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General discussion (archive)Why aren't games formatted for OS X?(53 posts)(53 posts)
(53 posts)
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Posted March 29, 2012

Yes, but how many of those are already buying GOGs and just doing what you're doing?
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skubberson: Only those who would have access to windows based machines to unpack the games.

Making these games OS X compatible opens up a lot of possibility for GOG to market products in the Apple Application store and create a lot of attention since, let's face it, OS X games are slim (but gaining).
I'm fairly certain the installers work in Wine. You don't need Windows to unpack them.
Posted March 29, 2012
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skubberson: Only those who would have access to windows based machines to unpack the games.

Making these games OS X compatible opens up a lot of possibility for GOG to market products in the Apple Application store and create a lot of attention since, let's face it, OS X games are slim (but gaining).
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SirPrimalform: I'm fairly certain the installers work in Wine. You don't need Windows to unpack them.
yup, i dont use windows to get my gog games goin!
Posted March 29, 2012
I'm fairly certain that Andoid is picking up a lot of Apple business too, at least as far as iOS is concerned and it's the mobile platforms that now seem to get the attention. So I think for the forseeable future, and the further that future goes on even less likely it becomes, OSX is a no go as far as 'normal PC' gaming goes. If any related OS gets the business it'll be a split market between iOS and Android

However, isn't Apple going ahead with their own initative as far as gaming goes, or is that just a potential Apple console?
Posted March 29, 2012

I think the OP is missing a few very big points with his argument.

First off, you say that with indie games Mac makes up 20% of sales generated. Well, good for them.
Never. Not once. I never even alluded to it. I'm not sure what you read, but I never said Mac makes up 20% of the indie market.

That doesn't mean that 20% of the population here is filled by Mac users, and those who do use mac and shop here, are already going through the process of converting the games anyway so they can use them. That's not a 20% increase of sales if those people already have the games, and it's not a 20% increase in sales when the number of people involved in the indie game community aren't in this one.
Again I never said 20% was anything more than an example of potential revenue for a minimal investment.

Next up, market share... okay, big deal. Mac's beaten Linux. But then, Linux had a fairly small market share too. Linux looks interesting as all get-out, but I'm not willing to take the time to learn to use it while I'm busy in school. That again doesn't mean that there's a flood of people waiting to purchase games here. This is the same mistake you made with the 20% comment, you're equating the total population to be the same in this one. So, it's X = Y, but Y =/= X (Meaning, all users on this site belong to the total number of computer owners of varied OS, but that total number does not exist on here).
There is no extra support since the platform is virtualized inside the DOSBox emulator. GOG picks the release like they do for any of their current releases.

You also say it's minimal work to convert and make the games accessible to Mac Users. Good, then it's minimal work for you as well. GOG is staffed by a small group of people, and for them to go about converting every game on this list while managing new games, tech support, issues, the forums, so on, would take a fairly long time without some added help. It also means doubling up on the bandwidth usage to support two versions of the same program, which may kick up costs on us.
Yes DOS games are just *HUGE*... good point.

Next up: "Making this games OS X Compatible opens up a lot of possibility for GOG to market products in the Apple Application Store ect. ect.". Somehow, I don't think Apple supports anything that isn't.... an application, or a direct game, while this site is basically one large service. Plus Apple probably takes a cut of the profits on anything sold. It's easier to just do what they're doing now.

In any case, things aren't likely to change unless we wind up with a very large part of the forum advocating the switch. Not to be a drag, but that's economics for you.

Wow. Everyone is so jaded. God forbid someone suggest something.
Posted March 29, 2012
The reason are that these are PC games not OS X games. Sure enough the older games are easy enough to run inside emulators but the newer games would be more trouble that it would be worth.
Posted March 29, 2012
This thread is beginning to spiral in to the brown abyss. I'm waiting for the juggalos to show up.

I apologize to everyone on these forums for suggesting that GOG put there DOSBox games into essentially a zip file instead of packaging them in an installer so that people running OS X (and linux) could run the games they paid for with less hassle.

