Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!well!farren From: farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: Re: Why don't more people write games for the Mac? Message-ID: <17796@well.sf.ca.us> Date: 4 May 90 07:36:02 GMT References: <1442@sys.uea.ac.uk> <17739@ultima.cs.uts.oz> <4849@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu> <9444@chaph.usc.edu> <43367@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <17540@well.sf.ca.us> <29155@ut-emx.UUCP> Distribution: usa Lines: 44 ifan572@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) writes: >In article <17540@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: >>This has NOT been SSI's experience. NONE of their Mac games have sold >>in any significant quantities. >The operative word in the post you respond to is _well_. Nope. The operative word in the post is NONE. Not the ones that were done well, not the ones that were done poorly, NONE. And, as I said, this has also been the experience of every other game publisher I've ever asked about this. It doesn't take an in-depth analysis of the Mac marketplace to figure out why this is so. First - there aren't that many of them out there. Compared to the IBM clone market, Macs are pitifully few. Second - of those that ARE out there, a significant proportion of them are dedicated to serious applications, even when they are in the home. There just aren't that many people with both a Mac and a desire to play games - I would expect that the numbers are around 100,000 - a guess, but an educated one. Of that 100,000, you can expect only about 5% to buy your game, at best - the games that manage to get greater penetration than that are as rare as hen's teeth. So you're talking about high-end probable sales somewhere around 5 to 10 thousand copies - which is small time, especially for the larger game companies. Just right for a niche market player like Casady and Greene, or Miles, but not a market that a big game company is going to invest in heavily - not when they can get ten times that by simply moving to the IBM. I'll tell you what, though. I'm doing a port of SSI's Storm Across Europe just as soon as I finish up the Amiga and IBM versions. I plan on doing it well - I take a great deal of pride in my ports, and believe that I do a damn good job of them. This one, for example, will be as completely Mac-like as I can make it - which is a considerable pain in the butt, let me tell you, especially since it originally came from the C64. So, when this game is done, I'm just going to sit back and wait for the royalty checks to roll in from all of you folks who insist that the only criteria is that it's ported "well". But I'll tell you something - I'll also be doing other work, as I have a good idea how much money will come in from the Mac version, and I expect that I've already been paid more than they'll make... -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us