through liquids, fight alongside allied characters, and wield two weapons at once. Bungie Studios would port the second in the series, Marathon 2: Durandal
, to the Windows platform, where it met with some success. They also ported their post-Marathon games Myth
and Oni to Windows. At the 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo
in New York
, Bungie showed a demonstration of a new game entitled Halo
, to be released for the Mac the next year; before this happened, Bungie was purchased by Microsoft. Halo was released exclusively for the Xbox
video game console in 2001. The Macintosh and Windows versions of the game did not arrive until late 2003, almost four and a half years after its original announcement at Macworld. Today, there are many companies both large and small creating original games for the Macintosh; however, following a trend in the industry, these tend to be lower-budget "casual" games
with simple graphics that are easy to pick up and play in short bursts, as opposed to high-budget "hardcore" games that are more graphically intensive and require large investments in time to play and master.
and Adobe Photoshop
. Because of this, most smaller Mac game companies release their products using a shareware
business model, either exclusively or in addition to a more traditional retail "boxed" version. All porting houses and larger game companies have stuck to the traditional model, but the recent rise in the digital download
model may lead to some companies eventually releasing games as paid downloads in a model similar to Valve Corporation
's Steam service. Virtual Programming was one of the few porting companies to offer commercial games via digital download, although with the launch of Deliver2Mac and GamersGate
in early 2006 other companies are beginning to move towards digital distribution. Aside from getting around the shelf space problem, shareware and digital download models also provide a larger percentage of profit to the company, as the wholesaler middleman is avoided and costs (and turnaround times) involved in media replication are eliminated. The latest player is TransGaming Technologies
' GameTreeOnline.com which was launched March 2008 with a focus to offer the Mac gaming community digital downloads of major published Mac titles.
on March 3, 2010, hinting at a Mac version of Steam. These pictures, each depicting characters from their games reenacting famous apple advertisements, were sent to major computer and gaming websites, both Mac- and PC-related, with iPhone
-like page dots at the bottom of each. The six recipients were Eurogamer
, MacRumors
, MacNN, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
, Shacknews
, and MacWorld
. Five days later, on March 8, 2010, Valve Corporation
made the official announcement in a press release on their Steam website. In the announcement, Valve stated that they will be porting their entire library of games over to Mac when the client is released in April 2010, and that they decided on native versions of their games, rather than emulations. Valve also announced that any games purchased over Steam for computers running Windows will be available for free download to computers running Mac OS X, and vice versa. What was also stressed was that Mac and Windows users will be using the same servers, will obtain updates simultaneously, and will be part of the same multiplayer environment, essentially promising a completely integrated Steam environment. When steam was released for Mac OS X the award winning game Portal was made free for both users of PC and Mac to download. The first game to be released simultaneously for Mac and Windows by Valve was Portal 2
in April, 2011.
. This trend began when Linux began to gain Mac-style porting houses, the first of which was Loki Software
and later Linux Game Publishing
. Linux porters born from this new industry have also been commonly hired as Mac porters, often releasing games for both systems. This includes game porters like Ryan C. Gordon
who brought Unreal Tournament 2003
and 2004
to Linux and Mac; companies like Hyperion Entertainment
, who primarily supports AmigaOS
as well as Mac and Linux; or RuneSoft
, a German publisher that has done ports for Linux Game Publishing.
Indie game development has also been conducive to intertwining, with developers like Wolfire Games
(Lugaru
, Overgrowth
), Frictional Games
(Penumbra
, Amnesia
), 2D Boy
(World of Goo
), Sillysoft Games (Lux), and Basilisk Games
(Eschalon
) supporting both platforms with native versions. id Software
has also been a pioneer in both Mac and Linux gaming, with ports of their games done by Timothee Besset
. Illwinter Game Design is also notable for supporting both platforms.
Open source video games have also proved modestly popular on the Mac. Although, due to the free software
nature of the system, development of free software titles mostly begins on Linux; afterwards, major games are typically ported to Mac and Microsoft Windows
. Mac has less mainstream games than Windows and as a result, free games have had more of an impact on the platform. Notable free games popular on the Mac include The Battle for Wesnoth, OpenArena
, BZFlag
, LinCity
, and more.
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s. In the 1990s, Apple computers did not attract the same level of video game development as Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
computers due to the high popularity of Windows and, for 3D gaming, Microsoft's DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
technology. In recent years, the introduction of Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and support for Intel processors has eased porting
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
of many games, including 3D games through use of OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
. Virtualization technology and Boot Camp also permit the use of Windows and its games on Macintosh computers. Today, a growing number of popular games run natively on Mac OS X, though most require the use of Windows.
