A Visit to MacSoft by Zack Stern On a misty Minnesota afternoon, I toured a Mac game publisher. I was anticipating something bigger. But my expectations were progressively let down until I saw the real company. Regardless of its number of employees, MacSoft is a division that gives an impression of a large group through effective marketing and consistent products. I had been looking forward to viewing a substantial company. Just a few years ago, MacSoft dominated the Mac game publishing industry with 40% of all sales. I hoped to see a Mac company that had grown with its success so that just by looking at it, I could be reassured of Apple’s gaming future. Instead, I found a careful, small publisher that is successfully run. A company founded on selling to a niche market, MacSoft hasn’t strayed from its roots with extravagance. About six years ago Peter Tamte, an employee of GT Interactive, convinced his company to publish some Mac games. The company had previously created just PC titles. He became the only employee devoted exclusively to MacSoft. Initially, he repackaged a few games including Sky Shadow and Crystal Crazy. GT saw that it could make a profit from Mac sales depending on how many resources it committed. The tiny Mac division maintained this balance, and slowly grew after the successful games, Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake. When I arrived at GT Interactive, I had to check the numbers above the door twice. The only designation that this housed a game publisher was a letter sized "GT Interactive" sign in the corner of a window. While this section of a suburban Minneapolis, single story office building is only a regional base for GT, it contains the entirety of MacSoft. It wasn’t going to be as big as I had hoped. Once inside, the shrine to GT’s Mega-Hit, Deer Hunter, consumed the wall-space. This game was GT Interactive’s Blair Witch; it cost little to make, and it sold more copies than anyone could have expected. After a few minutes of waiting, I was led back between cubicles and offices to meet the people of MacSoft. Their spaces are arranged by purpose, with like jobs next to each other. Today, there are just six MacSoft employees. It helps to think of them as the Super Friends of publishing, because they do more than six people should be able to handle. There are three programmers, two people to manage projects, and one person in charge of marketing. Al Schilling took off his cordless, headset phone when he greeted me. Later, while I spoke with other employees, he would walk by, partly pacing and wandering, while making calls. He seemed to think better while moving. Al is the Product Manager. He directs the process of moving titles to the Mac, and he also finds games to port. "Apple is doing great," Al told me. He said that even though MacSoft’s market share has backed off, their bottom-line has continued to grow because Apple has helped the game segment grow. Al was pleased with the two-million iMac sales. But the iMac users haven’t been buying many games. He hopes to figure out what games they want to buy, but he also thinks that it just takes time before a computer user becomes a gamer. After answering my initial questions, Al was eager to lead me through the office to the other employees. After meeting the Assistant Product Manager who was getting some time behind the wheel in the GT Playstation hit, Driver, I spoke with the three programmers employed by MacSoft. In a room off the back corner of the office space, Alan Nelson, Brian Neese, and Kirk Summer work on porting games and fixing bugs. Like the other employees, they wore short-sleeved-shirts. On the walls hung posters of their ports including Top Gun and Age of Empires. Of all the games that MacSoft has released, about a third have been coded in-house. The other programming has been licensed to other groups. Generally, their work takes about nine months to complete. The three of them came to MacSoft about three years ago, after previously working together as edutainment programmers. Alan answered most questions first, and the other two added their comments. Mac gamers sometimes complain about how long it takes a game to be ported to the Mac. They are usually in favor of simultaneous development, but that can be difficult if the PC company isn’t making both versions. When a different company makes the Mac version, the PC code has to be sent over every few weeks so that the Mac programmers can modify it. "In some ways we’re handcuffed [to the developers]," Alan explained. If the PC code has been changed after the Mac code has been written, then the Mac programmers have wasted their time. "Experience has proven that that is a bad way." Brian added. I asked about their opinions on the differences of PC and Mac code. They said that because the Mac doesn’t have protective memory, some bugs are only apparent on the Mac versions of games. They see this as a way to force Mac programmers to be more disciplined with their work, rather than a shortcoming of the Mac OS. Most of the people at MacSoft find a way to justify playing their games. Brian said, "We played Age of Empires until all of the bugs were dropped out of it." Kirk smiled, then added "Yeah, darn." Cindy Swanson creates or supervises all aspects of marketing. She has been trying to cause an impact through print ads, and she has begun to use web banners. She has also been trying to increase their presence at retail locations, as games are often impulse-buy items. "We need to make iMac customers gamers," Cindy said, and she thinks that a bigger retail presence would lead to an increase in sales approaching Christmas. She is hopeful that Apple will create a retail store of its own, like Gateway. "I think that [an Apple-run store] would be awesome!" When Nate Birkholz wasn’t playing Driver, he was at his cubicle, playing Unreal Tournament. Nate is a utility player at MacSoft. His duties include testing games in reference to their PC counterpart, writing manuals, and helping to determine which PC game will make the transition to Mac. He takes credit for Rainbow Six coming out for the Mac; he said that he pestered Al until a commitment was made on the title. As MacSoft continues to gradually grow, it hopes to expand from the shooter and strategy products to other genres. Creating original titles is a goal at MacSoft, but it hasn’t been reached many times because a port is less expensive for the company. Eventually, perhaps MacSoft will send its titles to another publisher for the PC version.