One Million Reasons Why No HL2 for the Mac

[-smash-]

You read Gabe Newell's recent response at Kikizo as to why you won't be seeing a Half-Life 2 port to the Mac anytime soon... But was that the whole story? Gabe states that it's all up to Apple if they want to bring gaming to their platform. Inside Mac Games' Tuncer writeshttp://www.insidemacgames.com/features/tuncersblog.php?ID=111 that Gabe was leaving out a big piece of the puzzle here, claiming that it wasn't Apple's inability to stay focused, but rather "Valve's insistence that anyone who wanted to port Half-Life 2 to the Mac had to advance $1 million to Valve."

In the interview Newell says, "OK, here are three things you (Apple) could do to make that better". When I read this I thought to myself...what three things would Gabe Newell want to convince him? What does he want...better tools? Better distribution? Better presence in retail? Or was it simply #1: money, #2: more money, and #3: even more money!

Is this blog entry simply a depiction of a Mac Man on a chase to protecting his favorite company's name? Or is Valve really expecting to get paid to port one of the most successful games in history?

 

[RioBravoXL]

I guess Mac Man wants it for free?

 

[kamikazeCow]

No offense smash, but why is a blogpost but some rambling mac fan boy making it to the front page of the news? I'd like to see more evidence here of the situation (like something official from apple) Sure it would be great for steam/hl2 to come to the mac, and i agree that it should be done, but even if valve said they wanted $1 million, why didn't apple try to have some kind of compromise or negotiations?

 

[Zaph]

To sum up the blog;
"Whine whine bitch whine, moan. Bitch."

 

[Para]

The Mac fan only sees the fact that Gabe used to work at Microsoft before founding Valve with couple other MS guys (can't remember all of them atm) and has so decided that 1) Valve 2) Gabe 2) HL2 are all evil.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Rambling faeces from what I can determine. An initial lump sum being requested up front for porting & extra work for the Valve team to do so? Interesting how this payment for labour system works, it's almost like it makes sense!?

 

[-smash-]

No offense smash

None taken.

This is a discussion board as well. Regardless of lack of evidence, people like these kinds of stories; people like to talk. How often do we post these? Don't worry about it, you'll still get the other stuff.

 

[hool10]

Tbh I would like to see some e-mails. I think Apple is probably right though on what they are saying. Some of you may remember what ID said about putting their games on the Steam network. They didn't want to do that because the royalty fees cost a lot. It's not that far from the truth people and I would'nt be too biased.

 

[boglito]

Valve doesn't do anything for free.

I think the outrage here is that apple aren't willing to front a measly million dollars to improve on the pathetic game-library of their precious little macs.

 

[Kadayi]

I'm trying to envisage Gabe as Dr Evil now doing the 'One Million Dollars' voice. Seriously this claim it BS. let's be honest here a million is loose change in game development terms and probably a drop in the ocean in terms of what Valve are making a year. Macs aren't anything fancy in terms of technology (I know I use the ****ers every day) they are little more than slick looking Dells with their own OS, Jobs boys use lowest common denominator parts throughout save for the processors (sorry Mac fanbois). Frankly given the piss poor market share Macs still have even after all the advertising (3-5%) there is little reason to start porting games to them.

 

[leib10]

I'm trying to envisage Gabe as Dr Evil now doing the 'One Million Dollars' voice. Seriously this claim it BS. let's be honest here a million is loose change in game development terms and probably a drop in the ocean in terms of what Valve are making a year. Macs aren't anything fancy in terms of technology (I know I use the ****ers every day) they are little more than slick looking Dells with their own OS, Jobs boys use lowest common denominator parts throughout save for the processors (sorry Mac fanbois). Frankly given the piss poor market share Macs still have even after all the advertising (3-5%) there is little reason to start porting games to them.

Good post. Even if they ported it to Mac, how many people would pick it up? Who the hell uses Macs for gaming? Why even bother?

 

[Chris D]

There's over $300,000 worth of people playing Team Fortress 2 right now. Almost every single one of the 8,000 people currently playing the game has done so by paying $44.95 to pre-order the Orange Box, and of course this is just a fraction of the people who have paid for the box.

Valve don't need $1million. Comments they've made like "We don't track development costs" demonstrate that clearly.

Would they want $1millon? Probably. Perhaps it was a deposit of sorts, before they'd release the entire source code to a third party company who were willing to port it.

