GameTap Officially Coming to the Mac

[Slack3r78]

More good news for Mac gamers following last week's pledge of increased Mac support from EA -- GameTap is officially on its way to the Mac.

Per Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/06/19/gametap/index.php) via Angled Whiteboards (http://angledwhiteboards.com/2007/06/19/and-the-dock-icon-is-gorgeous-too/):

Beginning June 28th, Intel Mac gamers with a hankering for classic gaming will have a new place to go — GameTap, the same service that earlier this year brought Myst Online: Uru Live to the Macintosh.
Like Myst Online: Uru Live, GameTap for Mac utilizes Cider, the translation layer technology from TransGaming that enables games made for PCs to run on Intel-based Macs. Cider recently grabbed headlines as the technology opted by Electronic Arts (EA) to bring six of its hit game franchises to the Mac this summer, including Madden NFL 08, Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Cider only works on Intel Macs, but Sanchez said that otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible to develop a Mac version of GameTap.
The past couple of weeks have been great for gamers that own Macs. Hopefully this trend keeps up in the future.

[torrefaction]

Wow. See...THIS is what the Mac has needed. Can you imagine the HUGE library of games people who solely owned Mac's just got opened up to?

[Draft]

Pick out the one that doesn't fit:

1. Unicorns
2. Leprechauns
3. Mac Gamers
4. Things that actually exist

[Schnoogs]

Pick out the one that doesn't fit:

1. Unicorns
2. Leprechauns
3. Mac Gamers
4. Things that actually exist

HAHAHAHAHAH!!!

[jeffbax]

Pick out the one that doesn't fit:

1. Unicorns
2. Leprechauns
3. Mac Gamers
4. Things that actually exist
Ahem, Mac gamer here, and I can beat plenty of PC users in the games that are available on both... especially hardcore DM.

This is great news, I'm all over it, can't wait to play some of my old PC games again that I left behind 3 years ago.

[jeffbax]

Lame, you didn't quote the most important part.

Access to hundreds of games

Mac users won’t get quite the same experience as their PC counterparts. Recently, GameTap has begun to offer Windows games for play, as well — everything from Tomb Raider to Far Cry, and more.

Those games won’t be accessible to Mac users, though Mac users will have access to all of GameTap’s arcade games and older PC games that were developed to run on DOS. And when the Deluxe version launches later this summer, Mac users will also have access to titles originally developed to run on Sega’s Saturn and Dreamcast consoles. Ultimately, Mac users will be able to count the number of games they’ll have access to in the hundreds, said Sanchez — more than 500, in fact.

“That subscription fee [for Deluxe] will also provide access to ‘Challenge’ games,” said Sanchez. Challenge games enable GameTap users to play online against each other, in games that support multiplayer. And as Cider is being used to enable Mac gamers to play with GameTap, they’ll be able to take on PC gamers in online challenges as well.

The Lite version should be a good entry point for Mac gamers that are a bit gunshy about what GameTap has to offer them, said Sanchez.

“We discovered that there were a huge number of bodies interested in GameTap, but they were taking a while to figure out if they wanted to pay,” said Sanchez. “So we’ve made some content free and ad-supported.”
This is now totally useless to me.

The whole point of Cider is that its based off WINE to run Windows apps. You're telling me you need Cider to port fucking emulators? Please. Emulators are already available in massive quantities for Mac (both Intel and PPC).

This = travesty.

[Schnoogs]

I can beat plenty of PC users in the games that are available on both.

SO in other words you're good at 2 games :p

[Draft]

SO in other words you're good at 2 games :pHaha, burnage.

[92miata]

nice. gametap will work with apple. but it won't work with vista ultimate 64. who the hell hires these clowns to program?????

rant off.....

[LOC]

nice. gametap will work with apple. but it won't work with vista ultimate 64. who the hell hires these clowns to program?????

rant off.....

Works fine for me on Vista Ultimate 64....

[hund_]

The past couple of weeks have been great for gamers that own Macs.

lol the fps mac gaming section ;)
http://www.macgamestore.com/search.php?CategoryID=6

i dont consider mac people gamers.

[DeathtollWRX]

lol the fps mac gaming section ;)
http://www.macgamestore.com/search.php?CategoryID=6

i dont consider mac people gamers.