Early game development on the Mac
Prior to the release of the first Macintosh computer, a number of marketing executives at Apple were concerned that including a game in the finished operating systemOperating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
would aggravate the impression that the graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
made the Mac toy-like. More critically, the limited amount of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
in the original Macintosh meant that fitting a game into the operating system would be very difficult. Eventually, Andy Hertzfeld
Andy Hertzfeld
Andy Hertzfeld is a computer scientist who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for Apple Computer from August 1979 until March 1984, where he was a designer for the Macintosh system software...
created a desk accessory
Desk Accessory
A desk accessory is a small helper-type application that can be run concurrently with any other application on the system. Early examples, such as SideKick and Macintosh desk accessories, used special programming models to provide a small degree of multitasking on a system that initially did not...
called Puzzle that occupied only 600 byte
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...
s of memory. This was deemed small enough to be safely included in the operating system, and it shipped with the Mac when released in 1984. Puzzle would remain a part of the Mac OS for the next ten years, until being replaced in 1994 with Jigsaw, a jigsaw puzzle
Jigsaw puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces.Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture...
game included as part of Mac OS 7.5
System 7 (Macintosh)
System 7 is a single-user graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers. It was introduced on May 13, 1991 by Apple Computer. It succeeded System 6, and was the main Macintosh operating system until it was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997...
.
During the development of the Mac, a chess game similar to Archon
Archon
Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem ἀρχ-, meaning "to rule", derived from the same root as monarch, hierarchy, and anarchy.- Ancient Greece :In ancient Greece the...
based on Alice in Wonderland was shown http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Alice.txt&characters=Bruce%20Daniels&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium&showcomments=1 to the development team. The game was written by Steve Capps
Steve Capps
Steve Capps is a computer programmer and engineer who is best known for his work on the Apple Inc. Macintosh computer and Newton OS during the 1980s and 1990s. He started working at the Xerox Corporation while still a computer science student at the Rochester Institute of Technology...
for the Apple Lisa
Apple Lisa
The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....
computer, but could be easily ported to the Macintosh. The completed game was shown at the Mac's launch and released a few months later under the title Through the Looking Glass, but Apple failed to put much marketing effort into ensuring its success and the game was not a top seller.
Subsequent game development on the Macintosh included titles such as Dark Castle
Dark Castle
Dark Castle is a 1986 computer game for the Macintosh published by Silicon Beach Software, later ported to various platforms, where it was published by Three-Sixty Pacific...
(1986), Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a series of flight simulator programs for the Microsoft Windows operating system, although it was marketed as a video game. It is one of the longest-running, best-known and most comprehensive home flight simulator series...
(1986) and SimCity
SimCity
SimCity is a critically acclaimed city-building simulation video game, first released in 1989, and designed by Will Wright. SimCity was Maxis' first product, which has since been ported into various personal computers and game consoles, and spawned several sequels including SimCity 2000 in 1994,...
(1988), though mostly games for the Mac were developed alongside those for other platforms. A notable exception was Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
(1993), developed on the Mac (in part using HyperCard
HyperCard
HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written...
) and only afterwards port
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
ed to Windows.
Pippin
The Apple PippinApple Pippin
The Pippin, known in Japan as , and marketed as Pipp!n, is a multimedia platform designed by Apple Computer and produced by Bandai in 1995...
(also known as the Bandai Pippin) was a multimedia player based on the Power Mac that ran a cut-down version of the Mac OS designed, among other things, to play games. Sold between 1996 and 1998 in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, it was not a commercial success, with fewer than 42,000 units sold and fewer than a thousand games and software applications supported.
In-house porting
Only a few companies have developed or continue to develop games for both the Mac and Windows platforms. Notable examples of these are TransGaming, Aspyr, Big Fish GamesBig Fish Games
Big Fish Games is a provider of Internet media delivery software and game services based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded in 2002 by Paul Thelen , and currently employs more than 400 people...
, Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
, Brøderbund
Brøderbund
Brøderbund Software, Inc. was an American maker of computer games, educational software and The Print Shop productivity tools. It was best known as the original creator and publisher of the popular Carmen Sandiego games. The company was founded in Eugene, Oregon, but moved to San Rafael,...
