TwitterThe small world of Mac gaming
August 23rd, 2005
Aspyr announced the cancellation of two games today, some CSI port and the expansion pack to the Black Hawk Down series. Neither of which I’d ever purchase but the reasons behind the cancelling of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre is troubling.
The decision to put Team Sabre on hold was more of a monetary decision. The original Delta Force: Black Hawk Down game did so poorly on the Mac, there simply was no way Aspyr could turn a profit on the expansion pack.
Ouch. This is not good, not good at all in my humble opinion. Why? Well, Aspyr then stated they’re focused on bringing “A” titles to the Mac, like The Sims 2 or Star Wars Battlefront. Hmm. What if I don’t like the current “A” flavor of the month? What if I want something like Pirates! or KOTOR II? I’m a mobile gamer, I enjoy playing in various locations around the house or when I’m on the bus or away for the weekend. I bring my Powerbook and handheld consoles everywhere. I want to play great games on my Powerbook and I refuse to own another PC laptop.
Who decides what is an “A” title versus a “B” title anyway? I know the Black Hawk series sold somewhat well on the PC but why was the first game ported to Mac anyway? The game was released during a period where the Mac was getting a flood of new FPS (first person shooter) games, BH just got lost on the shelf. We need big titles, that have massive PC ad campaigns. We need simultaneous releases of big “A” titles. Blizzard has finally started to develop Mac and PC versions of their games at the same time. This was not always the case. I remember waiting for years for the original Diablo and Starcraft. Aspyr, I know you’re hiring developers amd I know Blizzard doesn’t have a huge team of Mac developers, but you need to start slimming down those porting times. We need weeks, not months of lag time. We need patches released in a much quicker fashion than never or years later. We’re still waiting for a Homeworld 2 patch for Tiger. What about Punkbuster support for Raven Shield? Star Wars Battlefront online fix? These are your big titles, where is the support? It took more than year for you guys to release the much needed Battlefield 1942 patch and look what happened? It created a fire storm of support for the year and half old title. Yet, you’re still selling it for over $60 with the expansion pack Secret Weapons. Where’s the complete deluxe package like the PC has for $20?
I really hope that Mac gaming continues to “survive”. With the dismissal online feature set of an “A” title like Star Wars Battlefront lacking GameSpy support (that hurts big time) not to mention it being a year behind the PC and console versions. How can people be buying Battlefront without GameSpy? Hell, the PS2 version uses GameSpy AND allows you to play on any available PC server and the Mac version can’t even manage to get Mac to Mac play working out of the box correctly. Add in Apple moving to Intel chipsets, the future doesn’t look so bright for the Mac publishers staying power. It’s very frustrating to be a Mac gamer sometimes and when I hear about game cancellations it gets even more aggravating because of all the missed opportunities I see. Someone needs to right this ship and do it fast.
1 Comment
1. OwlBoy | August 23rd, 2005 at 7:26 pm
I always ALWAYS thought Black Hawk Down was a bad idea for the mac, its one of the FPS Clones, nothing special. So the fact that the expansion was canceled do to it not selling well is no surprise to me.