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Games On Demand Service For Mac 78

Posted by Hemos from the try-before-you-buy dept.
Torrey Clark writes "MyMacGames is preparing to launch a new 'games on demand' service for Mac users ($8-20 per month) in the third quarter of 2007 that will feature roughly 100 games at launch. They are currently offering a free beta."
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Games On Demand Service For Mac More

Games On Demand Service For Mac

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  • I heard about this before... (Score:4, Funny)

    by macadamia_harold ( 947445 ) on Monday January 01, 2007 @10:59AM (#17421942) Homepage
    MyMacGames is preparing to launch a new 'games on demand' service for Mac users ($8-20 per month) in the third quarter of 2007 that will feature roughly 100 games at launch.

    I've heard about this. Photoshop's a game, right? [blackgate.net]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 )
      I've heard about this. Photoshop's a game, right?

      1998 called. They want their joke back...
    • I've heard about this. Photoshop's a game, right?

      Well I sure hope so, because a monthly 8 to 20$ to legally use Photoshop sounds like a damn good deal.

  • "Developers please email contact@mymacgames.com " (Score:3, Funny)

    by goldcd ( 587052 ) on Monday January 01, 2007 @11:06AM (#17421984) Homepage
    That's not the most promising of starts..

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
      I'm sceptical of a site which asks for your email address without providing any information. I was also intrigued by the title 'remember when you used to buy games?' Actually, I do. I bought Diablo II, and I still play it occasionally. I bought Escape Velocity Nova three years ago, and it's a lot of fun from time to time. The most recent game I bought was Railroad Tycoon 3, which didn't get much play time because it required the CD in the drive to work, which is not good for me, because my laptop and t

      • The most recent game I bought was Railroad Tycoon 3, which didn't get much play time because it required the CD in the drive to work, which is not good for me, because my laptop and the CD are frequently not in the same place.

        One of the things I like about OS X is that it works so well with disk images -- try creating one from your Railroad Tycoon CD, mounting it, and seeing if the game lets you play then. It works for me with Ghost Recon and Age of Empires 2 anyway...

        • That trick works with tons of games (Civ 3, Blizzard games, etc), but sadly not RailRoad Tycoon 3. A few months after I got the game my CD drive died. :(
          • Amusingly, some don't even use the data on the disk - they just check for the presence of a volume with the right name. I had a 3MB empty disk image (or whatever the minimum limit was) that was simply called "Civilisation III" and it worked fine. However it's the prevalence of these kinds of tips on sites that lead to the physical disk check - the game companies don't want their games pirated.
  • Apple have this little habit of having these fun little idea's that turn into unstoppable revolutions. Were it not for the enormous braking force of Microsoft ripping their idea's constantly they'd be much further ahead then they are now.

    Apple don't have a great record of games on their platform, but is that so terrible? They weren't really aiming at the gamer until relatively recently. After all, they'd never had a portable music player till the iPod, and that seems to have gone well.
    • Apple have this little habit of having these fun little idea's that turn into unstoppable revolutions. Were it not for the enormous braking force of Microsoft ripping their idea's constantly they'd be much further ahead then they are now.

      Apple has a way of leveraging Windows dominance on the desktop to its own advantage. Which is why half its current revenues can be traced back to the iPod and iTunes.

    • Actually Apple made a big deal of aiming at gamers about six years ago after the first or maybe second gen iMac was released. Quake 3 was on the Mac, Myth 2, Starcraft, etc. And they started a games page on Apple.com.
    • That seems like the trend so far. I'm not so sure that I see Apple getting into making their own games, but I do see popular games in the future being release not only on PCs, but on Macs as well, because of the growing number of mac users. It's now finally profitable to develop game for Macs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 7Prime ( 871679 )

        Don't mean to sound like a troll, but I think the PC games market, as a whole, is looking pretty grim, as consoles are (once again, the way they were in the 80s), taking the gaming community back by storm. Obviously, Computer games will never completely dissappear, but with development costs and support for consoles falling, the rise of the handheld market, and the skyrocketting adoption rates of consoles, not to mention console hardware matching (if not surrpassing) PC hardware, for the first time in it's

        • Yeah, I agree. Since I started using a Sony PSP, I've been convinced that a lot of the gaming world will eventually lean towards mobility, and the "staionary" consoles will become smaller, and more portable, which a desktop computer is not, and most likely will never truly be.
    • You're going for Mod+5 "Funny" right?

  • LOL (eom) (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by popo ( 107611 )
    No really, eom.
  • Wasn't Aspyr launching something similar to this called the 'Gamerhood [macnn.com]'? Originally supposed to launch in Fall of 2006, I don't think it ever made it past the press release stage of it's life. In fact, searching Aspyr's site doesn't return anything even mentioning the Gamerhood.

  • Great (Score:1, Redundant)

    by crossmr ( 957846 )
    That's the full catalogue, where do they go from there?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crossmr ( 957846 )
      Was someone just biding their time for mod points to come back days later and mod this down? Especially considering I actually checked to see if someone had made the joke before doing so...
  • The mac-users finally get the games they've been demanding? Or, are they simply making a new game about the "Demand Service"?

  • Nice, Thanks!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GanjaManja ( 946130 ) on Monday January 01, 2007 @06:52PM (#17425832)
    This is great, thanks so much for posting this link!