, Linden Lab
Linden Lab
Linden Research, Inc., d/b/a Linden Lab, is a privately held American Internet company that is best known as the creator of Second Life....
, and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. In many ways this is an ideal situation: those creating the Mac version have direct access to the original programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
s in case any questions or concerns arise about the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
. It also increases the likelihood that the Mac and Windows versions of a game will launch concurrently or nearly so, as many obstacles inherent in the third-party porting process are avoided. Another benefit of in-house porting, if carried out simultaneously with game development, is that the company can release hybrid discs, easing game distribution and largely eliminating the shelf space problem.
Among the Mac versions of popular Windows games that were developed in-house are Diablo
Diablo (video game)
Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment on December 31, 1996....
, Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a series of flight simulator programs for the Microsoft Windows operating system, although it was marketed as a video game. It is one of the longest-running, best-known and most comprehensive home flight simulator series...
, Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
, Stubbs the Zombie, Call of Duty 4, and World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
.
Third-party porting
Most high-budget games that come to the Macintosh are originally created for Microsoft Windows and ported to the Mac operating system by one of a relatively small number of porting houses. Among the most notable of these are Aspyr, Feral InteractiveFeral Interactive
Feral Interactive is a publishing company founded in 1999 that publishes games and other software that did not fit in with the release programs of the large established publishers. It publishes Macintosh games and has relationships with publishers such as Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive,...
, MacSoft Games
MacSoft Games
MacSoft Games is a Plymouth, Minnesota, United States-based computer game publisher and porter specializing in porting Microsoft Windows computer games to the Macintosh...
, Red Marble Games
Red Marble Games
Red Marble Games was started in 2002 by Mark Batten with the intent of porting the best indie games from Windows to the Macintosh. The Macintosh platform is infamous for its dearth of commercial video games , and the indie realm is no different...
, Coladia Games, and MacPlay
MacPlay
MacPlay was the name used by a series of two American publishers of Macintosh computer games. No game has been published under the MacPlay brand name since 2004.- 1990 - 1997 Period :...
. A critical factor for the financial viability of these porting houses is the number of copies of the game sold; a "successful" title may sell only 50,000 units.
The licensing deal between the original game developer and the porting house may be a flat one-time payment, a percentage of the profits from the Mac game's sale, or both. While this license gives the porting house access to artwork and source code, it does not normally cover middleware
Middleware
Middleware is computer software that connects software components or people and their applications. The software consists of a set of services that allows multiple processes running on one or more machines to interact...
such as third-party game engines. Modifying the source code to the Macintosh platform may be difficult as code for games is often highly optimized for the Windows operating system and Intel-compatible processors. The latter presented an obstacle in previous years when the Macintosh platform utilized PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
processors due to the difference in endianness
Endianness
In computing, the term endian or endianness refers to the ordering of individually addressable sub-components within the representation of a larger data item as stored in external memory . Each sub-component in the representation has a unique degree of significance, like the place value of digits...
between the two types of processors, but as today's Macintosh computers employ Intel processors as well, the obstacle has been mitigated somewhat. One example of common work for a porting house is converting graphics instructions targeted for Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
graphics library
Library (computer science)
In computer science, a library is a collection of resources used to develop software. These may include pre-written code and subroutines, classes, values or type specifications....
to instructions for the OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
library; DirectX is favored by most Windows game developers, but is incompatible with the Macintosh.
Due to the time involved in licensing and porting the product, Macintosh versions of games ported by third-party companies are usually released anywhere from three months to more than a year after their Windows-based counterparts. For example, the Windows version of Civilization IV
Civilization IV
Sid Meier's Civilization IV is a turn-based strategy, 4X computer game released in 2005 and developed by lead designer Soren Johnson under the direction of Sid Meier and Meier's studio Firaxis Games. It is the fourth installment of the Civilization series...
was released on October 25, 2005, but Mac gamers had to wait eight months until June 30, 2006 for the release of the Mac version.
Valve Corporation
A 2007 interview with Valve CorporationValve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
's (Half-Life, Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
, Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...
and the Source engine
Source engine
Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation. It debuted in June 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source and shortly thereafter Half-Life 2, and has been in active development ever since...
) Gabe Newell
Gabe Newell
Gabe Logan Newell is the co-founder and managing director of video game development and online distribution company Valve Corporation.-Work:...
included the question of why his company was keeping their games and gaming technology "a strictly Windows project". Newell answered:
In June 2010, Valve's Steam game-delivery platform was ported to OS X, along with Portal, Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...
, Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 , the sequel to Half-Life, is a first-person shooter video game and a signature title in the Half-Life series. It is singleplayer, story-driven, science fiction, and linear...
and a variety of other Source-engine-based games over a succession of weeks. A small proportion of games available through Steam are now marked as being compatible with both Windows and OS X, and can be downloaded for either platform once a customer has purchased the game.
TransGaming's Cider
TransGaming TechnologiesTransGaming Technologies
TransGaming Inc. is a company specialized in video game portability technology. The company has its head office in Toronto and a research hub in Ottawa. It was founded by Gavriel State, who ran the Linux product division at the Corel Corporation...
has developed a product called Cider which is a popular method among publishers to port games to Mac. Cider's engine enables publishers and developers to target Mac OS X. It shares much of the same core technology as TransGaming's Linux Portability Engine, Cedega. Public reception of games ported with Cider is mixed, due to inconsistency of performance between titles; because of this, “Ciderized” games are neither seen as either the work of cross-platform development, or as native, optimized ports. Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
announced their return to the Mac, publishing various titles simultaneously on both Windows and Mac, using Cider .
Wineskin
An open source project called Wineskin allows anyone to attempt to port games to Mac OS X since 2010. It uses all open source components and is open source itself. Its technology is very similar to what TransGaming does with Cider, but its is free to use to anyone. Few games have officially used this method to date, but it is very popular to Hobby Porters who port their own Windows-only games to play. The "wrappers" that can be made from this are often shared with friends or others. Legal versions of games can then be installed easily into the shared wrapper and then the final result works like a normal Mac app. Wineskin is mainly only used in "Hobbyist Porting" and not professional porting.The middleware problem
A particular problem for companies attempting to port Windows games to the Macintosh is licensing middleware. Middleware is off-the-shelfCommercial off-the-shelf
In the United States, Commercially available Off-The-Shelf is a Federal Acquisition Regulation term defining a nondevelopmental item of supply that is both commercial and sold in substantial quantities in the commercial marketplace, and that can be procured or utilized under government contract...
software that handles certain aspects of games, making it easier for game creators to develop games in return for paying the middleware developer a licensing fee. However, since the license the Mac porting house obtains from the game creator does not normally include rights to use the middleware as well, the Mac porting company must either license the middleware separately or attempt to find an alternative. Examples of middleware include the Havok
Havok (software)
Havok Physics is a physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed primarily for video games, and allows for real-time collision and dynamics of rigid bodies in three dimensions. It provides multiple types of dynamic constraints between rigid bodies , and has a highly optimized...
physics engine and the GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
internet-based multiplayer gaming
Online game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
client.
Because of the smaller market, companies developing games for the Mac usually seek a lower licensing fee than Windows developers. When the middleware company refuses such terms porting that particular Windows game to the Mac may be uneconomical and engineering a viable alternative within the available budget impossible. As a result, some popular games which use the Havok engine have not yet been ported to the Macintosh.
In other cases, workaround solutions may be found. In the case of GameSpy, one workaround is to limit Mac gamers to play against each other but not with users playing the Windows version. However, in some cases, GameSpy has been reverse-engineered
Reverse engineering
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...
and implemented into the Mac game, so that it is able to network seamlessly with the Windows version of the game.
Boot Camp
In April 2006 Apple released a beta version of Boot Camp, a product which allows Intel-based Macintoshes to bootBooting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
directly into Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
or Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
. The reaction from Mac game developers and software journalists to the introduction of Boot Camp has been mixed, ranging from assuming the Mac will be dead as a platform for game development to cautious optimism that Mac owners will continue to play games within Mac OS rather than by rebooting to Windows. The number of Mac ports of Windows games released in 2006 was never likely to be very great, despite the steadily increasing number of Mac users.
Emulation and virtualization
Over the years there have been a number of emulatorEmulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
s for the Macintosh that allowed it to run MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
or Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
software, most notably RealPC
RealPC
RealPC is a Macintosh program that emulates an x86 PC, allowing the use of PC-DOS, Windows 2000, Windows 95, and Windows 98. This software limits on which operating system you can use. If you try to install Linux, Windows Me, Windows XP or MS-DOS, it will stop the emulation and ask you to...
, SoftPC
SoftPC
SoftPC and SoftWindows were software emulators of x86 hardware. The emulators were developed by Insignia Solutions. Available originally on UNIX workstations to run MS-DOS, the software eventually was ported to Mac OS and also gained the ability to run Windows software...