 

[Chabo]

Since the Mac is Unix-based now, if they wrote HL2 for Linux, would it be somewhat easy to port that over? (I haven't done any Mac programming, so I have no idea)

What I find funny is that the Mac fanboy is calling Gabe a money-grubbing asshole. Has he ever watched Steve Jobs talk? (well, of course he has, but that's not the point)

I think it would be cool to see Valve games on other platforms, but I won't hold my breath. A Linux port would certainly move me one more step towards running Linux 24/7, though. (yes, I know Wine is good nowadays, but natively-run is usually still better)

 

[Chabo]

There's over $300,000 worth of people playing Team Fortress 2 right now. Almost every single one of the 8,000 people currently playing the game has done so by paying $44.95 to pre-order the Orange Box, and of course this is just a fraction of the people who have paid for the box.

Valve don't need $1million. Comments they've made like "We don't track development costs" demonstrate that clearly.

Would they want $1millon? Probably. Perhaps it was a deposit of sorts, before they'd release the entire source code to a third party company who were willing to port it.

I'd say that's a good bet. I bet it's roughly the same cost as a company that wants to license the source engine for its game (SIN episodes, for instance)

 

[Kadayi]

Good post. Even if they ported it to Mac, how many people would pick it up? Who the hell uses Macs for gaming? Why even bother?

I tried to post a response in the blog outlining the economics of it all, but there seems to be some kind of lock on it (I'm not using HTML..but it claims I am...guess they guy knew I was going to tear him an asshole). Anyhows I expect it would of gotten deleted by the Blogger anyways as it was a swift dose of reality.

One guy was trying to argue that there are as many macs out there as X360s or PS3s, what he fails to understand is that game consoles are bought by people who play games, and are therefore likely to buy games, especially ones with a heritage and a franchise to them. The same cannot be said for Macs (my Macs are for Graphics work solely). Porting HL2 to OSX would probably cost a fair chunk of change (far more than the infamous 'One Million') and there would be very little guarantee of mass sales or profits, plus it's an investment in terms of post sales support etc. Blizzard can afford to sell through macs because WoW generates regular money for them, so the overheads are covered. If Valve dedicated 20 people in their team to porting the OB to OSX I'm quite sure they could do it, but it would be 20 people out of circulation in terms of working on future more profitable projects. These Macs guys are frankly asking for charity.

 

[Chris D]

In my opinion, if any one owns a Mac that's got hardware inside it capable of running the Source engine to any capacity where it will run smoothly and look good will have a Intel processor in their Macs, and therefore should just dual boot with Windows and play it through that instead.

If I ever bought a Mac, that's what I'd do...

 

[Apocalypse89]

Yeah, aside from the fact that he provided almost no evidence to support the "$1 million" claim, in any case it's chump change for either company.

Also, lol at some of the comments. One guy said that HL1's puzzle situations bored the hell out of him...no point in selling to the Mac if it's dominated by "wherez ma gun i want to point and click" crowd.

EDIT: And that's a good point, Chris_D...the newer Intel-based Macs can run Windows, so all your gaming problems are solved if you have one.

 

[anamnesis]

Friggin' Mactards. Desktop computing's equivalent of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. :upstare:

Who needs cables? Life is difficult enough!
PC gaming is just ... so confusing
Moment of levity: Mac & PC unite against a common foe

 

[SgtSpamBoy]

You CAN play Steam games on a Mac

Uh... people need to realize that you CAN play Half-Life 2 and most Windows games on a Mac today...right now. It just depends on what you mean by "on a Mac." There is Mac hardware and Mac software.

You can play Half-Life 2 and other Windows games on Mac hardware, you just can't play them all under Mac OS X. Since Macs are Intel-based now, you can just install Windows and treat it as a Windows machine. I installed Windows, Boot Camp, and Steam on my friend's Mac and played Half-Life 2 on it perfectly.

In fact, with a program called CrossOver, you can play Steam games under Mac OS X without even installing Windows (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/)

I don't see what the issue is - Mac gaming is Windows gaming. It's the same thing now.

 

[[Matt]]

No offense smash, but why is a blogpost but some rambling mac fan boy making it to the front page of the news?

QFT.... please more noteworthy news instead of giving mac man a soap box

 

[Uriel]

QFT.... please more noteworthy news instead of giving mac man a soap box

I gotta agree.