    I've been searching for some fun PWOT games for the last 3-4 weeks, and this'll fill the void perfectly!
    For those of you that keep saying there's no mac games, I think I know why:
    I read the lists of "top 10 games of 2006" and "top 10 indy games" and all those things hoping for some good games: they all sucked.
    They're full of fantastical role-playing games, not the kind of game where you can't just open it and play, but instead all these long, drawn out stories: absolutely not what I'm looking for. I want a fun game, not a soap opera or 2 month-long drama. You guys just want a different type of game.
    I DID just install BootCamp for a game, in fact. 1/2 year ago, I tried SimCity (in Parallels/Windows), then deleted it. I Tried Halo then deleted it. This time I installed Windows solely for WORMS ARMAGEDDON, the best game ever invented (short of the Mario games)! (Pissed that I have to use BootCamp, it used to work great in VirtualPC, meaning I didn't have to shut down my servers just to play a game! Parallels doesn't do "DirectDraw" or some crap, so I gotta fully restart into Windoze)

    So the games I've found are great. Ambrosia Software has Great Mac games (tho I wish they'd update some old one's out of Classic). I even found a new version of CrystalQuest for Mac OS X (in 3D!) [apple.com]. That game [apple2.org.za] absolutely kicks ass, the first game ever to really use the mouse as a totally new type of input device.
    Also, NES and SNES emulators absolutely rule. Back before insane 3D graphics, people were forced to sell games on gameplay Only. Hey, I'm only 24 and I'm this into retro games, so it's not just nostalgia!

  • Email from MyMacGames (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01, 2007 @08:08PM (#17426618)
    I received an (unexpected) email from MyMacGames last Saturday:

    Subject: MyMacGames and [my company name deleted]

    Hey,

    I'm Mark Howson, and I'm a marketing manager for MyMacGames.com. MyMacGames is a forthcoming service set to change the world of mac gaming for ever, and we're so impressed by your product, we'd love you to come on board.

    Your paid games show a great level of dedication and hard work, that needs rewarding.

    MyMacGames wants to bring the excitement of your games, and hundreds of others to mac games throughout the world. Before you stop reading, we're not asking to buy your game, we're not asking to remove the amazing creativity that controls it. We're just offering you another way to distribute it.

    Games don't last forever, and every game is not right for every person, so the MyMacGames system follows 3 central strategies to provide a new way of buying games for the mac platform, and a new 'rental' strategy to mac gaming around the world.

    These 3 pillars are:

    Choice
    Anti Theft
    Fair Pay

    Firstly, choice. We feel the consumer deserves a choice as how they play games, how long they keep them for, and which games they play. We charge between $8.00 and $30.00 to the consumer per month, for them to experience a number of exciting mac games (between 8 and 35 simultaneously).

    The consumer can change the game in each slot every 14 days. This is on a slot by slot basis, so if a consumer adds a game to one slot on the 1st, they could change it on the 15th. Another slot, with a game added on the 3rd, could be changed on the 17th. The user has 24 hours to change the game. If they play the game during this 24 hour window, we assume they wish to keep the game.

    Our system will email users to tell them when a slot is available to switch, and will warn them if playing the game will mean they forfeit the opportunity to 'swap' the game out for another game. These methods make the user feel in control, while giving you greater earning potential.

    Of course, you're not going to earn money if we just give users unlocked dmgs, so we're going to be sure to protect your intellectual property. Which brings us on to our second 'pillar', anti theft.

    We know that your work is your most valuable asset, and we really do care for your property, and the time you've spent. The idea of providing us with an unlocked dmg sounds stupid, but it's not.

    Games are spliced with code that means they live in our application, can only be played via our application, and are encrypted with the AES method. The AES (or Advanced Encryption Standard) is an encryption standard involving unique keys. It is the standard encryption method of the US government, and is one of the most secure methods around. But for your game, that's just not enough.

    All downloads will also be watermarked, so if encryption is broken, we'll know exactly who broke our encryption, disable the version where possible, send out a whole load of intellectual property notices, and disable the account. Of course, this won't happen, but we'll be equipped with this, and other, secondary safeguards just so we sleep well at night.

    Which leaves us with the final pillar, fair pay. We feel this is the most important pillar, and one that will be crucial to our business with you. For every game slot you fill, we'll pay you 10 cents/week. This money will be provided monthly by your choice of method, we will support:

    Wire Transfer
    PayPal

    You will have a control panel, where you can hold payments, check payment data (updated daily) and find out how your game is doing. If your game is in our top 10, or less than 1 month old, then 2 slots are required to play the game, and we will, of course, pay you twice as much money.

    Here's some examples of quite how much that is

    Normal game 1000 players weekly (average)
  • I've had it! I'm switching to Linux... there are just too many games for OS X already...
  • A lot of Macheads I talk to are still addicted to games they played 10 or 20 years ago. Stuff like Dark Castle, Marathon, and Risk were fun stuff back in the day. I'll have to RTFA and check out the link to see if they have some oldies but goodies.
  • None of which involve right clicking.... So that leaves what? Minesweeper? Nope, right clicking in that... Hmmm... I guess you only need 1 button to play whack-a-mole.
  • This should help increase the number of gamers that buy a Mac.

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