Kikizo’s Adam Doree sat down with Valve boss Gabe Newell and the subject of Apple Mac and gaming came up.
Newell said:
• We tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to… well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go “wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming”. And then we’ll say, “OK, here are three things you could do to make that better”, and then they say OK, and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow though on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there’s never any follow through on any of the things they say they’re going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms.
• I just don’t think they’ve ever taken gaming seriously. And none of the things developers ask them to do are done. And as a result, there’s no gaming market there to speak of. We’d love it if they would get serious about it. But they never have, and can’t even follow trough on any of their commitments for game developers.
• We’ve seen no evidence that they are able to follow through on even simple programs in the game space. It seems bizarre to me because it’s like one of the biggest things holding them back in the consumer space. If you look at a Macintosh right now, it does a lot of things really well compared to a Vista PC, but there are no games. Why, I don’t know. If I were a Macintosh product manager, it would be pretty high on my list, and a problem to get taken care of, as probably the number one thing holding them back with consumers.
The rest of the interview, focusing on Half-Life 2, Orange Box, and more, here.
Apple.com’s section on games for Apple Mac and iPod: http://www.apple.com/games/
C’mon Apple.. make a SLi system based on the new P85 intel chipset.. give us 2 full size hard drives, a quad core option, and some bad ass VGA card options.
dont wanna go sli? fine.. give us ONE freaking PCIX-16 slot, and one hard drive bay…
PLEASE?!?!?!
It is a niche market.. but GDIT… its IMPORTANT!
He’s 100% right.
Haha. So funny. All you goofs waiting for games on the Mac. Hey, I’m a Mac guy. But I was an Atari 800 guy first, C64 second… I’m mean hey anything’s better than Windows. Unless of course you want to play games and then uh… there’s nothing else.
I sure saved a lot of money building a Q6600 instead of a Quad MacPro. So forget it. You WON’T be getting much as far as games go and you will be getting last years graphics cards even in your Pro level Macs and a bunch of non-upgradable “all in one consumer level iMacs” so that Apple can milk you for all your worth. Because Steve says it’s an all in one world bitch!
But hey you’ve got the best OS. Oh well, I couldn’t pay for it anymore.
I have a funny feeling that Jobs looks down on gaming, if only a little. The Mac is a serious, advanced platform and maybe he thinks games make the computer more like a toy. So he won’t stand in the way of game software, but he’ll be damned if he’ll make change one for the sake of gaming alone.
Just my guess.
100% correct.
This is directly related to the hardware as well. the iMacs have mobile graphics, and the Mac pro’s are not only outdated video cards, but over kill.
where is the midrange workstation/gaming rig??????
Games are one of the MOST if not THE most extreme use of computer hardware. Its wide spread use of games that really push the development of more powerful and faster hardware. Its games that need the extra video horsepower, its games that need the multi core cpu. Games adopt to new faster hardware way faster then the rest of the software world…..maybe apple is afraid of being pushed.
TT: You ain’t EVER gonna get all that.
All you’re gonna get is Steve’s lip service, and Carmack talking about ID latest engine and one game from ID.
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Damn right it’s important. The single most important pusher of technology is games. NOTHING else uses as much computing power and no other single market sells more home computers. An it’s one of the big reasons people didn’t buy Macs in the 1990s.
Why does Newegg etc. exist? Gamers.
But does Apple care? Nope.
Gaming is what boot camp is for. My Mac Pro runs every PC game I throw at it silky smooth. No complaints about it other than having no option to switch between the os x and windows similarly to fast user switching. Besides, I agree that Mac is a serious platform. I use it for work and I play games on XP b/c that’s all XP is good for.
Come to think of it, If my games were on os x, I would be a hell of a lot less productive
to maxink:
Yes people are more productive on Macs. But it’s not because they don’t have an DAMN GAMES. It’s the OS.
And you’re missing the point. People can’t afford Mac Pros. So Apple is not selling computers to a huge segment of the market. You simply cannot explain this. It is impossible to explain. Home computers have always played games. It’s the sinlge biggest reason home computers exist. SO WTF!
At least once a day someone ducks into the office of one of my colleagues and makes some comment about the two Macs on his desk. He teaches computer science at a local university and used to run Windows and Linux but now has a TiBook and an iMac. Once each day he listens as someone derides his choice of a “toy machine.”
I ask him what his answer is, and he shrugs and responds, “What’s the point?”
“What’s the point?” I exclaim. “The point is that your Mac ships with Java, Ruby, Python, and Perl. The point is that you can open up a Terminal window and edit using vi or emacs. You can set up sendmail or use lynx. You can enable the Apache Web server that ships with every Mac by checking a check box. That’s the point.”
