Why are so many old MAC games only being re-released for Windows?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok, so before beginning, Yes I know the kneejerk reaction is saying “GO GET A PC!”
I am aware of, as well as YES I can run parallels on my computer to run a Windows game.
But that’s not my main gripe here.

Basically, Websites like STEAM and Especially ‘GOG’ both have a vast amount of older games that DID come out on Mac, but are currently PC only. I can list a number of specific examples if it helps. But it is something that is very frustrating to find an older game I played a bunch back in the day on my Mac, that no longer has a Mac version.
There are even a few games that if I recall were ONLY published Mac back in the day and are now Windows only.
What is even more bizarre, is that for those games that ARE on Mac, they seem to be ports of the WINDOWS versions of these game! I’ll start up an old game, say “Conquest of the new world” and as it comes up I get this loading screen in Black and Green that says “Now Loading DOS1995” It is even more frustrating as the Mac versions usually had better graphics and sound.

Would anyone have a rational explanation of this? Or an explanation period? And has anyone else noticed this trend of older games being released for Windows only.

[Jub]

There's zero money in porting games for Macs, the user base is tiny next to the Windows economy and most Mac owners aren't gamers. Why would anybody port anything to Mac let alone old games where the potential for profit is already very low?

[darkjedi521]

Because the Mac of today is not backwards compatible with the Mac of yesterday. 2005 is one of the hard cutoffs for compatibility, as Apple no longer includes the PPC compatibility shims. The 64 bit only switch, the dropping of Classic and Carbon, are all things that prevent older Mac software from launching at all. Its probably easier to to port the x86 PC version or wrap it in wine/dosbox than effectively rewrite the old Mac version that hasn't been capable of being run natively in years or more.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

There's zero money in porting games for Macs, the user base is tiny next to the Windows economy and most Mac owners aren't gamers. Why would anybody port anything to Mac let alone old games where the potential for profit is already very low?

This, Windows won the OS wars because it is accessible and almost always backwards compatible (even if it means doing some work to do so). Since Windows corners the market on PC OS, well, there is an old meme image about Mac users being... not of sound mind...

[Solauren]

I remember a joke that sums it up nicely:
Mac User: I love my Mac. It runs my software, and can surf the net, and I don't have to worry about people taking my money!
PC user: That's because they know you blew all your money on that Mac, and don't have any to take.
Mac user: I don't have to worry about Virus's!
PC user: That's because you do not represent enough of a population to be worth making a virus for. Which would you spend your time on? 40 hours to infect 95% of all computers, or 60 hours to infect maybe 1%, none of which have money?
Mac User: .....
PC user: Did I mention I can still play my old DOS Games?
Mac User: I hate you.

[The Romulan Republic]

I've been planning on switching to Windows for a while, and this only reaffirms my decision.