This was quoted from the yoyogames glog.



Be sure to keep an sharp eye out.

-Dragonos-

yay!

but wait a second...
for who?
atleast everyone here most probably have windows...

kinda old news, i mean seriously:

Questionable move in my opinion... the Mac gaming market is so small, it seems like a waste of time to develop for it.

Fred, sorry to tell you, but YOU'RE A NUT. The mac market is a very important one for small/indie developers. It's not a big one for enormous companies, but how many enormous companies do you see developing in GM?

Sales to the Mac market are reported to be disproportionately large for those shareware sellers who bother catering to it, and I will be dancing and singing praises when we get a working Mac version.

Of course, if it turns out that I don't get much in the way of Mac sales after all, then I will be sulky and sad, but for now, I'm excited.

I can definitely see the value in this... I don't have a Mac, but who in their right mind would purposefully restrict their product's marketability?

I'm actually not insane, I have my reasoning for thinking this way...

I don't care how indie / cool Apple tries to make Macs seem in their marketing, the largest audience for games is on PC... so if developing a new version of Game Maker for Mac means we have to wait longer for more improvements on the original Game Maker, I am not too happy about it.

Having multiple versions of Game Maker spanning multiple OS's will also mean slower development for new versions in general to fix compatibility problems, speed issues, etc... it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

Edit: Don't get me wrong - I'd like to see Hover Tank 3D running on Macs just as much as the next person... but as I said, if it comes at the cost of a much larger development time for new versions of the program, I'll pass.

Of course, you're more into 3d than I am and possibly therefore more in need of new features, where I'm pretty happy with what GM's already got and more interested in expanding my audience.

I do see where you're coming from though.

I think that in a business perspective, it wasn't the best choice. Their time and effort could be much better placed in enhancing Game Maker's features. Not to mention that a Mac version is indeed kind of useless, as the Mac market is minimal (as FredFredrickson stated).

Sure, it'll generate a little money, but will it really offset the work of keeping the Windows and Mac versions synched? The support issues, keeping them out at the same time and keeping them equally capable is, in my opinion, not worth it.

EDIT: Ah, Fred got there first. He said it better.

I wonder if there will be an 'export to Mac' option on the PC game maker, or if you'll have to install and build separately on a Mac to make a Mac build, or worse, have to build the game entirely in the Mac version?

Obviously it would make life simpler if either version of the editor could create both Mac and PC programs but I know nothing about Mac programming and don't know if that would be difficult.

Not to be a naysayer, but I kind of doubt it.

For one, other languages can't be compiled for other platforms. Also, if a "Export to Mac" option appeared, wouldn't "Export to Windows" have to be on the Mac version? Keeping them both updated as well would be a challenge (in terms of release date).

Well you could always just use a Virtual Machine...

well I'm no pro in this, so I might say something completely stupid now (just point me on it, I like looking stupid - check my other posts I often make a fool of myself).

But won't it be able to work just like "JAVA" - having a different "runner" for each version which you would be able to attach to your game and then the game could be run on the runner's Os (so like Hpapillon said, it would be like pressing "make windows game" or "make mac game") I think this is possible since from what I've read gm is a scripting language which with only real "difference" in structure ist that the runner is given with the game instead as a seperate download.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong/stupid

I'm looking forward to the day when this no longer happens:


I guess the official answer will now be something like:





Sandy's original posts on Mac ports talked about just porting the runner. That would mean that Development would still have to occur on the Windows platform.

His latest Glog entry regarding the Mac:


Now he is talking about porting both the Maker and the Runner. Though a little ambiguous, "as well as games that run on the MAC". Still suggests, that one could develop on Windows and "export to Mac".


Yes the market share of Mac's is decidedly smaller than Windows, but the Mac market share is also not nearly as saturated as the Windows market.

As hpapillon suggested, indie and casual game creators, often comment that sales are not proportionate to market share. I think this is largely due to over-saturation of the PC market, and lots of room still in the Mac casual game market.

I agree with hpapillon- The MAC gaming market may but no where near the size of the windows one- but it's still important. And it will stop the "Can GM run on MAC" posts.

That may be quite true in most cases. But because of this and the fact most Mac users are always trying to find new games to play, our games get more popular. From the Mac community.

Moving away from the Mac port, this may be a sign of a Linux port in the future?

Ya, the Mac gaming market is important, even if its small.

Hopefully they will have the editor use some kind of compatibility layer so they can recompile for windows and mac, and then use 2 different runners for windows and mac. And hopefully after that they will focus on adding stuff.

I would love GM on a mac.

i heard something like people with mac can run 'bootcamp' and use gm,but i have no idea what 'bootcamp' is.

i hope they don't make it for mac though,MAC SUCKS,but thats just my opinion

Personally I'd prefer a linux port.
As to building the exes isn't much of a problem. GM makes exes according to the runner and data, so it could simply use a different runner for the different operating system. If both runners are programmed correctly the data is kept the same so no hassle about that.
I didn't understand the advantages of the mac port, isn't linux much more popular then mac?