, SoftWindows, and Virtual PC. Although more or less adequate for business applications, these programs have tended to deliver poor performance when used for running games, particularly where high-end technologies like DirectX were involved.
Since the introduction of the Intel processor into the Macintosh platform, Windows virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop for Mac
Parallels Desktop for Mac
Parallels Desktop for Mac by Parallels, Inc., is software providing hardware virtualization for Macintosh computers with Intel processors.-Overview:Parallels, Inc...
and VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion is a virtual machine software product developed by VMware for Macintosh computers with Intel processors. Fusion allows Intel-based Macs to run x86 and x86-64 "guest" operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris as virtual machines simultaneously with Mac OS...
have been seen as more promising solutions for running Windows software on the Mac operating system. In some ways they are better solutions than Boot Camp, as they do not require rebooting the machine. VMware Fusion's public beta 2 supports hardware-accelerated 3D graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
which utilize the DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
library up to version 9. Parallels Desktop for Mac version 3.0 has announced support for GPU acceleration, allowing Mac Users to play Windows-based games.
Another application is CodeWeavers
CodeWeavers
CodeWeavers is a company that sells a proprietary version of Wine called CrossOver, for running Windows applications on Mac OS X and Linux. The company was founded in 1996 as a consultancy, eventually moving entirely over to Wine development and support...
' CrossOver
Crossover
-Fiction and media:* Fictional crossover, a storyline combining characters or settings from separate fictional properties** Fictional crossovers in video games* Crossover , a 2002 documentary by Justin Lin...
products, which use a compatibility layer to translate Windows' application instructions to the native Macintosh operating system, without the need to run Windows. CrossOver is built from the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
Wine
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
project and adds a graphical frontend to the process of installing and running the Windows applications through Wine. It is a similar approach that TransGaming
TransGaming Technologies
TransGaming Inc. is a company specialized in video game portability technology. The company has its head office in Toronto and a research hub in Ottawa. It was founded by Gavriel State, who ran the Linux product division at the Corel Corporation...
uses to run Windows games on the Mac OS. CodeWeavers is an active supporter of Wine and routinely shares programming code and patches back to the project.
PlayOnMac and Wineskin are free versions of the same technology, also based on Wine
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
. Wineskin creates self-contained ("clickable") Mac Applications out of the installation.
A list of Wine-compatible Windows software, including over 5,000 games and how well each individual game works with Wine can be found at appdb.winehq.org. 1,500 games are listed as "Platinum", which means they work "out-of-the-box", while 1,400 more are listed as "Gold", meaning they require some tweaking of the installation to run flawlessly.
Original Mac games
Although currently most big-name Mac games are ports, this has not always been the case. Perhaps the most popular game which was originally developed for the Macintosh was 1993's MystMyst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
, by Cyan
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
. It was ported to Windows the next year, and Cyan's later games were released simultaneously for both platforms with the exception of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is an adventure video game developed by Cyan Worlds and published by Ubisoft. Released in 2003, the title is the fourth game in the Myst canon. Departing from previous games of the franchise, Uru takes place in the modern era and allows players to customize their onscreen...
, which was Windows-only until a Mac-compatible re-release (currently in beta) by GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
in 2007, with the help of TransGaming's Cider virtualization software.
Another popular Mac game was the Marathon series of first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
s. These games were released in the wake of the popular DOOM
Doom
Doom may refer to:* dōm, the Anglo-Saxon word meaning "judgment", "law"** Doom book the Laws of King Aelfred, Legal Code of Alfred the Great, Code of Alfred 893* Doom , a painting that depicts the Last Judgment...
, which defined the first-person shooter genre, but contained many innovations new or uncommon in similar games from the time, such as weapons with two functions, and the ability for the player to look and fire up and down, swim through liquids, fight alongside allied characters, and wield two weapons at once. Bungie Studios would port the second in the series, Marathon 2: Durandal
Marathon 2: Durandal
Marathon 2: Durandal is the first sequel in the Marathon series of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software. It was released on November 24, 1995. The game is mostly set on the fictional planet of Lh'owon, homeworld of the S'pht, and once again the player takes the...
, to the Windows platform, where it met with some success. They also ported their post-Marathon games Myth
Myth (computer game)
Myth is a series of real-time tactics computer games. The games are:*Myth: The Fallen Lords*Myth II: Soulblighter*Myth III: The Wolf Age...
and Oni to Windows. At the 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo
Macworld Conference & Expo
Produced by Boston-based IDG World Expo, Macworld | iWorld is a trade-show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It is held annually in the United States, usually during the second week of January...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Bungie showed a demonstration of a new game entitled Halo
Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo: Combat Evolved, frequently referred to as Halo: CE, or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released on November 15, 2001 as a launch title for the Xbox gaming system, and is...
