Direct2Drive: Screw Mac Owners

Okay, no one said "screw Mac owners" verbatim, but essentially, that's what happened.

Direct2Drive's 5 year anniversary ends this week with selling a ton of awesome games for $5, but not one of the games for sale was available for the Mac. And with all the popularity Apple computer's have with iPods and iTunes, I can't help but think that the only thing hurting gaming on Macs are the stores that actually sell games.

Bioshock was a game I've been wanting to play for a long time and with the purchase of my new iMac some months ago, I thought this would be the perfect time to try it. But no, Direct2Drive's version of Bioshock is PC only. They don't even have the Mac version that is sitting right on Apple's Games website.

When I emailed Direct2Drive a few weeks ago, I asked them if any Mac games were going to be available in the upcoming releases. Customer Service replied back and said:

"If there is a Mac title, it will be listed on this page. The list of games on the $5 sale will not be added to. What you see is what is for sale for $5 currently."

Now, of course, there could be some really weird licensing issues, political in nature or not, that have to do with gettin Mac games to sell. I don't know. I'm just really disappointed with Direct2Drive missing an opportunity to serve a growing Mac community.

iPod Games Megareview

Over the past few weeks I've had a chance to download a play quite a few iPod/iPhone games, so here's my review digest.

• Bubble Wrap (FREE): A high speed time trial for popping those awesome packing bubbles virtually.  Fun to pass around for a few minutes with friends to beat each other's high scores.
  1-stars
• Cannon Challenge (FREE): A physics based stationary tank shooting game dealing with trajectory and speed. Lots of targets as the levels progress. A single play through is probably all you need.
  2-stars
• Flight Control ($1 sale): This game is awesome. Touch and drag various aircraft to their color coordinated landing zones. Don't let them crash into each other as they fly onto the screen. So simple. So addictive. Highly rated. Get it before the temporary price goes back up to $4.
  5-stars
• LightBike (FREE version): TRON lovers will dig this rip-off game. I'm sort of intrigued to buy the full version.
  3-start
• Lightsaber Unleashed (FREE): All I can say is that I was once ambushed by two coworkers with their copy of this silly Lightsaber, motion control based toy. I'm no longer a virgin to air-light saber battles. We laughed the whole 20 seconds it lasted, then cried a little.
  2-start
• Monster Pinball ($4): A six-table pinball game with beautiful, cute monster graphics and table elements. This was the first game I bought. I think it's still worth the $4 after playing it too.
  4-stars
• Paper Toss (FREE): Another physics game where you are given a number and direction of wind speed in an office (they are so windy those cubicles) and you have to "throw" a paper ball in a waste basket. It would have been better to have speed control as well as direction. Still a good time for free.
  3-stars
• Peggle ($1 sale): A falling ball game based on Pachinko or the Price is Right's "Plinko". Special pegs have powers such as multiple balls or pinball-style flippers to keep the ball going. Great sound/music. The level themes are nice too.
  5-stars
• Pew Pew (FREE): A space game mashup of Geometry Wars and Super Smash TV (or Robotron if your that old). I like the two versions. One is solitary avoid-the-badies-and-get-to-the-door game and the other is a outlast-the-waves-of-enemies-and-shoot-them-up style game. The later has dual thumb controls.
  4-stars
• Tap Tap Revenge (FREE): Guitar Hero/Rock Band style game play for the iPod. The game is free. Most of the music downloads are free. It's a win/win when you add in the controls. Three buttons to press as well as shaking the iPod to the left, right, and floorward. A must have.
  5-stars
• Wild West Pinball ($1 sale): Another pinball game, but a single table. The camera moves in nice and close on the table when the ball is dancing around the bumpers at the top of the table. The sounds are authentic for the style of table that it is and it's got really good physics. It's a sparce table, but it's really well done.
  4-stars
• 2XL Supercross Lite (FREE): I was very tempted to buy the full version of this motion controlled motocross racer. What really kept me from getting it wasn't the graphics, the framerate or the sound, but the motion controlled steering that involved turning the iPod to steer. When you turn the iPod, you're turning the screen too! Very hard to play a game like that unless you've memorized the tracks (or lean your head with the iPod).
  4-stars

That's about it. I've played quite a few games that I played for 10 seconds and then deleted. But a couple things surprise me about the games that are being developed here.

First of all, the touch screen joysticks are actually pretty darn good. I thought I would find myself having to watch the screen where the small circles are for the thumb controls, but it's not as hard as you would think keeping your thumbs where they need to be. The Terminator game was the first game I played that used them heavily, but the slow framerate of the game made it unplayable, not the controls.

Secondly, there is a very nice war going on the App store. Peggle started it all by selling it's game for $1 for a limited time and grabbing the number one spot for sales that week. Since then, almost every day afterwards, a game will either go on sale for a buck or totally free for a limited time. It's a great way to grab really good games (like I did above). We all find ourselves checking the store daily to grab these good dollar gems.

Digital is More Expensive?

Since the Xbox 360 started offering the ability to download older games from the original Xbox library of games online and store them on your hard drive, the Wii, PS3 and PSP have also taken to the idea and started doing it as well. I think it's a great service to have digital games instead of cds and cartridges (though I am a bit enamored with my own collection of stuff).

But I don't understand what's going on here. Instead of the idea of a digital service saving money by not using physical media, companies have started to offer the service at a premium, charging way too much money for games that are 5-20 years old.

It's hard to say for the PS3, since I can't seem to find any prices on their Playstation Network website, but the Xbox and Wii offer titles to download from their older consoles at about 200-400% markup on prices based off of eBay offerings ($15 from Live vs $6 average from StillLivesAtHome128 on eBay). Of course, the used games behemoth Gamestop is still selling Halo, a game from 2001, for $20, but only idiots shop there.

*crickets chirping*

Nintendo isn't doing much better. Nintendo offered the first three Mario games for download on the Wii for $5 each. You can find it on eBay for under a $1 if you can get an auction that doesn't charge $8 for shipping. That's almost a 500% markup on a game that they fully admit on their store website is 25 years old. In fact, it's the oldest commercial Nintendo game ever that they gave away with the console. I'm not even sure you could buy it because they made it available to everyone that had the NES.

And what's worse is that your paying for a transaction back into your childhood. Most people played these games when they were kids. I'd even bet that the majority of the buyers of games like Super Mario Brothers are in the 20+ age bracket and realize after buying the game that, like most childhood memories, some things are best left in the past. Games that old evoke other memories from times of yesteryear but not the ones that help you compare your new HD-loving, 1080p, BluRay watching eyes to the 8-bit bleeps and bloops that you fondly remember sitting cross-legged on the living room floor drinking a Tab.

Sure you have to manage a new set of resources when your dealing with digital distribution. Instead of trucks delivering games, your paying for bandwidth. Instead of paying retailers profit margins, your paying for server hard drives and routers. And instead of packaging, your paying for programmers to retrofit code to new consoles. But per game, I'd have to imagine that it's still cheaper to sell games digitally that it is to keep shipping out disks. Especially if sales are stagnate in brick-and-mortar stores.

So here's an offical plea to Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony: Stop trying to make money on games that are older than our kids. Here's some logic to follow: If (ParentAge-ChildAge/2) < GameAge Then GamePrice = 0. I think that's a pretty fair rule to follow.

Wii Store: http://www.nintendo.com/wii/virtualconsole/games
Xbox Live Store: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/catalog.aspx?d=5

PSN Store: http://www.us.playstation.com/PSN/Store