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SAN FRANCISCO -- So strong is the draw of the new flood of Mac-platform games that one developer quipped, "They should put Lara Croft on the side of the iMac box."
Last year's body of Macintosh games was depressingly lifeless. This year, the floor of the Macworld Expo is charged with fans primed for PlayStation emulators and big-name games like Tomb Raider II, newly released for the Mac platform.
As Macworld magazine president Colin Crawford noted in a speech, "What a difference a year makes."
That seems to be the Macworld mantra.
Greg Kirkpatrick, president of game-development company Double Aught is optimistic about the future of Mac gaming. His company will soon release Duality in the Mac format, as well as for the PC.
The apparent renaissance of Macintosh gaming, however precarious, did not happen overnight.
"When [ex-CEO Gil] Amelio came in, the game developers didn't hear from anybody, because that wasn't the direction," said Kathy Tafel, partnership manager for games at Apple.
The company focused on making the Mac appear businesslike, thereby neglecting gamers, she said. And that, coupled with Apple's declining market share, spelled doom for Mac games.
Enter the iMac. Because Apple's new baby is aimed so squarely at the home user, the need for games is increasingly high. And strong iMac sales mean stronger incentives for companies to release Mac games.
Tafel said Apple's message to games developers is: "We want you back. We've got a consumer computer. We need consumer software for it. And we're basically making this case to come back to the Mac for business reasons."
Doug Zartman, spokesman for the fiercely independent game company Bungie, said Apple's relations with developers are "100 percent better." Direct contact with Apple representatives, he said, means that game creation is smoother, faster, and better.
Bungie released its latest, Myth II, in both Mac and PC formats at the expo, to great acclaim. The company already has a devoted following in Mac circles, starting with its first game Marathon, a Quake-like shooter for the Mac released in 1995, a time when Mac users were becoming jealous of the wide selection in PC games. While expanding to the PC market -- as any company interested in staying alive had to do -- Bungie worked out a non-OS-specific design philosophy, which has worked in the Mac's favor.
New game development is split pretty evenly between Mac and PC machines, and most Bungie engineers have one of each. Ninety percent of the code on Myth II is OS neutral, showing that dual-format discs are not only logical, but achievable. This technique let Bungie produce killer Mac content in Mac-hostile times.
Although Tafel doesn't admit it, one senses that Apple wishes it hadn't let the state of Mac gaming become as desperate at it did in those dark days.
"It was probably just lack of awareness of the market," Tafel admitted. "With the Apple II, Apple let itself get defined as an education-only machine, and when they released the Macintosh they wanted to make sure that people saw it as a serious business machine. That's where you got the slogan 'The Mac is not a toy.'"
But research showed that toys are, in fact, what many people want, at least some of the time.
"Well over 50 percent of our users are using their Macs to play games. So, we have to have games, and they have to run well," Tafel said.
So, in early 1998, Apple went to the developers, and asked them why they weren't developing for the Macintosh.
"There were a host of reasons," Tafel recalled. "There were technical reasons. We didn't have 3-D hardware, and all the games were going to 3-D hardware. We didn't have a common API that people could use to make it easier to develop." Developers also struggled to sell Mac games on the retail market. So, she said, "We did our best to address each of those issues." On the technical side, Apple pumped out Open GL and created Game Sprockets, a set of libraries that help designers work with sound, imaging, user input, and network gaming, much like DirectX does for Windows.
Hoping to assuage developers' retail fears, last November Apple launched a program at CompUSA to highlight its best games software and secure gravely needed retail shelf space.
Tuesday's big surprise was a move that seemed to be designed to squelch complaints about the dearth of Mac games. In his keynote address, Apple CEO Steve Jobs heralded the Connectix release of emulator software that will allow G3 Macs to run games written for the Sony PlayStation. At US$49, it's an attractive option for gamers and a power shot for Apple.
Bill Heineman, a developer for Logicware who is converting Heretic II from PC to Mac format, is skeptical.
Heineman fears emulators could discourage developers from creating Mac versions of games. This, he said, could sacrifice functionality and shortchange the Mac consumer. Players using emulator software, for example, wouldn't be able to engage in networked play. Heineman may be biased, since converting PC games to Mac is what he does for a living.
For gamers, however, it's all good news.
Steve Swart, a graphic designer located near Philadelphia, believes the tide is turning. Tired of the scant Mac choices, three months ago Swart started Macintosh Gamers Initiative, advocating the Mac format to games companies. While only 300 people have completed a survey on his site, Swart said most of the games he's been advocating -- Age of Empires, Future Cop LAPD, Quake II -- are now scheduled for Mac release.
Game company responses have also changed from icy to tepid. As Swart tells game developers, jumping into Mac games right now is "like being the first ones getting into Internet stocks. The pool's getting bigger, and you've got the chance to be the big fish."
Tafel agreed. "Because of the iMac's market share, we're getting people back and getting people interested. It's always been about market share."