All the Mac centric people I know use it for Audio manipulation and graphic design. They use pcs or consoles for gaming.

[Shodan2020]

Thanks for the LOLZ guys. ;)

[Banacek]

Lame, you didn't quote the most important part.


This is now totally useless to me.

The whole point of Cider is that its based off WINE to run Windows apps. You're telling me you need Cider to port fucking emulators? Please. Emulators are already available in massive quantities for Mac (both Intel and PPC).

This = travesty.

Damnit, I was going to sign up too. Shame on you, Gametap!

[Danny5]

Honestly, I don't see any quick Mac gaming fix around the corner.

Best bet is still to have developers go with OpenGL and DirectX. Unfortunately, too few companies are willing to sink in the extra money for the extra development. Not that I really blame them; Not too many Macs out there being marketed as gaming devices.

Gametap for Mac is erm, like... paying for flash games. :p

Honestly, probably not anymore functionality with their emulator than you'd find on games scattered across the internets. It's just in a nice package.

Things could start to change if Apple would cater to game developers. Probably wouldn't hurt if they used some of their iPod cash mountain to offer incentives. But I think we all know how likely that is.

[Banacek]

Things could start to change if Apple would cater to game developers. Probably wouldn't hurt if they used some of their iPod cash mountain to offer incentives. But I think we all know how likely that is.

Apple makes a wonderful OS and great laptops. Everything else they do I take with a huge grain of salt. I doubt trying to win over game developers would work out well, so I agree with that assessment.

Anyway, they're too busy with their iPhone to be bothered with anything else.

[Dabombpizza]

Haha, burnage.

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to include content with your post? Or is "lol pwned u!" considered a proper post these days on EvilAv.

I am a Mac user, but I play my games in boot camp, only because the support isn't there. But with EA pledging support and releasing BF2142, and Adobe bringing their production suite over, I'm never going to have to boot into windows again.

As for Gametap, it was a fairly lame service on the windows side, and it's lamer on the Mac side. As it was pointed out, Cider runs on WINE, which is used to translate Windows APIs to OS X. Why is this stupid? Because using Cider on an emulator is like translating a translation. Why not just build an emulator that runs native to OS X? Too simple?

[Draft]

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to include content with your post? Or is "lol pwned u!" considered a proper post these days on EvilAv.

I am a Mac user, but I play my games in boot camp, only because the support isn't there. But with EA pledging support and releasing BF2142, and Adobe bringing their production suite over, I'm never going to have to boot into windows again.

As for Gametap, it was a fairly lame service on the windows side, and it's lamer on the Mac side. As it was pointed out, Cider runs on WINE, which is used to translate Windows APIs to OS X. Why is this stupid? Because using Cider on an emulator is like translating a translation. Why not just build an emulator that runs native to OS X? Too simple?I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to get an actual gaming system before posting on a gaming website?

[TheDancinMan]

Eh. It's a cool announcment, and I'm glad there are more games and such coming to Mac and all, but there are a lot of conversion issues, as evident here, that need to be taken care of before anything substancial can be put out on the platform. Mac and Apple is general is growing, and people want to play games. Get over it.

Oh, and Draft? If you read the post you decided to bash carefully, you would have seen he plays PC games on his Mac, since, you know, we can do that now. ;)

[Serapth]

Fuck the Mac. Instead GameTap should spend its time and money making the service actually worthwhile outside of the US.

[tomservojr]

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to get an actual gaming system before posting on a gaming website?

Why do you act like that?

[TheDancinMan]

Because this is the internet, Tom.

[51|RandoM]

Honestly, I don't see any quick Mac gaming fix around the corner.

How can you fix something that isn't broken?

The reason games are few and far between on mac all comes down to marketshare. Apple had roughly 5% of the desktop market(measured by units shipped)in 4Q06.

Ok, pretend I'm a developer. If I make a PC version, my potential customer base is 95% of the market. If I make a Mac version, it is 5%.

The only thing wrong with the mac as a game platform is that the same amount of investment will make a hell of a lot more money if you develop for PC instead.

[jeffbax]

How can you fix something that isn't broken?

The reason games are few and far between on mac all comes down to marketshare. Apple had roughly 5% of the desktop market(measured by units shipped)in 4Q06.

Ok, pretend I'm a developer. If I make a PC version, my potential customer base is 95% of the market. If I make a Mac version, it is 5%.