I'd also like to take this time to ask a moderator to either lock this thread or delete it since nothing useful will ever come of it.

Other than the helpful and informative post by htown1980, this thread has been a complete waste of all participants time.

Good day.
Posted March 30, 2012
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skubberson: Again I never said 20% was anything more than an example of potential revenue for a minimal investment.
And it was a grossly, ridiculously overinflated example.
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skubberson: There is no extra support since the platform is virtualized inside the DOSBox emulator. GOG picks the release like they do for any of their current releases.
Yes there is. How many support cases do you think are caused by local issues on the user's machine, rather than a fault in the release? A lot. And if GOG supported Mac officially, they'd have to handle support cases where something was wrong on a platform they have no experience with.
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skubberson: I apologize to everyone on these forums for suggesting that GOG put there DOSBox games into essentially a zip file instead of packaging them in an installer so that people running OS X (and linux) could run the games they paid for with less hassle.
No, that is not what you said, and you don't get to act butthurt and victimized by pretending you did afterwards. I guarantee you, if you had suggested simply that raw game files for DOS games had a .zip download option, noone would have argued with you, other than saying it's been suggested before, and GOG seems disinclined to do so.
Post edited March 30, 2012 by Wishbone
Posted March 30, 2012
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skubberson: This thread is beginning to spiral in to the brown abyss. I'm waiting for the juggalos to show up.

I apologize to everyone on these forums for suggesting that GOG put there DOSBox games into essentially a zip file instead of packaging them in an installer so that people running OS X (and linux) could run the games they paid for with less hassle.

I'd also like to take this time to ask a moderator to either lock this thread or delete it since nothing useful will ever come of it.

Other than the helpful and informative post by htown1980, this thread has been a complete waste of all participants time.

Good day.
Seriously, why are you acting so upset over this? I think people have been remarkably civil and insightful over the reasons why GOG hasn't, and likely still won't continue to support the Mac. I'm one of the few people here who plays GOG releases almost exclusively on Mac OS X and I completely understand from a business and logistical standpoint why GOG doesn't have Mac support, even though from a technical standpoint it theoretically would be "easy".

It's actually not that hard to get DOSBox releases working on OS X; it's totally free if you use Wineskin to open the GOG installers and Boxer is practically foolproof.

And in all seriousness, with all due respect, please ditch the entitled attitude. You're not doing anyone any favors by acting like GOG owes you something.

Oh, and here's the thread again for getting DOSBox games to work in OS X: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/gog_games_on_mac_os_x_a_how_to

Wineskin, an excellent "distro" of WINE, for both GOG Windows game compatibility and for extracting game installers for use in DOSBox, can be found here: http://wineskin.doh123.com/

Boxer, the best and easiest way to play GOG DOSBox games in OS X, is here: http://boxerapp.com/

And finally two GOGmixes for you: first, my own GOGmix with Windows games that work well in CrossOver (and/or Wineskin), along with some of my favorite DOSBox games which work great in Boxer: http://www.gog.com/en/mix/mac_friendly_gog_games_4

And Lazafar's excellent GOGmix of GOG games which use DOSBox: http://www.gog.com/en/mix/games_using_dosbox

There's also a list of GOG DOSBox releases here: http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/GOG_games_that_use_DOSBox

So what are you waiting for? Stop complaining and start playing! :)
Post edited March 30, 2012 by rampancy
Posted March 30, 2012
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orcishgamer: This, the number of Mac gamers that don't have access to Windows and don't know how to do what the OP is doing is vanishingly small. If you want to use the pain in the ass OS (where gaming is concerned) you take the lumps. I say this as Linux fan, I only have one Windows PC, still I'm not willing to sacrifice massive amounts of time to try to seriously game on Linux, it's a waste, I'd rather play an extra game.
The same. I like Linux and all, but I've never really felt the need trying to push it to Linux too, considering that even the main PC gaming plafform (Windows) seems sometimes to be struggling a bit. Maybe I just don't like the idea of dispersing it even more, making it even less viable. A bit the same with OS X, even if many PC games offer Mac versions too.

