What does Windows on the Mac mean for the future of Mac gaming?

As noted in the "Macintel" Q&A, based on a MacWord article written pre-Intel and pre-Boot Camp, game developers were excited that "Macintel" systems might make porting games to MacOS X easier, but were concerned that it might not make financial sense to port games to the Mac if users could just install Windows on a "Macintel" system and run Windows games.

Now that running Windows games on Intel-based Macs is a reality, whether or not Boot Camp is good for gaming on the Mac is largely a matter of perspective.

It is no secret that the number of games written for Windows vastly outnumber those written for the Mac. Some Windows games never make it to the Mac, and those that do often are ported many months after the Windows version is available.

From the viewpoint of a Mac gamer, provided that one is willing to take the time to install, maintain, and secure Windows, the ability to play more games is great. Mac gamers won't have continue to patiently wait for a port as their Windows-using friends play the latest titles.

As mentioned in the answer to "Why run Windows on the Mac?", those interested in using Windows just for gaming probably wouldn't find it particularly inconvenient to boot into Windows to play a few hours of Half-Life 2, and then boot back into MacOS X for a few hours of iMovie use.

Games often do not use the interface of the operating system, so from a straight usability standpoint, it seems that there would be little reason to wait for a port of most games from Windows to the MacOS when one could play the same game immediately on the same hardware. Most applications would benefit greatly from a "virtualization" environment like Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMWare Fusion, rather than a "dual boot" setup, as computer users typically need to access more than one application at a time. However, this is not particularly needed, or even desirable, for game play.

Consequently, as also mentioned, it seems likely that it will be harder for developers to profitably "port" games from Windows to the Mac.

In a recent Inside Mac Games story, Brad Oliver of Aspyr Media, a company that produces and ports Mac games as well as titles for other platforms, concurs:

From a business standpoint, I suspect Aspyr is, in the short term, going to continue releasing Mac ports as before and see where the market takes us. If Mac sales tank, we've got enough revenue coming in from PC and console ports that it probably won't hurt the company too much and we'd just focus on the other platforms.

It's possible that the Mac market share could increase so dramatically that the demand for Mac games increases enough to offset the costs of the loss of sales to dual-booting, but I'm not so optimistic about that.

From a personal standpoint, it probably means the end of my current job, but I'm going to ride it out to the end and see where that takes me. I love doing Mac game ports, so in a way I wish I were strictly a Mac user now and didn't have a job that is in total collision with this new development.

Not everyone shares this position, however, as Peter Cohen of MacWorld's Game Room tried to remain optimistic, writing that:

People who keep an eye on the Mac game market are worried about this turn of events, and from my perspective, rightfully so: I fully expect that this will effectively decimate the licensing of some Mac conversions of high-profile AAA list releases that fall into the "hardcore" gaming camp. . .

There are still a lot of games that carry a huge amount of mass market appeal that will continue to come from the same Mac publishers that we know now. Also, more and more publishers are diversifying into original game development or other niche market segments and are supporting the Mac alongside other platforms.

As reported by Inside Mac Games, Blizzard, which produces the popular World of Warcraft franchise, has stated in spite of the introduction of Boot Camp:

We have a recognized track record of native Mac OS support, and we have no plans to break with that tradition. We understand that our Mac player base prefers native software whenever possible, and our cross-platform development practice addresses that.

No doubt that will be reassuring to many WoW Mac fans.

As with all speculation, only time will tell.

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