, to be released for the Mac the next year; before this happened, Bungie was purchased by Microsoft. Halo was released exclusively for the Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
video game console in 2001. The Macintosh and Windows versions of the game did not arrive until late 2003, almost four and a half years after its original announcement at Macworld. Today, there are many companies both large and small creating original games for the Macintosh; however, following a trend in the industry, these tend to be lower-budget "casual" games
Casual game
A casual game is a video game targeted at or used by a mass audience of casual gamers. Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games...
with simple graphics that are easy to pick up and play in short bursts, as opposed to high-budget "hardcore" games that are more graphically intensive and require large investments in time to play and master.
The shelf space problem
One problem afflicting both porting houses and original Mac game developers is that of "shelf space," which refers to the amount of space a retail store allocates to stocking Mac games. Due to its small market share, Macintosh software as a whole receives very little, if any, shelf space in most major computer retail stores. Within that space, retailers are usually reluctant to stock relatively inexpensive games which may or may not sell well, as opposed to high-cost, top-selling products such as Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
and Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
. Because of this, most smaller Mac game companies release their products using a shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
business model, either exclusively or in addition to a more traditional retail "boxed" version. All porting houses and larger game companies have stuck to the traditional model, but the recent rise in the digital download
Digital distribution
Online distribution, digital distribution, or electronic software distribution is the practice of delivering content without the use of physical media, typically by downloading via the internet directly to a consumer's device. Online distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution media,...
model may lead to some companies eventually releasing games as paid downloads in a model similar to Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
's Steam service. Virtual Programming was one of the few porting companies to offer commercial games via digital download, although with the launch of Deliver2Mac and GamersGate
GamersGate
GamersGate AB is a Sweden-based online video game store offering PC games, Mac games and electronic guides via direct download. It is a competitor to online video game services such as Valve's Steam, Direct2Drive and Impulse....
in early 2006 other companies are beginning to move towards digital distribution. Aside from getting around the shelf space problem, shareware and digital download models also provide a larger percentage of profit to the company, as the wholesaler middleman is avoided and costs (and turnaround times) involved in media replication are eliminated. The latest player is TransGaming Technologies
TransGaming Technologies
TransGaming Inc. is a company specialized in video game portability technology. The company has its head office in Toronto and a research hub in Ottawa. It was founded by Gavriel State, who ran the Linux product division at the Corel Corporation...
' GameTreeOnline.com which was launched March 2008 with a focus to offer the Mac gaming community digital downloads of major published Mac titles.
Mac OS X release of Steam
On February 23, 2010, after the release of a public open beta version of Steam, a member on the Steam forums found new files pertaining to Mac OS X in the program files of the beta . After several days of speculation by the gaming community, a series of six images were sent out by Valve CorporationValve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
on March 3, 2010, hinting at a Mac version of Steam. These pictures, each depicting characters from their games reenacting famous apple advertisements, were sent to major computer and gaming websites, both Mac- and PC-related, with iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
-like page dots at the bottom of each. The six recipients were Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
, MacRumors
MacRumors
MacRumors.com is a website that aggregates Mac and Apple related news, rumors, and reports. The site was launched in 2000, and is owned by Arnold Kim.By consolidating reports and cross-referencing claims, MacRumors attempts to keep track of the rumor community...
, MacNN, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Rock, Paper, Shotgun is a UK-based PC gaming blog written by Alec Meer, Jim Rossignol, John Walker, and previously Kieron Gillen and Quintin Smith. Rock, Paper, Shotgun launched in July 2007. In 2010 the website partnered with Eurogamer...
, Shacknews
Shacknews
Shacknews, commonly referred to as "The Shack", is a website offering news, features, editorial content, and forums relating to computer games and console games. Shacknews and its sister site, FileShack, are currently owned by GameFly...
, and MacWorld
Macworld
Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...
