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[Craig Stern]

Some say that Mac and Linux users are starving for games, and that since they're largely ignored by mainstream game companies, they are ripe for indie game sales. This guy thinks selling to Mac and Linux users as well as PC users will boost sales by somewhere between 10 and 30%.

What do you think? Is it worth it? If so, what tools can you use? (Flash and Unity work with Mac. Game Maker doesn't. Flash works with Linux. Game Maker doesn't. That's about all I know so far.)

[muku]

If you use a major language like C++ and only portable libraries (SDL, OpenGL etc) porting shouldn't be a big deal.

[Μarkham]

There was enough demand for Toady to port a Mac version of Dwarf Fortress, so I guess there is a bit of truth to that.  Those making their own engines will have the advantage, of course.

[TeeGee]

I know from experience that good games sell really well on Mac and it's very easy to get the word out about them. Just doing one press release got our company's games to be featured on Apple.com for few days and sales are very good to this day. I don't remember the exat numbers, but I think it was close to 40% increase in direct sales. Definitely worth it.

[dmoonfire]

Mac users are starving for good games. After working in a Mac shop, I am completely convinced of that.

[brog]

It would probably not be too much work to build my game for Mac and Linux since I'm using SDL/OpenGL.  But I don't know the first thing about developing for these platforms and I don't happen to have instances of them lying around to try it out on either.  Is it possible to compile a game for Mac/Linux on Windows?  Then I could send it to friends with these machines and make sure it works without them having to go through the hassle of trying to build it themselves.

[increpare]

All of my stuff is cross platform.  There's a certain amount of overhead involved in making stuff mac-compatible.  Same for linux, I guess.

All of my games should compile just fine on linux, but I've never gotten around to making builds, much less submitting to the main package repositories (oh wait: that's more the path of open-source stuff than 'make money of games' side of things).

[mildmojo]

I feel like it's worth writing code with a cross-platform mindset, even if you don't actually plan on porting to another platform.  It's good habit.

That sort of goes out the window if your basic toolset or programming language isn't cross-platform, though.

[henzenmann]

It would probably not be too much work to build my game for Mac and Linux since I'm using SDL/OpenGL.  But I don't know the first thing about developing for these platforms and I don't happen to have instances of them lying around to try it out on either.  Is it possible to compile a game for Mac/Linux on Windows?  Then I could send it to friends with these machines and make sure it works without them having to go through the hassle of trying to build it themselves.

Building a cross compiler for Mac was not easily possible last time I checked because you need parts of the Apple SDK to work on your build system (I tried Linux to Mac, and gave up after many hours). You could probably build a Windows to Linux cross compiler using Cygwin.

The easiest way to create a Linux build system though would be to get VirtualBox or any other virtualization software and just install a Linux distribution on it.

[Mathieu]

We make 69% of our sells to Mac users.
We used Torque Game Engine who is cross-platformes.

[godsavant]

As a mac user, I can safely say that I am starved for games.

[Skofo]

Linux and Macs definitely need more games.

[Radial]

I think that It would boost sales very noticeably. I don't know if this is true of not, but I heard that Steam actually proposed to Apple for a nice little marriage agreement that would let steam and all its games be available on the Mac; that would be really cool!

[neon]

in fact, i'm surprised that there aren't many games for mac, because mac architecturally is UNIX-based, giving it a lot of potential.  also OpenGL is really powerful, and i don't know why it hasn't been used to make really nice mac games..

[Radial]

in fact, i'm surprised that there aren't many games for mac, because mac architecturally is UNIX-based, giving it a lot of potential.  also OpenGL is really powerful, and i don't know why it hasn't been used to make really nice mac games..

unix chooses its friends XD

[Skofo]

in fact, i'm surprised that there aren't many games for mac, because mac architecturally is UNIX-based, giving it a lot of potential.  also OpenGL is really powerful, and i don't know why it hasn't been used to make really nice mac games..

I agree. DirectX is alienating (evidenced by restricting better versions of it to the newer shitty versions of Microsoft's OS), proprietary bull.

If more games adopted OpenGL, Mac and Linux, everyone would end up being happier in the end. Most commercial games already port to the PS3, which utilizes OpenGL. I don't think it would take much time and effort at all to make all the Macfags and Linuxheads happy.

[increpare]

OpenGL is really powerful, and i don't know why it hasn't been used to make really nice mac games..

Atm, most 3d programmers regard directx as being far, far far far far far superior tech to opengl.  I'm sticking with OpenGL, because what I'm doing I can do with it just fine, but if DirectX was cross-platform, I would as likely as not go with that instead. 

DirectX is alienating

The problem is that, insofar as most graphics card makers are concerned, it's OpenGL that's the problem, given how far behind-the-times it's fallen   (one can hope that it'll catch up to some extent in the next version, but I see no reason to count on it to do so).

Cross-platform graphics aren't everything, though, when it comes to making cross-platform software.  There're many other things to consider as well, and even with all the cross-platform libraries in the world, there's still a big chunk of overhead involved in converting or maintaining such a cross-platform project.

[nihilocrat]

The differences between OpenGL and DirectX only become super-apparent if you are trying to use the lastest and greatest effects out there. Otherwise, though the OpenGL 2.0 standard might be ancient, the various extensions allow it to be competitive. Most indie developers aren't going to care so much about having the best graphics. In this case, the platform tie-in is much more costly than any benefits that DirectX gives. OpenGL 3.0 is coming out soon, but I haven't researched it and I bet it will be a conservative spec, just like 2.0, but like I said it doesn't really matter.

Seeing as how Apple's market share has been steadily climbing, and it seems to be the popular platform of choice for nerdy information technology people (read: most likely to buy games), I see making your game available on Macs as a no-brainer. Cross-platform libraries have gotten mature and polished enough in the past decade that for 90% of games the cross-platform libraries out there are just as good as Windows-only ones, if not better (usually free and/or open source with supportive communities).

Thankfully, I have some friends with Macs, and I have occasionally shot them code to test out on their system. If you don't want to go through that hassle and you have the cash to spare, pick up a Mac Mini or some other Mac on eBay.

I'm running Linux right now because my Windows install is hosed. If for some reason you don't feel like running a VM with VirtualBox, you can always either set up your system for dual-booting or use something like Wubi to create a low footprint, easy-to-uninstall but almost-as-fast-as-native Linux install. Hard drives have gotten so humongous that you can probably spare the 5 gigs you would need for a Linux install with tons of space to spare: a base Ubuntu install is somewhere between 1-2 gigs and loading it with tons of extras only pushes up about a gig.

[increpare]

OpenGL 3.0 is coming out soon, but I haven't researched it and I bet it will be a conservative spec, just like 2.0, but like I said it doesn't really matter.

It's already out, and essentially more of the same (it's very much a stop-gap release: loads of things have been marked 'deprecated').

[boovie]

Hi,
Most of our online sales of our last game goes from mac (70%). It's more easy to get noticed by apple user (featured on apple works really well), while pc sector is stuffed with billion casual click-me games.

Porting to Mac is not hard, if you have some experience with it and use portable libraries. The main issue is endian difference between powerpc and intel, but once you get past to it your are almost done Also note that graphics cards on Macs are usually not high-end so that can limit you if going 3d.

Porting to linux is pain because
1) You never know what version of libraries are installed (stdlibc++, vorbis, etc), there are so many distributions. What we ended up was just compiling our own versions of all libraries we used.
2) Sounds - there are many sound systems (alsa, oss...) but no one just works. I don't know how this is possible in 21th century...
My advice - create game for windows and mac, and let the linux users use Wine