Mac Games and Their Prices

Why are Mac games so much more expensive to it's Windows counter-part?

Just an example of this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-...15?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1185754446&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aspyr-Simci...15?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1185754244&sr=8-1

 

The main reason is because most games made today are made for Windows. To make the game work for Mac, it has to be ported over, which just adds more time, effort, pay, etc., to whatever the cost of making the game had already been.

 

Generally what you'll see with a game like that is that the original PC version came out earlier, and has long since dropped in price.

In the case of SimCity 4, it was ported over to the Mac by a company called Aspyr. Aspyr has to recoup a lot of their own development costs, and since they are selling to a smaller audience (the Mac gaming market, relative to the larger PC gaming market), they aren't going to generally be able to drop the price on their games as soon as EA does for the original version.

This isn't necessarily a universal rule. The most obvious example would be most of the games done by id, Epic and Blizzard (Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2007, Warcraft III, etc. etc. etc.), as they release most of their games as hybrid Mac/Windows releases, so whatever price drops occur happen naturally.

We should start seeing something similar with EA too; at the recent WWDC conference, EA announced they would be publishing more Mac versions of their games, starting with stuff like Madden 2008. I think they will also be doing similar hybrid releases.

The EA games are being done with Cider, which essentially makes the task of porting Windows games to OS X much easier.

The reason Aspyr has to charge what they do for games is because doing a full port of a game is an intensive task.

Cider basically makes it easier to get a Windows game running on OS X without having to rewrite so much code.

Assuming that takes off, and other publishers follow EA's lead, it's likely that there might be more of that kind of thing.

But for games that still require full porting jobs, you'll still see releases ported and published by companies like Aspyr, and those prices will be different.

-Zadillo

 

Thanks for your replies. I heard/saw the WWDC anouncement by EA and thought it was unfortunate that they are not porting but rather running it under emulation.

As for the higher price. Guess I'll have to wait or bite the bullet.

 

Yes, although from what I've heard, Cider seems to work pretty well. When some of these games start coming out, like BF2142, C&C3, Madden 2008, Need for Speed Carbon, etc. it should be interesting because it will allow us to really see just how well it works.

Games being ported and run using the Cider technology isn't necessarily ideal - the ideal of course is what id, Epic and Blizzard do, actually working on and supporting the Mac versions of their games at the same time as their Windows games.

But the tradeoff is worth it because doing full ports of most games is just too time consuming and expensive, which is why you end up with a limited library of ported games that cost full price, come out 6-12 months after the PC version, and can have their own issues.

Frankly, as long as the performance is pretty good (I don't think anyone will expect performance to be exactly the same as on Windows), it will still be a nice option for OS X users, allowing them to play more current and popular games without having to buy a Windows license and dual boot into Windows just to play games.

I guess the other interesting thing will be to see how popular some of these Mac ports are. The other big thing here of course was that something like Cider wouldn't have ever even been an option before, when Macs were PowerPC-based.

But the question now is, will Mac owners who also buy games buy these Mac versions of games, or will they still stick to Boot Camp and Windows. Of course, these aren't mutually exclusive options, and it will probably depend on the games a bit.

-Zadillo

 

Nice analysis Zadillo. Although I think it's stupid to purchase the game twice, one for each operating system, I do want to be able to play games without rebooting into Windows as well as buying the license.

Such the world we live in, i can't see it spreading like Neverwinter Nights, which offered a downloadable version for Linux but you had to copy all the game cotents from the purchased CDs.

Do you know when these EA running on Cider games are coming out? Also do you think the price point and release dates will be on par with the Windows?

 

That's a good question actually........... I think they had said Need for Speed Carbon (which came out in October for other platforms) would be one of the first games to come out, which they said would be mid-to-late-July. Given that it is now July 30th, I would assume that's going to be sometime soon.

C&C3, BF2142, etc. were also said to be Summer releases.

I'm not quite as clear on how they'll be handling the new games (that is, the ones that aren't ports of previously released games). That is, if they'll be releasing a Mac specific version of Madden 2008, either at the same time or soon after, or if it will be a hybrid release (with both Mac and Windows versions on the same disc, like what Epic, Blizzard and id tend to do).

I think Hybrid releases would be really nice - first, as you mentioned, it would save someone from having to buy the same games twice (if they wanted both the Windows and Mac versions). Secondly, it would make it really easy for people with Boot Camp to compare for themselves between the OS X and Windows versions of these games.

-Zadillo

 

Oh yeah, to answer your other question, about prices.

It's a good question.

Need for Speed Carbon, for example, is only $19.99 now on the PC.

BF2142 is $29.99.

C&C3 is still $49.99.

I suspect that the Mac ports of NFS Carbon and BF2142 at least are going to be at full price (and since C&C3 hasn't seen a price drop yet, it could match up as well). It's possible they could price them the same as the current PC game prices, but I suspect that won't happen.

The bigger question will probably be how the upcoming games are priced, and if they will see price drops at the same time. Of course, if EA does go the Hybrid release route, then the price drops will of course be the same for both Mac and PC buyers. If they do release separate packages, but at the same time, it seems possible at least EA would drop prices at the same time for both.

So basically, I've spent all this time saying essentially that I don't really know...