True Size of Mac Game Market?

[zephyrsyndicate]

Hello everyone!

My company is currently working on a new game, and have recently been seriously pondering the prospect of a Macintosh port, as well as future Macintosh-related game endeavors (we're fans of the platform). So I suppose my question is, is anyone here privvy to approximate number of units that companies can move on the Mac? I'm interested in both like Aspyr with large-scale, popular PC ports, and also small independent developers with good 'shareware' titles...

I can't seem to find much marketing data about this really, so it would be good to hear from real people who have published games on the Mac.

Hope to hear from you guys.

Cheers,
-Wendell

[Fenris]

There are 12 million Mac OS X users worldwide right now. (Or so I've heard.) And I know Aspyr consider themselves to break even around 6-7000 copies of a game. Unfortunately that is all the info I've got, but perhaps you can extrapolate from that. In general, porting to the Mac is worth it, since you've got zealous followers. The InsideMacGames.com forum might be a good place to pose further questions as well - they seem to be quite outspoken.

Welcome here, as well! :)

[Carlos Camacho]

Consider two reasons why you should:
1. Speak with the developers here, and you will find that adding the extra code/work to port your game, or to make it cross-platform from the start to be "easy as pie." ;)
2. It is generally believed, and I think many here would agree, that your new Mac customers won't put much of a dent in your support team's work. In other words, since the hardware is controlled so tightly by Apple, you won't have a thousand Jane Doe asking you how to fix some IRQ setting to get her graphic card to work with her sound board. (So so example, but you get the idea.)

Fenris advice is good, but as a business person, I would say don't support the Mac because you will have tons of "zealous followers." Every platform has them. Do it because the work involved (for a developer who knows how to develop and not just gripe about one button mice, or the code editor modifier keys, anyone remember him?) won't make you break a sweat, you will generate more revenue -- no, not enough to challenge EA, but consider it a X-MAS bonus for your staff, and support costs won't have a major impact. Now, if you do break a sweat in your support of the Mac, you have this community to help you along the way.

You will also find that promoting your game to Mac gamers to be less costly and easier. And if the game is good, it will get noticed. These points have to do with the size of our market, the impact of Inside Mac Games/Games@Apple page, etc.

I recommend you read the article by Stepwise which was published in Game Developer Magazine about the Mac. Also, spend a bit of time reading Apple's appeal for why you should support the Mac.

If your company does A-list games, you might want to speak with Richard Hernadize of Apple, or ask your question on Apple's Game Dev Mailing List.

Cheers,

[karolos]

Hi

Hum if Aspyr get 6-7000 copies for each I will be damned :lol:

If you want an idea about only the French market for mac games, take a look, theses are official selling for games translated in French ( It 's not taking part of the import games in english that arrived usually 2 months before the French version) :

The sims : 12 000 copies sold
Age of Empires 2 : 7 000 copies
Medal of Honor : almost 5 000 copies

A "normal success" turn around 4000-5000.

The Mac is estimate around 3% in France and sometime it is difficult to find games. I suppose in USA it is much more. With the Apple Store, the game market should have growed quite well.

[JustinFic]

I found this thread (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3192) on the Indie Developer Forums on Dexterity Software's website. (http://www.dexterity.com)

The general consensus is that Mac sales make up just as much as (if not more than) Windows sales on a cross-platform game. And this is coming from a relatively platform-neutral site.

Also keep in mind that these are independent, shareware-level games. Mileage may vary for the mainstream blockbusters.

[AnotherJake]

Look out, here they come! :lol:

It's funny reading the comments in that thread. I've been trying to tell my pc buddies the same thing, but whatever... I'm actually a little surprised to see that something like Think Tanks goes 60/40 in favor of Mac sales over pc sales.

[applekid]

When Aspyr sells a good game in America, I've read it's anywhere between 20,000 to close to 100,000. Usually more in the middle of the two.

And it's 22 Million MacOS X users now (check the latest Steve Jobs WWDC keynote).

[Max]

Hereís an idea of how big the Mac market is in Japan click here! (http://homepage.mac.com/masanorif/iMovieTheater23.html)

[AnotherJake]

That poor "end of the line" guy. :cry:

[Max]

I wonder if Carlos was in that line... :p

[FCCovett]

I've seen this way too many times: adversiting, publishing, film, and multimedia professionals who use Macs in their offices but own a PC as home computer. Those 20 million Steve Jobs mentioned are mostly corporate, not home users. If I recall correctly, the old iMac G3 had a user base of about 3 million people. Considering the number of iPods sold in 3 years - about 5 million - it's not all that shocking that a AAA title for Mac sells just a few tens of thousands copies at best.

[madmacgames]

If you distribute via CD, please take care into the packaging and shipping. Way way too many of the games that we get from certain AAA publishers are either damaged (cracked/broken CD usually or scratched to hell) or contain corrupt files.

* just as a side note, we don't get this problem on the PC side. It is very small, and what you would expect. Also it is not bad with every AAA mac publisher, but a few, whose names I will not mentioned, really don't seem to take care into packaging/distribution of the games.