Aprilfool_fr wrote:
It's still not very many is it ? That still leaves 86% of PC users. It doesn't make good business sense for developers to convert their games to be played on a Mac and I'm sure this is why there are many that just don't do it. Developers want to make money, they're not in the business to be "nice" to the minority.

Personally I would never in a million years buy a Mac. There's not a good enough selection of games for it, a Mac is astronomically expensive (here in France anyway and I'm sure it's the same everywhere) and it's not fully compatible with a lot of software that IS for the Mac. Where I work they have a Mac and when I use Firefox on it I can't tell you the number of times that it's stopped working and I've had to reboot the computer. I've never had that problem on my PC.

I can understand why Mac users are frustrated, but it's not reasonable to expect the same number of games for the Mac as for a PC. It takes longer to convert a game to be Mac compatible so to expect the games that do come out for the Mac to come out at the same time as the PC version is also unreasonable. Companies would lose money doing things that way.

That 86% of computers you refer to are not all in the market for games. A very large part of that are computers in corporate offices where they are not in the market for games. And remember that Macs are the best selling computers to college students. That is a market that should not be trivialized. Oh, and Linux users are in that 86% as well.

Macs are not astronomically expensive. If you spec a Dell or HP desktop to the same level as an Apple desktop, the Mac is the same price or cheaper, in the US. Also, while I know each of our computing experiences is different, I have been a Mac user for decades and I have never had the problems that you speak of. I have many Mac friends who use Firefox and love it.

Also, it doesn't take longer to develop a Mac game. It takes longer for BFG because they allocate a smaller percentage of resources to the Mac development team. Other companies divide their resources more equally. And as to the companies that do, just look at Blizzard. Every computer game they have released from the original Warcraft and Starcraft games until the present World of Warcraft were released for the Mac and the PC simultaneously. And they certainly aren't losing money.

eleanor1183 wrote:

rascalb wrote:...There are plenty of other game companies that do that.

Okay, I'm confused.

If you know that some other site has the Mac version of the game you want, why don't you just buy it there? Is there some kind of rule in cyberspace that I don't know about that says you have to buy all of your games from the same place?

I mean, if I want to buy tahini, and the store in my town doesn't have it but the store in the next town does, I just go over there and buy it. I don't constantly go into the store here and complain because they don't carry tahini.

Let me expand on your analogy to try illustrate my point. What if you had a club card membership with the store in your town. You would want to buy from that store in order to receive club card points.

There are those of us that are Game Club members. They get credits towards games for their membership fee. So, yes, they could buy the game at full price from another site, but they would rather use their game credits to get the game from BFG.

LisaB19 wrote:You all are blaming the wrong people. The fact of the matter is, the Mac percentage of users is only about 5% of PC's. Apple does not make things easy for people trying to write programs for the Mac. Maybe you ought to place that frustration with where it belongs, with Apple. In general there are far fewer games available for the Mac, just take a look in an Apple store sometime.

Lisa

Ok, most of this statement is just untrue. Actually, the percentage of Mac users is around 14% in the US. And I suspect if you took out all the cash registers that run Windows, that number would go up. And it would skyrocket if you took out office/business computers. And have you forgotten that the Mac is the number one computer on college campuses?

Also, Apple makes it very easy to write software for the Mac. All the tools you need to write software come free with the Mac. To get the same thing for Windows, you are going to spend quite a bit of money. If you take the time to look at the Mac software market, there is a very large part made up of people who make programs for fun, just because they love using their computers. And quite a few of those programs are free.

Yes, Apple historically has not placed much of an emphasis on gaming, preferring to focus on music/movies/etc. But, there are signs that that is beginning to change. Take a look at the marketing strategy they are using for the iPod Touch for one example.

And do you really think that the Apple Store carries every piece of software available for the Mac? (Hint: It doesn't.)

While, the lack of games Mac users receive is part of the problem we have with BFG, it is not the whole story. It is that the ones we do get come out quite a bit later than the PC versions, sometimes months later. Confounding the frustration is that quite often, a Mac version of the game comes out from Reflexive or some other studio, and for whatever reason BFG can't seem to do the same.

What would make this a lot better is if BFG would just tell us what games they are working on, when they might be coming out, or even *gasp* release a game with Mac and PC versions simultaneously. There are plenty of other game companies that do that.

eleanor1183: Define what you mean by an "average Mac." You can get a low-end Mac for $600 or a fully maxed-out professional workstation for more than $10,000. The average family computer, the iMac, runs around $1100. (All prices USD.) Yes, you can get some bargain Dell and HP boxes for less. But, if you build a Dell or an HP to the same spec level, they cost the same or even a bit more than the Mac.

The reason Macs have fewer viruses and less spyware has less to do with the number of people using the operating system and more to do with the strength of the system. Mac OS X (the operating system), is built on UNIX, one of the most stable and secure OSs out there. It is just harder to make a virus for a Mac than it is for a PC. The various versions of Windows are notorious of their security holes. Granted, Vista and Internet Explorer 7 are a step in the right direction, but the system is still plagued by viruses, spyware, and malware.

