Imagine my shock: I had been in Costa Rica for two weeks getting
to use the Spanish that I studied for several years, blissfully
unaware of anything that was going on in the United States, much
less in the Mac game industry. When I arrived home at 01.00 in the
morning, my computer was booting up within a few minutes as I
looked forward to reading all the exciting new games which had been
announced in the last two weeks. However, I soon saw what the real
news was: "Microsoft buys Bungie."
Needless to say, I was as shocked as anyone. And, like many
others, I am much less than happy about the whole deal. Ranting,
however, is not one of the two intentions I have in writing this
article: examining the reasons behind it and taking a few guesses
as to how the Mac gaming community will be affected are.
Just about the entire Macintosh community expressed shock that
Bungie, a company whose devotion to the Mac gaming platform was
second to none, would sell out to a company like Microsoft.
Although I do not list any Bungie games among my favorites, I am
as saddened as almost anyone by this deal and its apparent
consequences. As much as I look at the deal, I can not seem to
see any reason for it on Bungie's part other than money. There
were recent rumors that Bungie was running low on funds. If these
were true, it is too bad they couldn't find anyone other than
Microsoft to get them going again.
It could also be that Microsoft simply offered them too much
money to refuse. I do not know the exact value of the purchase
(does anyone?), so I am not really in a good position to comment on
this. I can only say that Bungie's decision was not seen as a
beneficial action by those in the know, based on the closing of
several websites serving fans of various Bungie games.
From the Microsoft perspective, I would consider this a very
good move. Foolish as I was, I laughed off the X-Box, Microsoft's
forthcoming game system, believing that it would not succeed
because there would be no good reason to buy it over any other
console game system.
I should not have taken Microsoft so lightly.
As one of the most successful companies of the past decades, I
should have known that Microsoft would think of this and find an
answer. Although no official announcement has been made yet, there
is a lot of speculation that Halo, Bungie's much anticipated game
in progress, will now be released only for the X-Box,
providing the "killer app" which will cause many people to buy the
X-Box.
We Mac fans are familiar with petitions to get games released
for our platform, but for once even Wintel folk are signing the
petition <http://www.game-over.net/halo/>.
Although no Mac version would be a great disappointment to me and
many others, Halo does look good enough to bring many customers to
the X-Box. I doubt that I will buy an X-Box for that reason - I
have never been much of a console gamer - but I could see plenty of
other people buying them. If Microsoft would repeatedly make deals
like this, I think that it could start to hurt them as people
become tired of their favorite companies becoming part of the
machine, but I do not think that just this deal is enough to start
much trouble for Microsoft.
What will this do for gaming on the Mac?
It is already a big blow to the morale of the Mac gaming
community - a company that started on the Mac and remained faithful
even during the darkest days, eventually becoming one of the
industry leaders, selling out to a company who many Mac users
consider a prime enemy and very few actually like. Even if Bungie
continues to make Mac games, a question which is unanswered at this
point, I do not think that they will continue to be considered a
leader in the Mac game industry.
As the shock lessens, we should see a few companies jockeying to
replace Bungie, which should cause some healthy competition. It is
not like Bungie has closed its doors, so if it does decide to get
out of the Mac market altogether, it may be done slowly instead of
all at once.
This deal is a blow to the pride and spirit of the Mac gaming
community, but it should not be enough to do serious damage. If
Mac Halo is actually canceled, I think that Mac WarCraft III will
gain even more momentum, assuming it is announced as expected.
WarCraft III was shaping up to be a good rival to Halo in many
ways, but now it may have the field to itself. Both of these games
are war games which promise spectacular graphics, although the
settings are obviously different. With its established name and
size, Blizzard (the publisher of the WarCraft series, as well as
others) seems to be in a particularly good position to take
advantage of this situation - at the upcoming Macworld Expo they
could announce a Mac version of WarCraft III as they make a public
commitment to developing an even stronger Mac presence. Other
companies, especially smaller ones, could also take advantage of
this situation, but in my opinion Blizzard is best situated to make
a move.
It has only been a few days since this deal was made, so we have
not seen for sure what will happen because of it. As you sit back
and hope for the best, think about your favorite low-end Mac games
and email
about them.
Starting fairly soon, some of my articles will be in depth analyses
of games, including extra attention on how to make them run best on
older Macs. I have no limit on how new or old the game has to be,
although in general it helps if there is still somewhere to get it
(I don't want to frustrate people by getting them all excited about
a game and then they can't find it anywhere) - but you will have to
have some pretty good reasons to convince me that Quake 3 is a low
end game.
