Gaming On A Mac

ByMike Moffit

Throughout history, Apple hasn’t been known to appeal to the video gamer market. However, in recent years, Apple has slowly been gaining steam (no pun intended) in this market. I would have to say that their launch of the App Store for iOS devices was a notable push into the hearts of gamers. Doing so opened up a means for all the developers of video games for the Mac to come together and sell their product in one easy-to-use marketplace.

Now, to fill it up. Getting quality content has been a slow process and it is by no means balanced with the plethora of games available to the PC market. However, if you don’t mind waiting around for your favorite games, then you are in the right place. It is my novice understanding of coding that there is a significant difference between developing a game for a PC versus a Mac. It could be that it is easier to develop on a PC, but it is more likely that the companies making these games are looking for maximum ROI (return on investment). PCs still hold the majority of the market, and Mac versions of notable games usually get pushed off to a 3rd party porter.

Borderlands 2 is a perfect example of the aforementioned practice — a game developed for a PC by Gearbox and ported to the Mac by Aspyr. I am extremely happy this has happened it’s frustrating when I try to play with my PC friends. When an update is released for the game, it (so far) has been a PC update only and Aspyr gets its hands on it afterward to work on making it Mac compatible. During that time, I can’t play with my friends, and unfortunately, the solutions to this problem are less than ideal.

The first and most obvious solution would be to simply play the game in Windows via a Boot Camp partition. This solution is all well and good if you play your games through Steam, but if you bought your game on the App Store, you are limited to only playing with Mac users. There is also the investment cost of setting this up. Windows retails over $100 for most versions, so unless you already have a copy, that is a steep price to pay after dropping at least $50 on the game of your choice.

The other option would be to complain to Gearbox to give Aspyr time to make a Mac version that coincides with the release of the PC version. It all comes down to time and money, really. Companies want to make as much money as they can in as little time as possible, so to me, that means gaming on a Mac will still be an afterthought for most game studios. Perhaps someday, Mac gaming will be lucrative enough for studios give Macs a serious chance when the market shifts from predominantly PCs to Macs.

Until that time, I will run what games I can on my Mac partition and the rest will fall to the Boot Camp side. If any readers are also gamers I would love to hear your thoughts about gaming on a Mac — anything from what you play to how you love or hate it.

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