For those people who are unfamiliar with the Mac and are wondering how different it is, let me explain. Many of the things that you do on a Windows PC are done much the same way on a Mac. Email is still email, web browsing is still web browsing, Microsoft Word is still Microsoft Word, etc. There are underlying differences and the user interface is slightly different, but most people I have worked with who have switched over to the Mac figure it out in a hour or so.

What is very different is the amount of time you have to spend fixing things. Mac users have a way to describe this: the Mac "Just Works." I work at a school where I administer a lab of Macs and a few clusters of PCs. I can count the number of times I have had problems with the Macs on one hand. To do the same for the PCs, I would need my hands, feet, and probably someone else as well.

While the lack of certain games is a problem, it is getting better. Some game companies, like Blizzard for example, always release the Mac and PC versions of a game simultaneously. With the percentage of Mac ownership increasing, this will only get better.

All in all, I have been using Macs for the past 23 years, I still love them as much as I ever have. I have used PCs a great deal, both professionally and personally. But I can say without a moment's hesitation that I cannot envision a scenario that will make me buy a PC. There is just no reason to.

I would dearly love to have a good opinion about this game. But, since I am a Mac user, BFG has decided that I am not worth the time. There are many software companies that release games for Macs and PCs at the same time. On the other hand, I get the impression that BFG has an expert team cranking out games for their adoring, PC using customers. And then there is a guy in the back corner who comes in every other week and tries to port a PC game to the Mac when he is not getting coffee for the PC developers. I mean, how else to you explain a more than two month gap between the PC and Mac releases of Azada: Ancient Magic? Or that Hidden Expedition: Amazon STILL isn't out yet? Or that of the 21 games featured on the BFG home page, only four are available for the Mac?

BFG, in a perfect world, all games would be released for Macs and PCs on the same day. But, this situation wouldn't be nearly as bad if Mac users got some good, straight-forward customer service. At lease have the courtesy to tell us when the game will be released. Right now, I am not expecting to be able to play it until March, if ever.

Oh, and could you stop advertising MCF: RtR on the Mac page? You are only confounding our frustration by advertising a game to us that we can't even play.

angelwingz7 wrote:
Hi rascalb and welcome to the bfg forum. I am also a Mac user. I have a laptop that I am able to play some games on but, it has Windows Vista and there are pc games that just won't load. I prefer using my Mac as you do. I do wish we could have a lot more games available to us. But, bfg is doing their best to accommodate both platforms. So please be patient. Mac users are quickly coming up in numbers and I believe in time will dominate. We have more protection from viruses and bugs pc users are open to. Happy Gaming

Thanks for the support. I understand that Mac users have to wait longer for their games. That can't be fixed overnight.

However, what BFG can do is stop taunting me with games that I can't even use. That really bothers me.

So, I am a Mac user. I have been one for 23 years. I love my Mac and I prefer them to all other computers.

But, I know the problems. Since there are fewer Mac users, fewer resources are put into developing games for them. So games are either released much later (see Azada: Ancient Magic, which we got around 3-4 months after PC users did) or not at all (see the vast majority of games on the PC side).

However, there is one thing BFG does that really annoys me. Right now, there is a full page ad on the Mac games page for The Mysteries of Treasure Island. Is that game available for the Mac? No. Will it be available before the next US presidential election? Who knows.

BFG, could you please stop taunting us with games we can't have? I know we have to deal with your slogan which is not true for Mac games (we get about 2 a week), but could you please only advertise games on the Mac page that we can actually buy?

Also, is this bothering anyone else, or am I the only one?

While cookies are good, me and my PowerBook G4 here prefer a good slice of pie. Anyone got some of that?

popcorn_20000 wrote:ok.. sooo... having a dumb moment... but i did not even realise that there were different games for mac & pc?? i thought everyone got the same?? hmmm....

I find it helpful to think about it in terms of languages.

Say someone writes a book in German. That is great for people who only understand German, but for those who only understand Italian, it is useless. So, they translate the book into Italian so the other group can enjoy it.

Now, replace the languages with computer types.

Since most people have PCs, game makers generally write the games in the languages PCs can understand. But, Macs understand different languages than PCs. So, the games have to be "translated" for them to work.

Now, there are some manufacturers that release a PC and a Mac version of the game at the same time. But, most companies release a PC version and then translate it so it can be used on a Mac.

What is frustrating for Mac users, myself included, is that that process either takes a very long time or doesn't happen at all. While PC users famously get a new game every day, Mac users get one or two a week. And some of the big name games never make it over. We are still waiting on Hidden Expedition - Amazon, all of the Nancy Drew games, and Azada II. But, us Mac users are a hopeful bunch. Someday our games will come.

I think my favorite part of BFG's attitude towards Mac users is when the main banner and sides of the Mac games page is an ad for this new, fantastic game that is not even available for the Mac.

Combine this with a spotty and unknown release schedule, timetables that bear no relation to reality, incorrect system requirements, and good games never making to the Mac side, and you have an abysmal policy towards users that really want to like the company.

I think that most Mac users are only here due to that occasionally some good games for the Mac slip through the net.