The Secret History of Mac Gaming

[Harrison]

A new book from Bitmap books exploring the history of gaming on the Apple Mac is about to be released.

It's synopsis reads:

The Macintosh changed video games. It challenged the medium to be more than child’s play and quick reflexes. It made human-computer interaction friendly, inviting, and intuitive. Mac gaming led to much that is now taken for granted by PC gamers and spawned some of the biggest franchises in video game history — including Myst, Halo, and SimCity. It allowed anyone to create games and playful software with ease, and gave indie developers a home for their products.

It welcomed strange ideas and encouraged experimentation. It fostered passionate and creative communities who inspired and challenged developers to do better and to follow the Mac mantra: ‘think different’.

I'm interested in reading it just to see the author and contributing writers take on this. Reading this synopsis is like reading about an alternative reality. Did I live though a completely different 80s and 90s to the history this author is referencing?

I am especially bemused by his claim that the Mac was responsible for changing video games. I would argue that it's correct in terms of bringing the WIMP interface into the mainstream and therefore introducing the mouse and all that goes with it. But other than as a form of control and interaction, changing video games?

And spawning some of the biggest franchise in history, sighting Myst, Halo, and SimCity. Since when did Halo start life on the Mac? If they mean FPS, nope. And Myst? Whist it was a bit cutting edge at the time due to its rendered scenes, it was only a very polished adventure puzzle game. Not actually revolutionary as they existed on every system. I will however give them SimCity. That was only possible because of the Macs WIMP system, but then with a Mouse, the PC DOS version worked OK, and was in colour!

I have never considered the Apple Mac in any way a big influence in the majority of the video games industry. Especially with comparison to the systems that actually led the evolution of gaming. Compare the Amiga era and what was achieved at the same time as the Mac. There is no comparison. But like I said I'm amused to read this (in my view) skewed take on video game history, just to read what Mac fans experienced and thought from the other side. I'm thinking it's an American perspective, because they didn't enjoy the massive gaming revolution the UK did in the same way at the time.

For me the Apple Mac is actually the system responsible for evolving the OS, and for the original creation of some of the best creative productivity software for the creative industry. Without it we wouldn't have Photoshop, Illustator, DTP software, advanced printing systems etc. To me that is what the Mac means.

What do you think?

[J T]

....

I have never considered the Apple Mac in any way a big influence in the majority of the video games industry...

What do you think?

The fact that this thread instantly went from Mac gaming to 'LOLS emulating a snes on my PC' and then 'procrastination w00t' only goes to prove your point, I feel.

[Harrison]

I think you just summed up this whole fourm's existence!

But I like it that way. I hate sites where people jump on you for going off topic.

[J T]

It is nice to pass time with chit chat, yeah. Some people take life too seriously. Of course, not everything can be fun and games either but a good dose of chilling out is important.

[Harrison]

I finally ordered this book when it came into stock. It's very quirky in terms of how it's designed. It's a very tall thin book front on, and quite thick with a lot of pages. It's layout is unique in trying to use the old B/W Mac OS interface in the first few pages to create a timeline of Mac game evolution.

I was a little disappointed as there are not that many pictures compared to other recent gaming books I've purchased. But it did have a lot of content that I've not had time to start exploring fully yet.

Would I recommend it? Not sure yet. Will have to get back to you on that once I've read some more. I really bought is as an interesting curiosity to explore early Mac gaming because I didn't really take much notice of the limited Mac gaming scene back at the time. If most interest is the popularity of adventure games on the system, as I might be tempted too try a few that look interesting.

It's also already nice to know about a system, it's history, culture, developers and what was on offer.

So really for the moment I would say only consider buying it if you were either a Mac gamer and want to read more from it's developed and maybe reminisce, or if you are fascinated with finding out about systems you never owned.