Is developing Mac games good business?

Big Fish seem to think so :

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/01/06/funpause/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

Best get the Mac version of igLoader finished ASAP!

I think in the long run your largest body of customers will still be Windows users.

I agree, no harm in expanding your customer base though :)

As do Ambrosia Software. Ofcourse they would, seeing as they've been doing just that succesfully for at least 10 years.

I think whatever platform you develop for, the sure key to success is promotion.

If no one knows that your game is available then they can't purchase it. Obvious, but vital.

Banshee made the point that by trailing around the game forums across the Internet she increased the web traffic (through interest in her developments) by a huge margin.

I think Windows (for the for seeable future) will be the dominant marketplace, but the more people who have different OS's (Linux, Apple etc) the more opportunities there are. Converting them into sales is gonna easier if their platform is undernourished Iyou'd think anyway!).

IPete2.

Mac is huge for indie games because there are so few commercial titles competing with you.

Mac = 65% of Garage Games sales

OK but the kicker... how do you program the time limited OR shareware version in MAC??? I have a way to do it in Blitz3D that I have not tried in BMax (mostly through lack of ownership and ownership of a MAC) but I think that is what is holding back major LINUX portage as well...

This is said in ignorance but I hope someone covers this topic well very soon!

Rook,

Couldn't you just do a demo version of the game (i.e. one level) and limit it to that instead of fancy time limited/ complex license stuff?

Just a thought. I think I would produce a demo which allowed maybe two levels to be played, and give them enough in those levels to tempt them.

IPete2.

Umm... Funpause isn't a Mac developer. They're a PC developer who released Mac ports.

I am developing ON a Mac and don't have a PC or easy access to one so that's about my only choice. :-) I AM excited about the possibility that whatever I create on the Mac can easily be ported to the PC and drastically increase the customer base/audience. I am also excited that things will/should work on Linux as well.

As to making demo's, demo's on the Amiga used to be one (or a few) level specially made/compiled programs, rather than distributing the whole thing and then trying to lock parts of it up. Not sure which is the better approach. Once they do purchase it they should get either a full download, or download the parts they dont have?

I can't find any decent DRM solutions for the MAC platform, basically I'm going to serve a hard-coded demo and then they purchase the game they will be given a download link for the game "proper".

I'm looking forward to developing for the Mac, it really is a opportunity for good independent developers to get noticed.

I wonder how compatible the x86 migrating Macs will be with the PC, and how long it takes for PPC to drop out of the equation if at all.

Yes... but what is to stop them from handing out your game to their MAC friends once they bought 1 copy?

I mean the most heinous MAC "software liberator" I know of... Spaceman Spiff was an honors CompSci Honors Major at UH... We are back to that game security thing here...

IMHO that is why there is no LINUX DEMO of BMax... no way to limit it really aside from having two versions... and once someone bought the unlimited one... Marc would make not a penny more.

I think people with Macs are more inclined to spend money on stuff they like. Linux seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum i.e. all software should be free. The PC crowd is the middle ground. I've always thought that it was a waste to include some sort of copy protection scheme anyway ... don't challenge the hackers they'll win. Others think that copy protection just keeps the honest people honest ... but mostly I just hear about honest people getting angry because they're the ones being punished, not the hackers.

Most people I know will pay for software even if they could get their hands on a free copy assuming they know the free copy is stolen. That in my mind is the real reason for copy protection, to signal to people that they're supposed to purchase the software, and for that the bare minimum (eg. input a registration code that the program stores in it's settings file) is all it takes. Meanwhile, the couple pirates I know (and believe me, I annoy them constantly with pesterings to purchase their games) aren't going to change their behavior because of copy protection.

A lot of it comes down to price point. At one price people will happily purchase a piece of software, but at some higher price they will pirate it.

I think that just as our friendly hackers demonstrate, there really is no overall point in trying to protect your software from people who want to break it or open it up or unlock it or make it fully functional or distribute it without charge to others. You can only do so much and they can only be small preventative measures to make it `a challenge` or a little bit difficult for `most` people to do, but someone somewhere is still going to have the perspective and angle of thought that cuts right through anything you do to try and conceal your product. If your product were right out in the open without any restrictions whatsoever, there would be no incentive to hack it because it would have no purpose. Protecting software invites hacking and the two go hand in hand. Whenever there is software protection there will be hackers to undo it.

The question then is how can you be profitable selling software if you let it be so open that everyone can partake of it more or less freely as they choose? That's where you have to get creative and come up with a new model. How could you be profitable without having `closed` software? How can truly OPEN software and free software (as in freedom), be profitable? Presumably maybe you could deliver the software for free but have it so that people pay for support or for extra data or add-on packs etc. .. but either way you still wont be able to stop someone stealing it if they choose to do so. Fact of life. The only way that `trade` can function purely and honestly is if both the vendor and the customer are pure and honest. Then there can be trust. Otherwise there cannot be trust, everything gets clamped down, there is a neverending pointless war of attempted software protection and resulting reasons to hack, and the inevitable pretention creation of what they call `trusted computing`, which has nothing to do with trust at all.

I think you can only safely make money from trustworthy honest people. I think you should focus on attracting those kinds of people as much as possible, and not focus on trying to resist or prevent the other less ethical individuals. What you focus on increases and is attracted to you, so best to put your focus squarely where you really want it - on attracting people who are going to be good customers and pay honestly and value your product respectfully so that they don't steal it or abuse it.

You are going to get some clever fellow who thinks it's fun to find a way of looking at your software from such an angle as to see through or find ways around your efforts to make things difficult for them, and they enjoy the challenge. You can't stop them, and it actually would be unethical to try to force them to stop having free will. You have to accept that they are going to do it if they are so inclined, instead of fearing it or trying to hide from it. I'm not saying to be blind or overly optimistic or just ignore that they're going to do it. Be aware some people will choose to bring you down, pick yourself up and put your focus where you really want it. After all, you do create your own reality, and you do attract the kinds of people that you and your product resonate with, so maybe if you are focussing on the right thing you just won't get those kind of pirates knocking at your door. No victims here.

Jeremy, Joe and Daniel are all very right! I pay for sotware I use and own... 99.999% of it!

I do hate that Microsmurf has released "low cost special language editions" of the same software available here for $500.00 now true... lack of certain features BUT I used my freedom of choice and switched to Open Office (Now with BASE DBase!!!)

I am planning a tutorial on how I implement copy protection in Bliz3D using a PAKer and the encrypt functions I learned here... Maybe someone should set up something similar???