. Five days later, on March 8, 2010, Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
made the official announcement in a press release on their Steam website. In the announcement, Valve stated that they will be porting their entire library of games over to Mac when the client is released in April 2010, and that they decided on native versions of their games, rather than emulations. Valve also announced that any games purchased over Steam for computers running Windows will be available for free download to computers running Mac OS X, and vice versa. What was also stressed was that Mac and Windows users will be using the same servers, will obtain updates simultaneously, and will be part of the same multiplayer environment, essentially promising a completely integrated Steam environment. When steam was released for Mac OS X the award winning game Portal was made free for both users of PC and Mac to download. The first game to be released simultaneously for Mac and Windows by Valve was Portal 2
Portal 2
Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The sequel to the 2007 video game Portal, it was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game...
in April, 2011.
Linux gaming and free software games
In more recent years, Mac gaming has become more intertwined with gaming on another UNIX-like platform: Linux gamingLinux gaming
Linux gaming refers to playing or developing video games for the Linux operating systems.- Background :Linux gaming refers to all game titles that can run on Linux based operating systems. This can refer to free / open source games, which may also be commercial, that run natively on Linux, or...
. This trend began when Linux began to gain Mac-style porting houses, the first of which was Loki Software
Loki Software
Loki Software, Inc. was a software firm based in Tustin, California, United States, that ported several video games from Microsoft Windows to Linux...
and later Linux Game Publishing
Linux Game Publishing
Linux Game Publishing is a software company based in Nottingham in England. It ports, publishes and sells video games running on Linux operating systems. As well as porting games, LGP also sponsors the development of Grapple, a free software network library for games...
. Linux porters born from this new industry have also been commonly hired as Mac porters, often releasing games for both systems. This includes game porters like Ryan C. Gordon
Ryan C. Gordon
Ryan C. Gordon is a former Loki Software employee who is now responsible for icculus.org, which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as several new projects created by himself and others...
who brought Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2003 or UT2003 is a first-person shooter video game designed mainly for multiplayer gaming. The game is part of the Unreal franchise's series of games, and is a sequel to Unreal Tournament ....
and 2004
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 2004, also known as UT2K4 and UT2004, is a futuristic first-person shooter computer game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes...
to Linux and Mac; companies like Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is a Belgian software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows games to Amiga, Linux and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4 and retired from the gaming business...
, who primarily supports AmigaOS
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
as well as Mac and Linux; or RuneSoft
RuneSoft
Runesoft GmbH is a German publisher founded in 2000 that ports games to alternative platforms such as Linux, Mac OS X, AmigaOS, MorphOS, and magnussoft ZETA...
, a German publisher that has done ports for Linux Game Publishing.
Indie game development has also been conducive to intertwining, with developers like Wolfire Games
Wolfire Games
Wolfire Games is an independent video game development company founded by David Rosen. Wolfire Games develops video games for Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.- History :...
(Lugaru
Lugaru
Lugaru: The Rabbit's Foot is the first commercial video game created by Wolfire Games. It is a cross-platform, 3D action game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. It features Turner, an anthropomorphic rabbit with curiously well-developed combat skills.Lugaru was made almost solely by...
, Overgrowth
Overgrowth
Overgrowth is an upcoming action video game under development by Wolfire Games. It was announced on September 17, 2008. for all three major computer platforms: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux....
), Frictional Games
Frictional Games
Frictional Games is an independent video game company located in Helsingborg, Sweden. The developer comprises a small core team and is led by Thomas Grip and Jens Nilsson. Certain key roles such as Music and Narrative Design are performed by external staff like Mikko Tarmia and Tom Jubert,...
(Penumbra
Penumbra (video game series)
Penumbra is the name of an episodic video game series by developer Frictional Games, published by Lexicon Entertainment and Paradox Interactive. The games use the HPL Engine, initially developed as a tech demo...
, Amnesia
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a survival horror video game by Frictional Games, who previously developed the Penumbra series. Released for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms, the game features an unarmed protagonist exploring a dark and foreboding castle, while avoiding monsters and other...
), 2D Boy
2D Boy
2D Boy is an American independent video game development company founded by Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, former Electronic Arts employees who left their jobs to form an independent development and production company....
(World of Goo
World of Goo
World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game by 2D Boy, an independent game developer consisting of Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, both former Electronic Arts employees, released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and WiiWare...
), Sillysoft Games (Lux), and Basilisk Games
Basilisk Games
Basilisk Games is an independent video game company that develops video games for the Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms. Currently specializing in role-playing games, the company released its first title Eschalon: Book 1 in 2007...
(Eschalon
Eschalon: Book I
Eschalon: Book I is an isometric turn-based computer role-playing game by Basilisk Games. In the style of classic computer role-playing games, it features a large and openly explorable game world, comprehensive management of character stats and skills, and a non-linear storyline...