Loki Games tried to push Linux gaming, it didn't work out. Apparently not enough paying customers on Linux gaming front.
Posted March 30, 2012
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skubberson: This thread is beginning to spiral in to the brown abyss. I'm waiting for the juggalos to show up.

I apologize to everyone on these forums for suggesting that GOG put there DOSBox games into essentially a zip file instead of packaging them in an installer so that people running OS X (and linux) could run the games they paid for with less hassle.

I'd also like to take this time to ask a moderator to either lock this thread or delete it since nothing useful will ever come of it.

Other than the helpful and informative post by htown1980, this thread has been a complete waste of all participants time.

Good day.
You're welcome.
People are just giving their opinions, they disagree with you and explain why, it's not meant to be personal.
You're question was a good one, it provoked some discussion/debate, thank you.
Check out rampancy and lazafar's gog mixes as well. (even though it is gog not GOG, they are still good).
Don't give up on the forums, people are generally nice, but they will express their opinions.

And play some games!!
Posted March 30, 2012
Mac OS X is for fancy "apps" and iTunes. Old/new games are not "apps", they are games. Got a Mac? Want to play games? Buy Windows and profit.....
Posted March 30, 2012
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skubberson: Since a lot of the GOG catalog utilizes Dosbox (which supports windows and Mac operating systems) why doesn't GOG offer packages that are compatible in OS X?

I've been installing the packages in windows and then copying out the folders from the program files in windows. I've actually been formatting them for Boxer which is an awesome Dosbox front end for OS X.

It's a bit of a hassle, but the whole process has me wondering why GOG isn't preparing these files in the same manner and marketing them for OS X compatibility.

So what gives? Why no OS X packaged files?
As a fellow Mac user, i just run everything i have here via bootcamp with my windoze 7 partition. After Blizzard dropped support for most of it earlier titles i threw up my hands and just gave in.
Posted March 30, 2012
I'm not sure GOG would like the hassle to advertise that /some/ games works on OSX, as they are trying to be the least confusing possible for their target market about Windows 7 compatibility. Providing a zipped version of ScummVM/DOSBox games would be wonderful, but could be confusing for new users and takes both time and disk space.

They advertises the support of all games sold here, so they would have to fully support OSX users too. The only OSX/Linux support here is provided by users, and so GOG doesn't have to hire Mac/Linux aware staff.

What is missing right now is a way to easily extract files from Inno Setup installers without resorting to emulation: there is still no cross-system solution for it, and even with the available Inno Setup source, the Delphi code it's too tied to Windows to be easily portable, and the only alternative, Innounp, is Windows-only too.
Posted March 30, 2012
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skubberson: I apologize to everyone on these forums for suggesting that GOG put there DOSBox games into essentially a zip file instead of packaging them in an installer so that people running OS X (and linux) could run the games they paid for with less hassle.
That is actually something I support, I only ever meant that Mac support was uneconomical.
Posted March 30, 2012
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orcishgamer: This, the number of Mac gamers that don't have access to Windows and don't know how to do what the OP is doing is vanishingly small. If you want to use the pain in the ass OS (where gaming is concerned) you take the lumps. I say this as Linux fan, I only have one Windows PC, still I'm not willing to sacrifice massive amounts of time to try to seriously game on Linux, it's a waste, I'd rather play an extra game.
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timppu: The same. I like Linux and all, but I've never really felt the need trying to push it to Linux too, considering that even the main PC gaming plafform (Windows) seems sometimes to be struggling a bit. Maybe I just don't like the idea of dispersing it even more, making it even less viable. A bit the same with OS X, even if many PC games offer Mac versions too.

Loki Games tried to push Linux gaming, it didn't work out. Apparently not enough paying customers on Linux gaming front.
Well, this has to be balanced against the increasing number of indie games supporting Linux (see the humble indie bundles, indeed, Linux customers appear to pay more on average).

Sure, Loki didn't work out (which is unusual in this industry, oh wait, no it isn't!), but it doesn't mean the whole venture is a dead end.
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General discussion (archive)Why aren't games formatted for OS X?(53 posts)(53 posts)
(53 posts)