Don't you love search engines. First hit I got.


I prefer not to have this topic turned in yet another OS battle, so let's refrain from statements like these. Please.

Instead of making a MAC version, why dont they just make a java version? Then it will work on every os.... it seems obvious to me, and it will still enable us to reach the Mac market.

And it will also allow us to make our games even slower and more memory consuming without all the extra effort of adding things to our games!

My friend got Gamemaker working on linux...

Mac is a heck lot better in graphics( it's what pro's use), so maybe 3D could be better?

I don't even know how to reply to this.

No. Just no.

sorry,its late

To be honest macs are really a waist of time.
The Mac gaming market is small, I would say a no on this.

I really think this is what's going to be so entertaining.

All these years people complain about the fact that GM is Windows only and then when that starts to change, other people complain that it's a waste of time.

I think this is going to be pretty funny.

.... would it be inappropriate of me to giggle both at the incorrect 'waist' and the suggestion that you would be in a position to make the decision?

no. giggle all you want.

Sheesh, mac doesn't suck people. You're just used to windows. That solves all OS war problems, no matter what you say.

Well, you can't make everyone happy, just some people are unhappy for stupid reasons.

You can already run gm7 through wine:
http://forums.g-java.com/index.php?showtopic=6311

Or you could just wait for:
http://www.g-creator.org/doku.php

mac is more graphically enhanced! It is just widows is cheaper, so more people buy it, so that's where the gaming industry goes!

i could go in a whole discussion on why widows is cheaper, but let's keep the spam down

(why am i arguing with a global mod this way)

Graphics don't magically become better as soon as you put them on a Mac. It doesn't work that way. Macs might have better artistic software, but that doesn't make all their graphics "better".

And I could create a whole new discussion on how Linux is a whole lot cheaper than both of them. It is not going to magically happen within the next month or two, so give up now.

i guess you are right...

[spam]MAC FOREVER[/spam]

I work on a Mac almost more than I do on a PC, and there's nothing particularly better about the capabilities of either machine. It's silly to argue about it anyway.

Exactly.

Also, once ported to Mac it wouldn't be much of a problem to port to Linux, would it? They're both based on Unix, aren't they? Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Yes they are both based on Unix, the main problem would be you need to re-write the GUI interface to use a different toolkit (Qt+ or GTK as opposed to whatever the Mac toolkit is).

Wow. GM for Macs...this is...completely pointless! The newer Macs can actually run both Mac OS and Windows OS anyway! This is simply a waste of time and only retards the development of GM8.

Also, if you don't want a newer Mac, it's called a Windows emulator.

Let the fun begin.

Some people don't want to put windows on their mac. Some people don't have older macs.

It's not pointless, give it up. And don't start an OS war please...

After reading through everyones posts, I various people don't understand what they are talking about.

Just to clear things up, as for a Mac being more "graphically enhanced", that would be a load of chips. As Yourself said, Mac's have greater graphical based software, not hardware.

Do you think windows would have better graphics if it were run on a Mac with bootcamp? Didn't think so.

I feel this is developing into a OS battle. Each operating system has their pros and cons and while an OS may be good at one job, it may stink at another job another OS can do well.

Remember, this topic is about a Mac port, not the OS World Cup

I have Windows also on my computer (my primary system is Linux), but I don't switch OSes everytime I want to run Game Maker (I actually rarely ever run Game Maker anymore..)

And trust me.. Windows emulators don't run Game Maker games (in 6 or 7).

I think it's a very good move. A large percentage of schools use Macs, and having Game Maker running on them would provide the opportunity for a ton more people to learn about game creation.

Excellant point.

Why is everyone against the portability to MAC? I bet the same people who don't want to port to MAC are the same people who hate GM7. You people make absoultely no sense whatsoever.

"Vista Stinks"
I don't have it granted, but have you ever tried it? I dont think Microsoft, the leader of computers, wastes their time and money to come up with software that "stinks". If Vista stinks, then why don't you create a better version?

"MAC Stinks"
They don't have many video games. Is this one reason why they stink? Do they stink because most blockbuster movies are made on those machines?

And I actually believed that people here made video games to get gamers everywhere to enjoy what they made and to receive attention and recognition from everywhere possible. Obviously not.

The only downside for porting to MAC is what FredFredrickson might say. However, it might be simple as going to File>Port to Mac or File>Port to PC. Sure, things might take longer to implement to keep things in sync. However, I am sure we all don't need a better GM. What is GM missing except for some over-glorified features? We pretty much have it all and the only barrier for creating games on GM is maybe the lag and the user experience.

Id rather see the time spent improving what we have.... Just think, we have to make it so Gm doesnt use Direct X anymore....

Why dont we invest this time making GM Direct x9 based?