) supporting both platforms with native versions. id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
has also been a pioneer in both Mac and Linux gaming, with ports of their games done by Timothee Besset
Timothee Besset
Timothee Besset is a software programmer currently employed by id Software who is most well known for creating and supporting Linux, as well as some Macintosh, ports of id Software's products. He has been involved with the game ports of various id properties over the past ten years, starting with...
. Illwinter Game Design is also notable for supporting both platforms.
Open source video games have also proved modestly popular on the Mac. Although, due to the free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
nature of the system, development of free software titles mostly begins on Linux; afterwards, major games are typically ported to Mac and Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. Mac has less mainstream games than Windows and as a result, free games have had more of an impact on the platform. Notable free games popular on the Mac include The Battle for Wesnoth, OpenArena
OpenArena
OpenArena is a free and open source first-person shooter computer game based heavily on the Quake III Arena style deathmatch. The OpenArena project was established on August 19, 2005, the day after the id Tech 3 GPL source code release...
, BZFlag
BZFlag
BZFlag is a free, open source, online multiplayer video game.A first-person tank battle game, similar in concept to Battlezone, it was originally written by Chris Schoeneman for SGI graphics workstations running IRIX, but has now been ported to other operating systems including...
, LinCity
Lincity
Lincity is a free construction and management simulation game, which puts the player in control of managing a city's socio-economy. Its name is a play on the title of the original city-building game, SimCity, and it was released under the GNU General Public License.- Gameplay :Lincity is a city and...
, and more.
External links
Notable current porting houses
- Aspyr – Official Site
- Coladia – Official Site
- Electronic ArtsElectronic ArtsElectronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
- Official Site - Feral InteractiveFeral InteractiveFeral Interactive is a publishing company founded in 1999 that publishes games and other software that did not fit in with the release programs of the large established publishers. It publishes Macintosh games and has relationships with publishers such as Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive,...
– Official Site - MacSoft GamesMacSoft GamesMacSoft Games is a Plymouth, Minnesota, United States-based computer game publisher and porter specializing in porting Microsoft Windows computer games to the Macintosh...
– Official Site - MacPlayMacPlayMacPlay was the name used by a series of two American publishers of Macintosh computer games. No game has been published under the MacPlay brand name since 2004.- 1990 - 1997 Period :...
– Official Site - Red Marble GamesRed Marble GamesRed Marble Games was started in 2002 by Mark Batten with the intent of porting the best indie games from Windows to the Macintosh. The Macintosh platform is infamous for its dearth of commercial video games , and the indie realm is no different...
- Official Site - Robosoft TechnologiesRobosoft TechnologiesRobosoft Technologies is an Indian information technology company which provides software product development services. Robosoft was founded in 1996 by Rohith Bhat, who established the company to develop software products for the Mac market...
- Official Site - TransGaming TechnologiesTransGaming TechnologiesTransGaming Inc. is a company specialized in video game portability technology. The company has its head office in Toronto and a research hub in Ottawa. It was founded by Gavriel State, who ran the Linux product division at the Corel Corporation...
- Official Site
Notable current original game developers
- Ambrosia SoftwareAmbrosia SoftwareAmbrosia Software is a predominantly Macintosh software company located in Rochester, New York. Ambrosia produces utilities and games. Its products are distributed as shareware; demo versions can be downloaded and used for up to 30 days....
– Official Site - jalada GmbHJalada GmbHjalada GmbH, founded in 2004, is an independent software company located in Hamburg, Germany. jalada creates applications and games mainly for Mac OS X...
– Official Site - Freeverse SoftwareFreeverse SoftwareFreeverse Inc. is a computer and video game, and desktop software developer owned by Ngmoco. Based in New York City, Freeverse titles received numerous awards including a Macworld Game Hall of Fame, two Macworld San Francisco Best of Shows and three Apple Design Awards in 2004...
– Official Site - Pangea SoftwarePangea SoftwarePangea Software is an Apple computer game company based in Austin, Texas that is owned and operated by Brian Greenstone. The company is a former developer of Macintosh and Apple IIGS games, the former of which they still currently sell, however have recently stated their intention to focus solely...
– Official Site - Spiderweb SoftwareSpiderweb SoftwareSpiderweb Software is a small indie video game developer founded in 1994 by Jeff Vogel in Seattle, Washington. Its primary focus is on creating demoware games for the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The company is unusual in that it first develops games for Macintosh...
– Official Site