“I usually tell them that,” he says, “but then they ask me if they can play the latest version of some game on it like they can on a Windows box.”
“Well then,” I reply, “which one is the toy machine?”
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/12/10/osx_java.html
If you want a toy computer, get a Windows box. Real Mac users won’t miss you.
Waaaah. Boo-hoo. No one at Apple is taking gaming seriously. It gives me no reason to buy a Mac. Here, have a big heaping helping of STFU. Games are a pastime. Get over it. Maybe if you got your pasty white asses out in the sun some time and exercised more than your opposable thumbs, you’d realize that.
Oh, and raskol, if you ever got off the gaming chair and out of your mom’s basement and got a real job, perhaps you’d find out that the Mac platform is well worth the investment. The cost isn’t that big when you have a job.
My name was the MDN magic word! YAY!!!!
Raskol sez people can’t afford Mac Pros. Hmm, last time I checked, they were starting at about $2500. Apple advertises for $59 per month. I don’t know what kind of job you have (or don’t have), but that’s pretty affordable to me. Then again, I have a job and don’t sit around playing games all day.
Jimbo,
I’m 37 years old. I’m sitting on a drafting chair not a gaming chair. I’m an architect. And I’m an Apple shareholder.
AND I play computer games. I can’t justify spending $3,000 on a home computer because I have more important responsibilities than to visit this site and argue with tools like you.
So before you stereotype people… oh nevermind I’m talking to people who have nothing better to do.
Nice follow through by Lameo the Interviewer: “OK, here are three things you could do to make that better.”
Umm, what three things? What not let the public know so they can light a fire under someone’s ass at Apple (or laugh if the three things are just sheer ridiculousness)?
Ok, one more, only because I get off on this.
Yep $2,500 and what do you get? A $50 video card a $130 operating system, a low end hard drive, 1GB of RAM that, if it weren’t FB would be fast and only cost $75 and 4 CPUs (that usually don’t do anything unless your rendering) in a fancy aluminum case. Got anymore Wiseass? I don’t care.
Oh, the iPhone is the coolest thing ever made. Not being sarcastic.
@raskol
I am in NO WAY rich and bought my mac pro for less than a top of the line 24″ imac. Of course the OS is responsible for productivity. That is why I use it as a work Machine. Apple will do whatever it wants as far as hardware goes and you have to deal with very limited expandability unless you get the mac pro. If one wishes to to do serious gaming on a mac, the mac pro is the best option out there and boot camp is the only real solution. That was my point.
@raskol
P.S. If you really have better S45t to do at 12:30 am, why are you reading this?
… a Shoeman in our midst.
My experience, before the Mac:
I was a happy Linux user (way more productive than Windows), and one time I felt like trying some games.
I built a new box (I know how to do that), and installed XP (after not using Windows for over 6 years) and what happened was, as soon as I connected it to the Internet, a virus got in.
Not used to that anymore, I learned I had to run system updates, hardware drivers, install an antivirus, clean up the machine, do the spyware thing… I think I spent half a day to have Windows working.
My conclusion: Do you want video games? A gaming console would have been cheaper considering the time invested in having Windows working.
I believe hardcore gamers will disagree with me, and I respect that. But for me, I’d rather buy a console and forget about installations, viruses, restarting, etc.
Now, I got a couple of Mac games (Quake 4, Doom 3, and a Star Wars one) an they worked like a charm. It was a pleasure to use. I don’t mind about how powerful the machine is as long as the game run smoothly. And the Mac can do that.
Just my take on the issue. Doesn’t have to be the absolute right one
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Funny, Valve doesn’t take games seriously either. I hate all of their games.
Yeah sometimes Steve Jobs can be an ass, and his faithful can follow in his shitty ways. Games are awesome. They are like movies that you get to be in. Apple needs to *get over it*, and help these guys out. As a stockholder, I demand it.
I’ve been trying to convert a number of friends to the Mac for years. They’ve all said they would if games came out for the Mac as soon as they did for the PC… 🙁
Apple needs to move quickly into games, I remember at a MacWorld Expo keynote years ago when John Carmack spoke about the potential for games on the Mac, what the F happened??
I guess Jimbo must be very upset with AppleTV – y’know how TV shows are mindless entertainment and all, I’m sure he doesn’t watch them, or maybe he only watches the “good” shows and looks down from his ivory tower at people who watch the “bad” shows. Games, TV shows, Music — it’s all forms of entertainment and escapism. To say one is good but another is bad is ridiculous.
Games? We don’t need no stinkin’ games.