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From: aperez@cvbnet.UUCP (Arturo Perez x6739)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Why don't more people write games for the Mac?
Message-ID: <287@cvbnetPrime.COM>
Date: 7 May 90 15:40:44 GMT
References: <17796@well.sf.ca.us>
Sender: postnews@cvbnetPrime.COM
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From article <17796@well.sf.ca.us>, by farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren):
> 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.
> 
> 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
> -- 
> Mike Farren 				     farren@well.sf.ca.us

I don't know.  Something seems flawed in this approach of writing the game
for a particular machine and then porting it.

You're essentially guaranteeing that the game won't look like a typical
Mac application, no matter how well you port it.  It may or may not
look like a game that was written on a DOS machine, but it certainly won't
look like a game that was written on the Mac.  Why?

It won't look like it was written on the Mac because it'll take too much 
effort to port it using all of the Mac Toolkit you should use.  For example,
the recent expression of disgust at the Omega game.  Instead of porting the
game "correctly" the company used their home grown code, instead of the
toolbox routines for things like scrollbars, the menu item, et al.  Makes
the thing look pretty gross to a Mac-ophile.

Mac users are an unusual computer-using group.  Their desire for applications
that behave as closely as normal to the typical Mac application (as defined
by Apple Computers) verges on the compulsive.  Any other group of computer
users don't have such high expectations of conformity.

Now, I've not written anything for the Mac, but I have written lots of 
portable code.  How hard is it to design something that is easily ported and
that allows taking advantage of native graphics systems?  Imagine writing
something for the Mac (which is supposed to be one of the best, if not the
best, development systems) and then porting it in 3 weeks to DOS running
windows.  Is that doable?


Arturo Perez
ComputerVision, a division of Prime
aperez@cvbnet.prime.com
Too much information, like a bullet through my brain -- The Police