Good lord, how many paradigm-shifting announcements can Mac gamers handle? Just when we were getting used to the idea of Parallels and Crossover virtualization and dual-booting as the new standard practice of Mac gamers, InsideMacGames.com reports on Cider, “a software portability engine for Apple’s Intel-based Macs… [that allows] video game developers and publishers to deploy their Windows-based titles on Apple’s new Intel Mac - quickly, easily, and without the need for traditional porting.”

Lets give this announcement the credit its due with a hearty and sincere holy shit. Now, lets think of all the concepts exploding in our Mac-gaming heads: BootCamp gaming; dual-booting; the $200 I spent for a copy of WinXP; the certain death of the entire Mac porting industry.

This means, on the one hand, that Mac gamers will be able to walk into the same stores as everyone else and find hybrid versions of their games, like Blizzard has always done. Thus, the biggest barrier to Mac gaming — availability, distribution, and shelf-space — has been effectively solved.

But is this really the silver bullet for Mac gaming nirvana? Probably not.

The Mac gaming market is still incredibly fractured, bedeviled by rampant piracy, and slow to grow. All the Cider announcement will do, at best, is broaden the concept of what “mainstream” games are big enough to warrant a Mac “version” by lowering the cost of entry. That is because Cider replaces the long and tedious work of porting with a simple “wrapper” that can be implemented in just a few hours or days. But Cider only accounts for the technical costs of bringing a game to the Mac. The wrapper still needs to be liscenced and implemented by gaming companies, which will then have to offer technical support the “Mac version” of their game, market it separately to Mac gamers, make sure their disks are cross-platformable, and share their revenue with Cider. So even though it now becomes a lot cheaper to bring a game to the Mac from a technical perspective, a lot of companies will still not want to invest in the additional “to-market costs” given the very real risk and with only a moderate chance of profitability.

What also won’t change is the availability of homebrew, shareware, and small-developer titles where a lot of the innovative experiments are occurring. Cider makes its money by taking a cut of the revenues a game generates. They will probably not be interested in working with a small developer who might sell only 1000 units or less. In fact, when I sent them an email posing as a developer and asking exactly this same question, they completely ignored me. So for aficionados of the indy gaming scene, dual-booting will probably remain your only viable option unless virtualization technologies like Parallels or Crossover prove to be broadly capable.

Colin Smith over at Freeverse was kind enough to let us know in a recent email that the Cider announcement will have no effect on the HOMMV port:

Cider sounds very interesting… and I’ll be very curious to see how well it works. It wont have any impact on HOMMV though since that port is already underway.

For more on Cider, read my previous post below.

Freeverse has really been through a lot with this port. First BootCamp comes out and threatens to cannibalize their sales with Mac fans opting with a dual-booting solution. Then Cider comes out and completely alters the economics of porting a game for the Mac. In the mean time, virtualization solutions like Parallels and Crossover offer the very real near-term possibility that PC games will play in OSX seamlessly, and without any porting or wrapping at all. Some gamers over at the IMG forums report running Half-Life (1? 2?) in OSX with no problems using the alpha version of Crossover.

In a reversal of its earlier position as reported on this blog, Freeverse is now saying that Cider is factoring into their plans for the port. Unless it is going to be too expensive to break the contract with the Russian port house, I would think this would be a great idea for them. It would not only make the “port” a lot cheaper and get it out the door within a matter of days or week, but will almost make it feasible to include extras like the Map Editor and support future expansions. Gamers win, Freeverse wins. The only question is how many G5 gamers (and hence sales) this will leave out in the cold with their noses pressed against the glass.

It would also be another first in the “new Mac gaming economy” by showing how established Mac programmers like Freeverse or Aspyr can act as the licensing and tech-support middle-man between the primary game producer, the Cider process, and the Mac gamers. Cider has stated that their interest is to work directly with the first-party publishers, but I don’t see how this works practically. Not only would the first-party have no tech support experience for the Mac version, but their relationship to established Mac distribution channels would also likely be weak.

All that speculation aside, here is something concrete in case you’ve missed it. The fans have risen to the challenge and have produced a comprehensive 50MB Missing Manual that covers everything there is to know about HOMM5. A great reference well produed and well worth printing out. In color!

… that you will be spending more money soon. For today in the official forums Fabrice the Wonder Producer struck a thunderous chord with the announcement of Hammers of Fate, the first (of many?) HOMM5 expansion packs. And somewhat surprisingly, the software is slated for a release as early as November 2006.

Frankly, my magic 8-ball of Mac HOMM is getting exhausted! The Freeverse port was promised by December, but now the first PC expansion will be shipping prior. Could this mean Mac gamers will get a double-whammy super release of the core and expansion game as separate products? Probably not! The expansion is said to include extra software such as the much ballyhooed Random Map Generator, which would require additional porting. Then again, we don’t know if Freeverse is going to go with Cider for the port, in which case it might be trivial to make a Mac version available. At this point, it is just impossible to tell and all this speculation is getting out of hand. Perhaps its time for Colin at Freeverse to grant us Interview #3?

Anyway, here is what Fabrice revealed about the expansion:

• 15 campaign missions, new solo and new MP maps, new buildings, artefacts, neutrals, etc.
• Random map generator
• Simultaneous turn in multi-player
• An enhanced version of the map editor set to be released in 1.3, but which will also be delivered online for free
• A caravan system for the automated delivery of troops to distant heroes

Pretty hot stuff actually, with the random map generator probably the biggest surprise. When HOMM5 made the leap to full 3D, the common wisdom was that it would be impossible to create a map generator of the type found in 2D, tile-based games because the geometry and context is too complicated. So much for that theory.

I also like the theme of the expansion: dwarves. Wouldn’t be high fantasy without those grizzled mini-Scottsmen wandering around spreading cynicism and folksy wisdom and jokes about big dark holes. The new character designs are full of character and truly outstanding.

More pics are available at PC.IGN.com.

CodeWeavers today released the beta of CrossOver for OSX, a clever piece of software that allows Windows apps to run directly in OSX as a “native application” and without having to install or run Windows itself. Very fancy.

The problem is that programs usually need a little tweaking to run properly. Case in point: HOMM5. Even though it isn’t on CodeWeavers list of officially supported software, I decided to give it a shot. After 18 years of Mac use it was absolutely bizarre to see Windows install dialogue boxes actually running within OSX. “Freakish” would be the word, and probably “unimaginable” too. Even more freakish and unimaginable was the seamlessness of the whole process. Set-up and installation was very easy, and no configuration was required. Unfortunately, HOMM5 doesn’t actually run at all. It starts to initialize through CrossOver, then nothing happens. Bad news for me; good news for Freeverse?

Anyone have better luck? And has anyone tried HOMM5 in Parallels, our modern-day VirtualPC replacement?

Update: Gamer Aika in the InsideMacGames.com CrossOver discussion thread confirms that neither HOMM2 Gold or HOMM3 run either. Odd that, consider HOMM2 is listed as supported. *shrugs*

Update #2: Turns out that CrossOver will NOT work with games that use CD copy protection, a la HOMM5. *SIGH* Just another example of how game companies punish their good customers. Anyone know of a crack? Since I’ve already paid for the game I certainly don’t feel to guilty about using one.