 

[scotland1]

Just look at all these people that want Steam for Macs. My dad has a Mac, when my computer breaks I have to go without games for weeks.

 

[Krynn72]

WOW, ALMOST two thousand people?!?!

Oh man, I see now why they should spend over a million dollars to port it over. The math totally makes sense!

 

[Absinthe]

Valve wants money up front in exchange for developing a port for a niche market that would otherwise have no profit potential?

Why, those greedy bastards!

 

[Mutley]

ONE Miiiiiiiiiiilllllllion dollars. Not a lot really, considering Apple really needs games right now.

 

[Kazary]

well i'm gonna buy a mac book pro, i think, still unsure if i can find a better laptop that'll be better for what i want out of it, but macs can play pc games regaurdless of what os they're built on, just the better games like hl2 won't run fast on g4's or g5's, but the intel chipset macs are pretty decent so far, even with a gforce 8800gt in it, still i would have hoped it could be better.

Macs are more enclined for artistic + 3d rendering work, i dunno about games but it'll tackle most games well with the 256meg Gforce in it. Anyway, back to the topic, theres no point in Valve making games for mac os since mac have already moved to intel based chipsets anyway.

Thread over.

 

[Acepilotf14]

And look at the difference of people who want SWG back, and who want Steam to be ported..
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?swg0405

 

[Ennui]

Uh... people need to realize that you CAN play Half-Life 2 and most Windows games on a Mac today...right now. It just depends on what you mean by "on a Mac." There is Mac hardware and Mac software.

You can play Half-Life 2 and other Windows games on Mac hardware, you just can't play them all under Mac OS X. Since Macs are Intel-based now, you can just install Windows and treat it as a Windows machine. I installed Windows, Boot Camp, and Steam on my friend's Mac and played Half-Life 2 on it perfectly.

In fact, with a program called CrossOver, you can play Steam games under Mac OS X without even installing Windows (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/)

I don't see what the issue is - Mac gaming is Windows gaming. It's the same thing now.

Windows is better, period. I don't think it really counts to say "NO CAUSE YOU CAN DUALBOOT XP". Why not just single boot XP and not have that OS X crap to worry about?

Macs are more enclined for artistic + 3d rendering work, i dunno about games but it'll tackle most games well with the 256meg Gforce in it.

Just because a computer is designed with aesthetics as a primary focus doesn't mean it's more artistically inclined. Artsy types love Macs but that's because they think they're stylish. I can't think of any actual advantages that Macs have over Windows when it comes to 3d work, either - windows runs Softimage, Milkshape, 3ds Max, Maya, etc, and is more capable of the graphics power than Macs are generally.

Friggin' Mactards. Desktop computing's equivalent of 9/11 conspiracy theorists. :upstare:

Who needs cables? Life is difficult enough!
PC gaming is just ... so confusing
Moment of levity: Mac & PC unite against a common foe

I lol'd hard at all of these, but especially the Linux one

 

[golden_fang]

Macs just aren't suitable for gaming imo...I'm sticking with my 360 and PC




EDIT: btw check this out does it make you want a mac more now?

 

[Acepilotf14]

Wow... 24k?
Amazing.
I want that.
Now.

Mac: Hey! Guess what? I got a 24karot gold layering!
PC: How does that help?
Mac: Uhm... I'm more valuable than you now!
PC: And what does that do for your processing?
Mac: Everyone wants me!
PC: ...

 

[Krynn72]

Just because a computer is designed with aesthetics as a primary focus doesn't mean it's more artistically inclined. Artsy types love Macs but that's because they think they're stylish. I can't think of any actual advantages that Macs have over Windows when it comes to 3d work, either - windows runs Softimage, Milkshape, 3ds Max, Maya, etc, and is more capable of the graphics power than Macs are generally.

To be fair... they do have Shake, which is an awesome compositing app. But there are many alternatives that are catching up up Shake.

Also, Maya runs like ass on Macs in my experience, which is rather substantial.

 

[Kazary]

Windows is better, period. I don't think it really counts to say "NO CAUSE YOU CAN DUALBOOT XP". Why not just single boot XP and not have that OS X crap to worry about?

windows is better because the majority of programs are made for it because its the majority used System. But that doesn't mean it's better. Linix, which Mac Os is built on, is coded better as well as more stable. Windows have taken out quite a few kinks, but that doesn't mean there aren't any at all. I'm not gonna force you to use a mac though, there's downsides to whatever os you run. its also whatever your happy with.

