Mac game publisher MacSoft will not have its customary booth in the games area at next week’s Macworld Conference & Expo, but the company will still have a show presence. What’s more, MacSoft will also have a special deal for showgoers who want to buy their newest game release, Max Payne.
Past Macworld Expo attendees are accustomed to seeing MacSoft occupy a premium spot in the exhibit hall area of Macworld. The company usually occupies a large spot with the rest of the game publishers where attendees can play MacSoft titles and purchase their games. In an interview with MacCentral, MacSoft product manager Al Schilling confirmed that his company won’t have its usual booth. The decision was made, Schilling explained, because at the time MacSoft would have had to reserve space and make arrangements for the show, the company did not have enough new products to justify the expense.
Since then, however, MacSoft has revealed plans to publish Neverwinter Nights — a hotly anticipated 3D role-playing adventure game just released by MacSoft’s parent company Infogrames for the PC. Schilling told MacCentral that developers are making headway on the Mac conversion. Neverwinter Nights is expected to be released for the Mac a bit later this year. One of the game’s most exciting features — an editor that enables “dungeon masters” to create their own scenarios from scratch — should be available for the Mac. And Neverwinter Nights will be a Mac OS X native (and Mac OS X-only) game.
Schilling also confirmed that MacSoft will have a presence in Apple’s own games arcade area on the show floor, an integral part of the overall games presence at Macworld Conference & Expo. Three kiosks in the games arcade will feature MacSoft titles — the turn-based strategy game Civilization III, the real time strategy game/castle building simulation Stronghold and the 3D action game Max Payne, MacSoft’s newest title. If you’re coming to next week’s show you’ll be able to get your hands on all three games and take them for a test drive.
MacCentral has also learned that MacSoft has made arrangements with fellow Mac game publisher Aspyr Media to sell Max Payne to Macworld Expo attendees. Boxed copies of Max Payne, which will make its retail debut next week as well, will be on sale at Aspyr Media’s own booth. MacSoft and Aspyr will offer Macworld Expo attendees a special show price of US$40.
Macworld Conference & Expo runs July 15-19, 2002 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York, NY. Aspyr Media is in booth 1607 and the Gaming Arcade is located at booth 1909.
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