Here’s a roundup of today’s news found elsewhere on the internet:
Mac vs PC: How Apple Got Back In The Game (Kotaku) - For years - no, decades - games on the Mac have been a running joke, a constant source of derision from the dominant PC gaming community. But in a single move earlier this week, the Mac made a comeback.
In unveiling not only the release of its line-up of first-party titles - classic games like Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead - but of the company's Steam digital download service on the Mac, Valve has shown how antiquated and out of place its retail competitors on the PC (and even on consoles) have become in the digital age.
I'm not talking about the range of games on offer. The Steam Store's debut on the Mac later this year will no doubt contain only a fraction of the hundreds of games available on its PC counterpart. Nor am I talking about performance; the PC will always have the edge there, its ability to constantly be upgraded piece-by-piece placing it at a distinct advantage over Apple's Macs, which come "as is", and are rarely optimised for bleeding edge gaming performance.
No, I'm talking about convenience. About accessibility.
The real big announcement in Valve's move isn't' the fact Steam will be available on the Mac. It's the way that availability will be linked with a Steam user's PC account, via the new "Steam Play" service.
If you own a PC, and already have a Steam account, but also have a Mac - or work with a Mac, or have a Mac laptop - then you can bring any compatible games over. Bought Team Fortress 2 on PC? You can download it again on your Mac. For free. Same story if you own a Mac at home and work with a PC, or have a Mac desktop and a PC laptop.
The first games Valve will be making cross-compatible between Mac and PC are, after all, its own titles.
But we shouldn't care about a company's point of view. We should care about what we want, and expect, as consumers. And if Valve can bring us Steam games that can not only be downloaded on two completely different systems, but played across those systems, then it should be applauded for doing so.
Any company not keeping up with Valve - with Microsoft being the key accused here - thus needs to lift its game. Because as soon as people start enjoying the ability to flit between their PC and Mac at will, the limited compatibility between other systems on the market will really start to show.
Bad Company 2 Might Go Mac As Well (Kotaku) - With Mac computers the flavour of the week, Battlefield developers DICE are not ones to be left off the bandwagon, saying that they're "currently investigating" bringing Battlefield Bad Company 2 to Apple's platform.
DICE's Karl Magnus Troedsson said as much yesterday, Tweeting "We're currently investigating the possibility of making BFBC2 available on Mac". Pretty clear, that.
It's the first time the developers have looked at the Mac since 2007, when Battlefield 2142 was released on the platform.
Games success influencing movie industry, says MW2 director (gamesindustry.biz) - The high-profile success of titles such as Modern Warfare 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV has turned around Hollywood's perception of videogames, as the film industry looks to alternative mediums for new movie content.
That's the view of Keith Arem, director of the Call of Duty and Modern Warfare series', who said that both industries can learn from one another as they continue to grow as the leading entertainment mediums.
"The success of the games industry is going to benefit those other movie industries. It's providing more work, it's providing more content," said Arem, speaking in an exclusive interview published today.
"Finding new content in the games industry is going to absolutely expand into the movie industry and vice-versa. By expanding these franchises out the film industry is going to re-seed stuff into games. As much as people are threatened by the fear of the unknown, it's going to be a huge benefit to both industries as they grow hand-in-hand.
"It's amazing to see the difference between what it was a few years ago and what it is now," he added. "Games were always the bastard step-child to the film industry and what's interesting was games were always considered a secondary property. There's been a complete 180 in the past several years with games like Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto, and these have shown that these can change perceptions."
Arem, who also writes graphic novels for Image Comics and is about to begin work on his first feature film, Frost Road, hopes that as a games creative in Hollywood he can influence the future direction of projects that are looking to combine multiple media.
"I'm really excited about bringing all these industries – games, movies, graphic novels – together and changing the way people perceive a franchise so it's not just a film or just a videogame, but a better integration of story and content," he said.
"So it's not just an ancillary product derivative of what that tent-pole property was, but it actually goes hand-in-hand and can tell backstory or other trans-media elements through the internet, or other mediums that are converging. If you can tell a compelling story in each medium - and what's proper to that medium - as opposed to just regurgitating a story you've already seen in a better format. That's my goal as a director, to fix that world and come up with a new way to look at franchises."
Modern Warfare 2 Promises Breakthrough Cure for 'Mapathy' (Kotaku) - Acknowledging that as many as 20 million (of its 25 million players) "no longer [derive] pleasure from blowing up people hiding in the cockpit or on top of the crane," Modern Warfare 2's creators say new map help is on the way.
"Mapathy" is the name of this affliction, for which Modern Warfare 2 creative strategist Robert Bowling tweeted about 30 minutes ago that Infinity Ward researchers have found a cure. It's coming - to Xbox Live - March 30. That's all we know now. So, no pricing, nor PC or PS3 availability info yet.
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