Mac App Store to Ignite Mac Gaming
I’ll admit my previous article about the Mac App Store was less than approving. I mentioned five different things that could potentially bring the store to its knees. However, after almost two months the store is alive and well. Maybe not as good as the iOS store, but I see no signs of it failing anytime soon.
I recently began discovering new apps via the Mac App Store, looking around for utilities and things that would make me go wow, but was disappointed to find nothing of interest. I thought at that moment my suspicions of the store had been confirmed until something unexpected happened. By complete accident I clicked on Pangea Arcade, a simple retro style platform that brings together three classic arcade games with a modern twist. Over time I found many more games and slowly began to fill my Applications folder. A week passed and I was amazed at how little time it took to find, download and play games that let me relive my youth.
Computer games started with Pong and evolved into what is now a $30 billion dollar industry. This industry continues to grow exponentially year-over-year. Most gamers know that if you want the best games you buy a Windows computer. Not because the Macs don’t have the hardware to play the games but because most of the greatest games ever created are only available on Windows-based system. Most of the PC market is still Windows, therefore developers feel making “Mac Compatible” games would be a waste of time and resources. Recently, platforms like Steam attempted to solve this problem by introducing their client to the Mac. This allowed for large game developers to seamlessly distribute games over the internet to Mac clients. However, this only impacts a small number of developers who already recognize the Mac as a current and future source of larger net profit for game sales. Sadly “real” Mac gaming may never come true.
How does the Mac App Store help? It starts the gaming evolution over again by allowing the little guys to develop and distribute small games and create a profit. This allows those small developers to create game updates and “evolve” their business into more complex games. This brings more interesting games to the Mac only platform, balancing the scale in a way. Once these small game developers get more income and hire more help they will create even more complex games and eventually the industry will start to notice. This forces them to realize that developing games for Mac will have a profit margin!
All of this will ignite gaming on the Mac and ultimately even the computer market playing field. In the future it will no longer be required to buy a PC if you want to play the latest and greatest games. You’ll be able to choose either all thanks to the Mac App Store and those developers that believed.