iGame Radio

This morning found Mac gamers everywhere waking up to a new Snow Leopard update…and the new Mac App Store. The Store is modeled after the iTunes Store, complete with top paid and free charts, categories, and individual pages for each app available.

After installing 10.6.6, the icon for the Mac App Store will show up on your dock. Clicking on it will bring up a window similar to the iTunes Store. New and Noteworthy, What’s Hot, and Staff Favorites will be listed under a big banner for featured software. On the right are quick links to log in, access your account, redeem gift codes, and go to support.

You can review a category or one of the charts for a game, or do a search. The search window auto-completes, so you might be able to find something by just typing a couple of letters in. An install is as easy as clicking on a game buy button. The button will turn to “installing”, and will remain that way until the game shows up on your dock and in your Applications folder. At this time, we don’t know how moving the game from one folder to another would affect updates.

Reviewing the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions, that you must agree to when logging in, will find that a number of changes have been made to accommodate the Mac App Store (called App Store in the T&C). Included are mentions of features not yet available. Pre-orders, for example, are mentioned which would allow you to purchase or cancel a pre-order right up till the app is available for download.

Another feature mentioned is the Genius Bar. Details about what information will be collected and connected to what are listed in the T&C, and one presumes that a future update to the App Store will result in this feature becoming accessible.

The Mac App Store will allow you to install products on up to five iTunes-authorized devices at one time. Though the T&C doesn’t go into detail about how you will authorize your computer for the Mac App Store, it may be that creating an account will do just that. The App Store FAQ states that your account ID and password will be asked for when using the App on another computer, so that seems to verify this presumption.

We found that almost 1/4 of the links on the App Store didn’t seem to work, including the Support button to Apple itself, which led us to a “page not found”. Many of the links where developer provided, and either went to the wrong page, or didn’t exist at all.

We also found that none of the game pages we clicked on that had demos of their games mentioned said demos on their App Store page. We wonder whether this will result in more casual browsers buying games, or more disappointment leading to demands for cheaper prices due to a lack of try before you buy.

Nor is there any space for trailers or screenshots for these games as well. In other words, the Mac App Store is strictly a store, and does little to provide for in the way of extra marketing.

You will also find Top Paid, Top Free, and Top Grossing charts on the right hand side. One of the most prominent that you will find, that may surprise many Mac gamers, is that the #1 Top Paid app is Angry Birds. Apparently Rovio developed a version of Angry Birds for the Mac to release with the launch of the App Store, and it has already dominated the Paid chart at $4.99.

This pricing scheme can be found throughout about half of the App Store Games category. A quick back of the napkin calculation finds about 57% of games are under $5 in price. Looking closely at these games, however, finds that most of them are also iPhone/iPad games that have been ported over as is to the Mac in tine for the Mac App Store launch. The real question is will Mac gamers with their particular expectations find this fare to be worthwhile next to such titles as Feral’s LEGO Harry Potter, Virtual Programming’s Majesty 2, Transgaming’s Puzzle Quest, PopCap’s Bejeweled 3, or Pangea Software’s Enigmo 2?

Feral Interactive has already announced several of their titles that will appear on the Mac App Store. Virtual Programming, G5 Entertainment, Alawar Entertainment, Hemisphere Games, PopCap Games, Pangea Software, MumboJumbo…there’s quite a list of Mac game publishers and developers that you will find. But there’s also a substantial list that you will not find. You won’t find CCP’s EVE Online, any of Aspyr’s titles, Torchlight by Runic Games, and you can forget about Valve’s fare. Chances are you won’t see any of these games on the Mac App Store because many of these companies already have invested distribution networks of their own.

Speculation regarding the potential dominance of the Mac App Store after launch ran rampant for weeks after the announcement and never really stopped. But in light of the game apps on opening day, the reasons why some will probably never bring their apps to the App Store, and the lack of the media that all games pretty much require (trailers, screens, etc), it stands to reason that the App Store will just become another competitive space for gamers to find games, and for developers and publishers to find eyes…and hopefully sales.