The Amiga games scene is seeing a revival. We've had Myst, we've now got Quake, and Riven may be on the horizon. As far as Amiga only games, we've got a whole load, including the likes of Foundation and OnEscape. Games that start to take advantage of the Amiga, requiring anything from '030, 8MB RAM and CD to an '060 or PPC, and 16MB RAM. Games that don't bang the hardware, but happily run through the OS supporting graphics and sound cards just as happily as AGA. Yeah, yeah, we've heard this one for a while now.
But now, it's coming to crunch time. If these games don't sell, then the Amiga's had it, at least as far as games are concerned. If developers like ClickBOOM and Vulcan leave for the PC and consoles, what hope have we of expecting 'big name' games companies returning to the Amiga?
Early indications are mixed. On the one hand, OnEscape is selling rather poorly, but on the other, Myst has sold extremely well, and preorders for Foundation are good.
But as far as Amiga games are concerned, there are two categories: ports from the PC, or 'home grown' Amiga only games. I have no idea of the figures involved, but one would have thought that a port would be far cheaper than writing a game from scratch, even when you take the licence fees into account. There's the added advantage that you can select games which have been successful on the PC port, rather than writing a game which turns out to be crap.
It stands to reason, really. What I'm getting at is that, even if there is no longer demand for Amiga only games, what about ports? Remember, the Amiga isn't the only minority games platform out there - there's the Mac too. Strangely, despite not having games sales anywhere near the PC and Playstation, just like the Amiga, it still gets ports of all the top games, and not from Mac games companies getting a license, but from the original developers themselves. Where as Amiga users have to rely on Amiga games companies to get hold of a licence so that we might see some top games if we're lucky, it's kind of considered standard to port all the decent games to the Mac.
Again, I have no idea of sales figures regarding the Amiga and the Mac, but in the past, the Amiga sold way more than the Mac (it wasn't too long ago they rivalled the PC, remember). I read recently the the Amiga still has a bigger games market than the Mac. The problem is that that could change as the Amiga games market shrinks further - when users buy PCs because there are no Amiga games available.
One possible reason could well be the specification required for such games. If we ask why wasn't Myst released for the Amiga way back in 1993, we would see it wouldn't be possible; the only CD machine was the CD32 - unexpandable (in those days) from a 2MB '020 machine. Of course, if Commodore had got there act together with the Amiga's high end, we might have had '030/'040 Amigas selling with CD ROMs as standard. The hope is that there are enough users with '030s or better, CDs and so on to make such ports worthwhile, and with PPC and decent graphics cards, the future will be even better.
Well, I might go on here and moan about the fact that the Amiga doesn't get the ports that the Mac does, but thankfully of course, the Amiga is now getting a chance. It may be that to produce a game solely for the Amiga is no longer viable, but hopefully games like Myst and Quake will sell enough for ClickBOOM, and maybe other developers, to port other games. Maybe eventually the original developers will port to the Amiga themselves (not such an outlandish thought - the Amiga is listed on SunSoft's website as a possible platform to port Riven to).
But do they suddenly decide that their game won't sell well enough on the Mac, and so switch completely to the PC, from using PCs, to producing only PC games? No, as we know, they simply produce a PC port as well, and one for the Playstation while they're at it (and maybe some kind company will offer to do an Amiga port...)
The Amiga is well known for extremely talented programmers - and this should continue to be so. Games can still be developed on and produced for the Amiga, just as long as a PC port is produced as well. If current 680x0/AGA based Amigas aren't good enough for them, then hopefully they will switch to PPC Amigas rather than the PC.
Hopefully, this may well be the case; several Amiga developers - not the companies, but small groups - are looking at producing for the extremely high end: '060/PPC, 16MB RAM with graphics cards. The problem is that sales will surely be disappointing, at least initially. I only hope that they will expect this, and produce PC ports as well to make the game worthwhile, but at the same time, keep developing using Amigas, and producing games for the Amiga.