The only thing wrong with the mac as a game platform is that the same amount of investment will make a hell of a lot more money if you develop for PC instead.
You talk like developing cross platform games is overly difficult. Its all about the tech you use, it can be easy as hell (OpenGL) or very hard (DirectX). If Blizzard can release WoW and all their other games simultaneously, I do not think its a difficult thing for companies to do if they plan it.

Another thing, PC's might be 95% of the market, but I'm curious of what an actual % of gamer rigs is vs Macs. A benefit of Macs is their hardware is very limited in terms of variety, so you know what you are going to expect to have for running games. Aside from the MacBook and Mini, the baseline Intel Mac has an X1600 - what do 95% of PCs have?
I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to get an actual gaming system before posting on a gaming website?
My Saturn, Dreamcast, Xbox, and 360 say hello - ass. And I was a PC gamer for years before going Mac.

Hell, the problem with Mac gaming isn't even Macs so much as it is the other tech and companies themselves. For the longest time, Havok would demand royalties for the physics engine for Mac that would erode all profitability of the title. Similarly with Half-Life 2 - valve wants more money for the right to port it to Mac than would really help any Mac porting house make significant money.

But, things are continually getting better. I'll see you in Quake Wars.

[Slack3r78]

I didn't think the Cider thing was that big a deal. Anybody that thought this announcement would mean the entire ~900 game catalog was going to work including arbitrary Windows games was dreaming. You guys may not agree, but the extra value I'll be getting out of my pre-existing GameTap account now that I'll be able to run the majority of their catalog without having to reboot is pretty considerable.

I do find it odd they're using Cider to translate their emulation stuff given the front end is built on OpenGL, but I suspect it has to do with their encryption service, which is what caused issues with them getting the service onto x64 systems.

Fuck the Mac. Instead GameTap should spend its time and money making the service actually worthwhile outside of the US.
Let's be fair here. Getting GameTap onto the Mac is a technical issue. Getting better support for countries outside of the US is a licensing issue. The effort involved here would be handled by completely different units inside the company.

[Serapth]

Let's be fair here. Getting GameTap onto the Mac is a technical issue. Getting better support for countries outside of the US is a licensing issue. The effort involved here would be handled by completely different units inside the company.


But, I dont want to be fair, I want to bitch! Besides, no reason they cant have their programmers on the phones working out licensing issues!

[Schnoogs]

But with EA pledging support and releasing BF2142, and Adobe bringing their production suite over, I'm never going to have to boot into windows again

I didn't realize BF2142 accounted for the entire PC gaming experience

[Slack3r78]

I didn't realize BF2142 accounted for the entire PC gaming experience
Look at it this way -- with the EA announcement, the Mac will already have a better game catalog than the PS3 :p

[Dabombpizza]

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to get an actual gaming system before posting on a gaming website?

Yea, I suppose owning every system from the SNES up doens't count huh? Or how about that Mac that boots into Windows and plays all those PC games? Or how about my Wii friend code that's on my signature? Wait, I've got a good idea. Why don't you spend less time attacking and trying to 'diss' posters on this website, and spend some time actually talking about games. There's a novel idea, huh?

I didn't realize BF2142 accounted for the entire PC gaming experience
I was speaking for myself personally. I only need one game at a time, my life is too busy to be playing every blockbuster that comes out, and right now that game is BF2142. But as soon as Left 4 Dead comes out...well...I think I'm going to lose a lot of sleep.

[jeffbax]

Yeah, Left 4 Dead looks awesome as hell.

[Sl1pstream]

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to get an actual gaming system before posting on a gaming website?

You mean pc gaming isn't dead yet?

[jeffbax]

I do find it odd they're using Cider to translate their emulation stuff given the front end is built on OpenGL, but I suspect it has to do with their encryption service, which is what caused issues with them getting the service onto x64 systems.
Exactly, its baffling to require Cider for emulators...

I really was hoping that this would result in PC games being certified under Cider. Sure not ALL of them, but many older ones (DX 8 and lower) would probably run fine and they have a Q/A that could do testing.

[Banacek]

You mean pc gaming isn't dead yet?

It is, it just doesn't know it yet.

[Dabombpizza]

Yeah, Left 4 Dead looks awesome as hell.
Hell is not awesome. It's a very bad place.

