On Thursday aperient locomotive Almighty Havok announced that Blizzard Entertainment — makers of World of Warcraft — has license its Havok 4.0 aperient engine for function in new Mac title of respect . It ’s the first time that Havok has appeared on the Mac . But what ’s it think of over the longer terminal figure ?

First , let ’s back up a bit : What is Havok , and why should you care ? It ’s a physics locomotive — middleware that a game developer uses to command things like how characters are animated , how particles are distributed in explosions , how physical object interact with one another . It ’s what give games likeHalf Life 2andHalo 2their ragdoll - stylus animations and other unique attributes .

Filthy Lucre

Havok is cross - political platform . It ’s usable for the PC , consoles , even hand-held organisation . But up until now , it ’s not been useable for the Mac . Havok ’s Thursday annunciation scar the very first clip Havok has been announced as being available on the Mac — a political program that Havok ’s own vice president of production management describes as “ an important part of technology . ”

Why ?

With excuse to Puff Daddy , it ’s all about the Benjamins . It arrive down to money .

programme a physics locomotive engine is n’t chintzy , and is n’t well-fixed . It ’s a huge amount of oeuvre for computer programmer to do . And Havok is one of the best 1 out there . So it make sentience for well - heel developers to just certify an existing physics locomotive engine rather than attempt to roll their own .

The cost of licensing Havok is high , even for a major PC developer . That ’s why you do n’t see it in every secret plan that comes out — just in many of the better - funded one . And I have it on good potency that Havok has n’t been willing to modify its licensing fees to Mac game changeover developer , who have built their business on sell few copies of game to the smaller Mac game market .

That ’s put the kibosh on many Mac plot projects , some annunciate , many not harbinger . All of the recent Tom Clancy ’s Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six title use it , for example . So does Medal of Honor : Pacific Assault , Max Payne 2 , Full Spectrum Warrior , Uru : old age Beyond Myst . More than 150 games for PC and cabinet depend on the engineering , and many of those I just note have been successful Mac franchises in geezerhood past . But none of them have come out for the Mac in their most recent Incarnation , and Havok ’s absence seizure on the Mac is n’t cooccurring .

I want to make certain that you empathize that Havok ’s absence up to now on the Mac has not been an engineering issue . In fact , unimpeachable sources tell me that Havok ’s been ready to go on the Mac for quite some time — even Jeff Yates , the Havok VP I mentioned earlier , lauded his companionship ’s engineering as “ easy to do on the Mac . ”

Because Mac game publisher are dependent on few gross revenue , they merely ca n’t afford to license Havok . In most case , that ’s signify the plot that uses the technology just does n’t come to the Mac . In at least one noted exception — MacSoft ’s latterly - announce Age of Empires III — the decision was made to gut the physics locomotive engine and replace it with something that work out on the Mac and is less expensive to license , namelyAgeia ’s PhysX technology .

Economy of scale of measurement

EnterBlizzard . Here ’s a troupe that seems incompetent of bring forth a game that is n’t an instant classic . It ’s released the Diablo series , the Warcraft series , StarCraft , and most recently , World of Warcraft . The fellowship is number out with an expansion pack for that latter title , hopefully soon , and show no signs of slow down down . All of those games list above and their ADHD - ons have been released simultaneously on the Mac and PC .

Many Mac secret plan enthusiasts point to Blizzard as a mainstream game developer who ’s doing it right — free games for Mac and PC at the same time — and doing it themselves . And I ca n’t fence with that logic . Part of it is because Blizzard has a squad of incredibly talented railroad engineer who know the Mac inside and out , and part of it is because the company ’s management had the foresight a number of years ago to recognize the Mac food market as a likely opportunity , created that place for those engineers to influence , and plant forth the decision to market and promote those games simultaneously for Mac and PC .

But Blizzard ’s technology prowess and business skills aside , this announcement demonstrates that if your business is giving enough , you may make a period of play for an significant engineering like Havok and bring it to the Mac .

I ’m happy to see it go on . Nay , I ’m ecstatic about it . But I do n’t think it ’s survive to change the Mac play business — I do n’t see Havok changing its licensing air with this new proclamation . So I do n’t see Blizzard ’s licence of Havok 4.0 for its own next titles as a way for us to see Half Life 2 , Halo 2 and other game refit with Mac compatibility .

But going frontwards , Blizzard ’s games will benefit from that technology , and we as Mac gamers will have fun with them . And that will have to do , at least for now — or until other major biz developers take a cue from Blizzard and go making Mac game themselves .

Here ’s to skip .