Where is my Rage?

Remember this?

John Carmack back in 2007:

“…for the last couple years at id we’ve been working pretty much in secrecy on next-generation technology and a next-generation game for it, and actually this is the first time we’re going to show anything we’re doing publicly…”

Back in 2007 this got Mac users pretty fired up. It’s not everyday we see big titles on the platform let alone them being demoed first. Hit fast forward and RAGE has finally been announced for PS3, PC and xBox 360. Wait, where’s the Mac version?

On the hunt for truth, justice and all things moral I spoke to Tracy Thompson, Director of PR at Bethseda (Beth absorbed id about a year ago). She confirmed that “no Mac version of the game has been announced”.

I got a little niggled by this as the demo in 2007 is clearly RAGE for Mac - just look at those post-apocalyptic racing environments! Even if Carmack didn’t wear a RAGE for Mac t-shirt and do a RAGE for Mac dance, it’s bloody RAGE for Mac!

A few emails later, the PR ambiguity:

We haven’t announced a Mac version of RAGE. I’m not saying that a Mac focus has disappeared, I’m just saying that no definitive plans or announcements have been made to date.

Ho hum. Sadists, the lot of them. First they make a game based on hell, then they tease Mac users, build up expectation and rip out the rug from beneath our feet. Below our feet, not hell, not a wasteland, but emptiness, the void and the coldness of abandonment. I’m a PR pessimist. I never buy into the maybes, the cleverly worded ambiguity.

RAGE may be coming to your Mac. Or not at all. But it’s definitely coming to your iPhone (unless that was a laugh, too).