[51|RandoM]

You talk like developing cross platform games is overly difficult. Its all about the tech you use, it can be easy as hell (OpenGL) or very hard (DirectX). If Blizzard can release WoW and all their other games simultaneously, I do not think its a difficult thing for companies to do if they plan it.

Another thing, PC's might be 95% of the market, but I'm curious of what an actual % of gamer rigs is vs Macs. A benefit of Macs is their hardware is very limited in terms of variety, so you know what you are going to expect to have for running games. Aside from the MacBook and Mini, the baseline Intel Mac has an X1600 - what do 95% of PCs have?


No, I don't talk like it is overly difficult to do crossplatform titles. I do talk that from a purely monetary perspective that it is pointless in the case of PC and Macs. Any amount of effort spent on a Mac version can instead be put into a PC title and most likely see a larger return on the investment.

It doesn't matter what is in the baseline Mac, again, there aren't enough of them to attract major game publishing efforts beyond a few companies who do it "just because they can".

It is just dollars and sense. It has nothing to do with how good/viable the Apple platform is. Long story short, don't bother trying to convince me otherwise, you won't. Direct that fervor at the publishers, maybe they'll listen.

[Slack3r78]

Exactly, its baffling to require Cider for emulators...
Not if they don't have anyone on staff with Mac specific experience and don't have the budget to hire somebody that does.

[jeffbax]

No, I don't talk like it is overly difficult to do crossplatform titles. I do talk that from a purely monetary perspective that it is pointless in the case of PC and Macs. Any amount of effort spent on a Mac version can instead be put into a PC title and most likely see a larger return on the investment.

It doesn't matter what is in the baseline Mac, again, there aren't enough of them to attract major game publishing efforts beyond a few companies who do it "just because they can".

It is just dollars and sense. It has nothing to do with how good/viable the Apple platform is. Long story short, don't bother trying to convince me otherwise, you won't. Direct that fervor at the publishers, maybe they'll listen.
With a properly developed title, the costs of porting to the Mac are essentially nothing, maybe some light testing, but surely an easy boost to development profits.

The cost is smaller than the amount required to put into a new PC game and make any significant contribution to the title.

An interesting comment:
IMG: Compared to the PowerPC installed base, the Intel Mac base is still relatively small. Knowing that, is there a chance EA might be disappointed with the initial sales figures for their games on the Mac?

Gupta: I don't believe that's the case at all. EA is publishing these 6 titles themselves. EA is a publishing, marketing, distribution power house and they know how best to place product. The Intel Macs while relatively new are doing extremely well and there's no sign of Mac sales slowing. This is the best time for a company like EA to jump into the market because they certainly expect and want to contribute to its growth. I should also point out that there are more Intel Macs than PlayStation 3 units currently :-)Which is an interesting observation. Even with a small amount of Macs, they are selling extremely well. More and more companies may just think of it as "another console" soon enough, even if it doesn't reach the 100 million userbase of a PS2, its still going to be a healthy market for some.

Sure not all Mac users are going to play games either, but there is a lot more interest in it thanks to things like Intel CPUs and Cider.

While I have mixed feelings about Cider... its enabling more game releases for MacIMG: Do you see Cider and similar technologies becoming the de-facto in terms of bring PC games to the Mac in the future? Are porting days over?

Gupta: I believe that the traditional porting methodology is obsolete. It's arduous, it's expensive, it's time consuming, and these factors combined diminish any potential business case and ROI. I further believe that game developers and publishers are working extremely hard to keep up with the major platforms that are already out there and these platforms represent significant amounts of work and investment. Thus, if a technology solution can help a publisher extend their game franchises to alternate platforms where they can generate revenue with little investment and risk, why wouldn't they. It should also be noted that about a dozen top tier titles were released for the Mac in all of 2006; TransGaming alone will have delivered 11 titles before the end of the summer. I think that's quite the case and point for Cider versus the traditional porting methodologies.

[Slack3r78]

With a properly developed title, the costs of porting to the Mac are essentially nothing, maybe some light testing, but surely an easy boost to development profits.

The cost is smaller than the amount required to put into a new PC game and make any significant contribution to the title.
In a perfect world, yes. In the real world where it would mean maintaining two codebases and the requisite staff to maintain it, not so much.

I do think that the quip about PS3s was amusing, though.