Just because a computer is designed with aesthetics as a primary focus doesn't mean it's more artistically inclined. Artsy types love Macs but that's because they think they're stylish. I can't think of any actual advantages that Macs have over Windows when it comes to 3d work, either - windows runs Softimage, Milkshape, 3ds Max, Maya, etc, and is more capable of the graphics power than Macs are generally.

i take it you've actually not worked at a job that purely does graphical 3d work, editing movies, and professional photoshoping? Thought not. I have.

Yes you'll find pc's there, but the majority will be done on macs. And who said that just because its designed stylishly that it means its more artistically type inclined? I certainly didn't and that points kinda stereotypical. Business's don't buy the computer because its stylish. They buy it because it does the job, if they did, then they'd loose out on money which we all know business's don't like. Also Naming programs doesn't help, as from that list, Mac's can use those programs as well.

I lol'd hard at all of these, but especially the Linux one

I lol'd at how much you wish to take down macs. Pc enthusiast? Personally i'm neither way, i'm just looking for what does what i want it to.

Macs just aren't suitable for gaming imo...I'm sticking with my 360 and PC

EDIT: btw check this out does it make you want a mac more now?

Wise idea. and ew... no .. just no xD it looks horrible, it looks like a cheep gold tooth on a smile!

 

[Gray Fox]

He's angry because Gabe Newell lied about why hl2 is not on the mac according to him and not because valve asked 1 million dollars. I wouldn't like it either if someone told lies about the support my company gave them.

 

[Asus]

I don't really see how Valve could be the bad guy here. Want money for extra labor? OK

 

[Acepilotf14]

Becuase we hate you.

 

[Ennui]

i take it you've actually not worked at a job that purely does graphical 3d work, editing movies, and professional photoshoping? Thought not. I have.

No, but I've done all of those my own and I know that Windows is equally if not more capable than Macs in all of those areas. For video editing, the new versions of Premiere are not Mac-compatible and Premiere outstrips Final Cut Pro (and easily matches it at least). Avid I know has had versions for both OSes but I'm not sure how it works exactly. Again, with all of the 3d apps, generally Windows is equally capable, and Photoshop is Photoshop whether you have it on Mac or PC.

I understand that Macs are good for some things, but I have yet to see a compelling argument that they are actually better at anything than a Windows PC with the appropriate software, whereas I have seen many arguments to the contrary. Even if the architecture is slightly superior being based off Linux, Windows PCs still seem to be better on the whole.

 

[Kazary]

Becuase we hate you.

i love you too?

 

[Stigmata]

Everyone in my IT classes who bought an iBook is dual-booting Windows XP or Vista.

 

[nutcrackr]

makes sense really, not like they'd make a lot of money from it on MAC.

 

[Kadayi]

i take it you've actually not worked at a job that purely does graphical 3d work, editing movies, and professional photoshoping? Thought not. I have.

I've been using macs for over 8 years as a 2D/3D Visualiser and frankly the hype on them is overboard and way out of control. Apple are frankly nothing more than Dell with an OS. Don't get me wrong OSX is a pretty robust operating system, but other than that it's no great shakes compared to XP, or Vista and certainly not the second coming of Christ that some people purport. In all seriousness using photoshop/illustrator on a mac is no different an experience than using it on a PC. There isn't anything fancy going on under the hood that makes it so either.

Business's don't buy the computer because its stylish. They buy it because it does the job, if they did, then they'd loose out on money which we all know business's don't like. Also Naming programs doesn't help, as from that list, Mac's can use those programs as well.

Actually you'll find a lot of them do. Our company policy is to buy macs principally because they look good at meetings and in the workplace when we have visitors (same reason people have Mercs and BMWs for company cars), not because they work any better. In fact the policy has extended to the point that we all have the 23" wide screen apple monitors in the office that are now at least 2 years out of date compared to other monitors out there. Frankly even after the board were shown better quality monitors, they still opted for the apple ones because they didn't want to break the continuity of the office appearance..forget workplace efficiency....businesses are shallow creatures.

Jobs and Co sell good image, but one that is disproportionate to the reality of the situation, and non-techie people (like the money) are generally easily lead.