If you are fed up with Aspyr, you might be interested in this

[ghall]

Like many of you, I am fed up with Aspyr's lack of UB updates. It's been over a year since Intel Mac's were first released, and a few months more since they were announced, and Aspyr has had ample time to convert even just their most popular games to UB, but they haven't. SimCity 4, Star Wars: KOTOR, among others, have yet to see a universal patch, yet Aspyr keeps promising that they're on their way. How can they get away with this? Because they are the only portal for most Mac users to games in popular franchises, such as Star Wars, SimCity, The Sims, and other games originally developed for the PC.

If you too are fed up with this, then you can help to organize a boycott of all Aspyr products until they make good on their promise of Universal patches for all the Mac OS X compatible games they said they would update.

UPDATE: Okay, so this post was pretty much all bark and no bite, but I have set up an online petition to send to Aspyr, and I hope to get every gamer on MacRumors who owns Aspyr products to sign it. If you would like to sign it, click here!

Also, I would appreciate your help in advertising this cause by putting a link to this petition in your signature on any Mac or gaming related forums you may be a member of.

UPDATE 2: If you would rather contact Aspyr directly, you can find their contact info here!

 

[ghall]

Update 3

Okay, I have a website up. If your interested, check it out.

http://homepage.mac.com/graham_hall/Boycott Aspyr/

 

[applekid]

Petitions... don't work.

Although they have never officially stated it, an e-mail they sent me said the conversion from CodeWarrior's IDE to XCode takes a huge chunk of their time. Using CodeWarrior back around when OS 9 existed, I might be inclined to believe them. XCode is much nicer. Besides, they are still focused more on new projects and the delayed GamerHood online game store. Looking at some indie projects like Enemy Territory, that took several months to finally get to Universal Binary, I'm not surprised by the slow rate of UB's. A large project like Halo took a complete re-write. Sorry, but these things take a lot of time, even if they decide to focus on UB's.

You can complain all you want, but the good news is Aspyr's Glenda Adams and the rest of Mac game porting community appears to be upbeat about Mac gaming still (despite seeing almost purely game console threads in this forum). The other possibly good news/rumor is Aspyr wants to have plenty of UB's ready for GamerHood.

 

[ghall]

Looks like Aspyr is finally getting the message!

http://homepage.mac.com/graham_hall/Boycott Aspyr/files/80a7b09efcb2ef9a78ce699bbd1d2ff6-3.html

 

[madmax_2069]

i would be after other porting houses than just ASPYR. cause there was allot of developers that ported a game to Mac and updated the PC version and left out the Mac version that they ported and to this day still refuse to make things right. there was a few developers that released a Mac version of a PC game that are no longer porting to Mac's and only develop PC games that they refuse to support the game they ported to the Mac.

 

[Eric5h5]

Boycott...give me a break. Aspyr has released a bunch of UBs, and in some cases where they haven't, it's because the games depend on third-party libraries that haven't been converted (or were only just recently converted). I am boycotting this boycott.

--Eric

 

[Xavier]

The guys and gals over at Aspyer have lives to you know. I'm not sure my wife would be happy to see me reprogramming and coding at the dinner table. It will get done when they hire a few more hands.

I don't think they run on your schedule.

If anyone, be mad at MacSoft for creating a horrible UB of Halo, and so few titles. (Yet it is true we got AoE3)

 

[Haoshiro]

Now this is ridiculous, Aspyr is doing a fine job coping with the issue that is Apple's Fault.

Sure we'd all like our shiny new Intel Macs to get the best performance and run every game perfectly, but that doesn't make it Aspyr's problem.

New versions of Windows would occasionally break some games, and developers didn't always run out and update the game. In fact if the outcry is large enough, Microsoft would update the OS.

Now Rosetta is a bit different, and sometimes it's not compatibility that's the issue, it's speed. Apple takes it's typical stance and ignores gaming almost entirely... and then you blame the game publisher/porting studio? Come on now.

And you're site lists games like Battlefield 1942 (outdated by several new releases in the franchise) and Call of Duty (which already runs fine in Rosetta, and CoD2 already UB)?

Aspyr doesn't deserve this... pay some respect and remove not only this post, but the site and petition as well!

 

[whooleytoo]

I wouldn't be so harsh on Aspyr, they've been very good to the Mac gaming community when others haven't - and now that Boot Camp is around gamers have abandoned them in droves.

Not many other (non-console) platforms have forced game developers to change both OS and CPU platform in the space of just a few years.

 

[lancestraz]

If anyone, be mad at MacSoft for creating a horrible UB of Halo, and so few titles. (Yet it is true we got AoE3)

What is wrong with the UB Halo?

 

[ghall]

Now this is ridiculous, Aspyr is doing a fine job coping with the issue that is Apple's Fault.

Sure we'd all like our shiny new Intel Macs to get the best performance and run every game perfectly, but that doesn't make it Aspyr's problem.

New versions of Windows would occasionally break some games, and developers didn't always run out and update the game. In fact if the outcry is large enough, Microsoft would update the OS.

Now Rosetta is a bit different, and sometimes it's not compatibility that's the issue, it's speed. Apple takes it's typical stance and ignores gaming almost entirely... and then you blame the game publisher/porting studio? Come on now.

And you're site lists games like Battlefield 1942 (outdated by several new releases in the franchise) and Call of Duty (which already runs fine in Rosetta, and CoD2 already UB)?

Aspyr doesn't deserve this... pay some respect and remove not only this post, but the site and petition as well!

I just wanted to let you know, I respect your opinion, and I value input. Thank you.

What is wrong with the UB Halo?

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[ExoticFish]

i think the only game i'm waiting for a UB port of is KOTOR. and while the wait sucks (i may just break down and get it used for xbox now that i have one although i'd rather play it on my new iMac) i don't see a point in a boycott. like others have said, it takes time and it's not like they're just sitting there doing nothing... they're working on the UB ports when they have a moment away from working on the current games they're porting.

and while the Halo port in general (PC) wasn't done very well (and somehow takes as much processing power as Half-Life 2 with half of the visual awesomeness), i am quite pleased with the UB port. Halo on my 20" iMac is beautiful running at the native screen resolution and loads really quick.

 

[Nermal]

What is wrong with the UB Halo?

It's no faster than the PPC version.

 

[fblack]

I dont know man...

They develop games for the PC, port stuff for the mac and are trying to build a store. People gotta sleep too!

They've released universal patches for Command & Conquer: Generals and the expansion pack, Zero Hour, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Civilization III Complete, Jedi Knight II, even a really old game like American Mcgee's Alice. I think some of the games you mention might take a little more time to patch, but I'm sure they will get to some of them.

Go take your anger out on a FPS go play Prey.

 

[lancestraz]

It's no faster than the PPC version.

Oh... It still seems to run pretty well. Stinks that I paid for the UB version though.
Ah well. It was only $5.