Dell's Quest For Gaming Cool

Slate is running a piece looking at Dell's attempt to grab gamer customers via their acquisition of the Alienware brand. From the article: "Gamers want powerful computers, of course, but they also want stylish systems made by a company that they believe understands them. Dell's XPS line of machines certainly provides the requisite power. The PC giant's market clout earns it premium relationships with component-makers like ATI, Intel, and nVidia, often allowing it to be first to market with the hottest technologies. But devoted gamers have still stayed away from Dell. Halo obsessives are not IT managers: They ogle expensive, flashy machines ... and they buy expensive, flashy machines. That's where Alienware comes in."

This gamer doesn't

[snuf23]

"They ogle expensive, flashy machines ... and they buy expensive, flashy machines."

Uh yeah whatever. I think a lot of hardcore gamers are more concerned about the performance then the flashy looks. They like quality parts, they like to be able to upgrade without worrying about proprietary parts (Dell I'm looking at you).
Alienware just seems overpriced to me. But then I'm not the type that would by a Falcon Northwest computer either. I'm looking for performance for the price. While I may spend more than average on a video card and extra RAM, I'm not seeking that last 10% performance boost that doubles the cost.
Who really does pay for those $5000 showcase computers that get raved at in magazines like Maximum PC? I always get the feeling that they are put out there more as advertising than actual product. The big rigs get exposure and the fan boys drool over them, but odds are they are buying something a couple notches below.

This reads like an ad.

[Sir Unimaginative]

Gamers don't buy expensive flashy stuff because they want expensive flashy stuff. Gamers buy the stuff that can crank out the best graphics and smoothest gameplay; this TENDS to be the expensive flashy stuff, especially if you're going to whip it out at a LAN party... but then Dell bling won't help you get any "street cred" anyway.

Dell doesn't understand what they don't undersand

[ivan256]

Gamers want (in roughly this order of priority):

High-end gear; top notch performance
Upgradeable, industry standard components for easy upgrading
Reliability
Tuned software as well as tuned hardware. (No Adware, OEM "partner" software, etc...)
Durability (for lugging to LAN parties)
Flashy case design

Dell can handle the first one, but they're notoriously bad at all the rest. If any of the last five of those things change about Alienware, every Alienware customer is going to know. Even if none of those things change, gamers all know that Alienware *is* Dell now. These people all read internet forums and tech news. They're not going to be fooled by a Dell with a different sticker on the front.

Here's an idea for Dell: instead of trying to buy somebody else's reputation, how about you start making PCs that don't suck for gaming. Then, perhaps, gamers will consider buying your PCs.

Alienware as expensive fishing gear

[MrTester]

I suspect a lot of the folks that buy Alienware are comparable to those rich brothers-in-law who go on the family Canadian fishing trip and show up with all of the most expensive gear (tags still on) and need help from Grampa Joe (with his 30 year old fly rod, dental floss and bent paper clip) to set the tension on the reel.

Halo!?

[OK PC]

"Halo obsessives"

On the PC? I know its available on the PC but it hardly spawned obessive PC fans. Nor is it a game associated with high end performance

Proprietary == Bad

[Sylver Dragon]

At work, we buy Dell systems. For a work environment, they work quite well. When I go home, I wouldn't buy a Dell system at a 50% discount (unless it was just for parts). Dell systems use a shitty proprietary motherboard, with a horrible BIOS, and way too many limitations. When I build a gaming system I want quality parts with a good upgrade path, not vendor lock-in.
I actually have a friend who has been screwed by this sort of thing more than once. He bought an HP computer back before the Compaq/HP merge. As he discovered gaming he also discovered that the system lacked an AGP port (the built in graphics card was, technically, AGP). So, he went out and bought a Dell (against my recommendations). It had a better built in graphics card, and the price was right (Dude, you're getting a cheap piece of junk). Once again, no AGP slot. He runs a fairly high end (as such things go) video card on PCI. Unsuprisingly, his video performance sucks.
Give me a beige box, which I built myself, any day of the week. I might run across a few hardware incompatabilities here and there, but that beats the hell out of finding myself without an upgrade path, because the vendor used cheap parts.

geek flavors

[7grain]

"Halo obsessives are not IT managers..."

Except, of course, for the gamers who are IT managers. Duh? It's not so cut 'n' dried.

yeah, you are right, Dell is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that your list of priorities is set up like that, but Alienware built a successful business selling monstrously overpriced systems to gamers (and, oddly enough, businessmen who should really know better) with the primary lure of fancy cases, nice paint jobs and eXXXtreme marketing.

You are not the target market, and you probably don't even know anyone in the target market.

Re:Its hard to be cool in those mylar intel suits.

[JordanL]

The thing that Dell needs to do to sell themselves to gamers, is include NO bundled software in it. Gaming systems don't need AOL For Broadband, and RealPlayer, and Quicktime, and Adobe Reader 7.0, and Microsoft Office, etc.

Dell is avoided because their computers almost need to be formatted right after they are bought. No computer will run games well with that much bloatware installed.

Re:This gamer doesn't

[ClamIAm]

I think a lot of hardcore gamers are more concerned about the performance then the flashy looks.

And here we reach a distinction. True hardcore gamers don't care as much about "pimp my case" type stuff as some others do. I'll call these other guys "pseudo-hardcore" gamers. These are the same people Microsoft is preaching to with the Xbox/360. They're also a lot more profitable than the hardcore set, as the pseudo-hardcore generally will spend far more than what something is worth.

Re:Dell doesn't understand what they don't undersa

[DPJohnny Canuck]

To me, it's all about technical specs, and forget the flashy case.

I'd put that money towards a larger/more reliable power supply instead.

Of course, AMD CPU all the way. .

Re:This gamer doesn't

[The-Bus]

"Who really does pay for those $5000 showcase computers that get raved at in magazines like Maximum PC? I always get the feeling that they are put out there more as advertising than actual product. The big rigs get exposure and the fan boys drool over them, but odds are they are buying something a couple notches below."

It's the same reason you'll see advertisements for impossinly expensive products (say, a $25,000 watch) in magazines. It is put there to elevate the brand, so if someone sees the $400 version at their mall, they will be impressed. The same reason Hermes (or any other brand) makes a mint on severely overpriced accessories. Sure, you can't afford (or don't want to buy) the $970 blanket or the $570 enamel bracelet, but, hey, why not get the $90 scarf? Sure, it's a lot for a scarf, but it's a $BRAND scarf and that counts for something.

So what does Dell do? It makes a limited edition XPS 600 Renegade [dell.com] and sells it for $10,000. How many sold? Only about 31 [kotaku.com]. And what does it get them? Tons of press [google.com]. And lots of attention [google.com], much of it by people who've never heard of Falcon Northwest and maybe heard of Alienware one time they were at Best Buy.

So, in Dell's mind, it goes something like this.

Dad is picking out a computer for the family. He's getting it for his kid's homework and because Mom needs it. He'd like to play some games on it, but he's not sure Dell, the same brand he uses in his office, would work so well. After all, those work PCs are always so slow. So now Dad sees a comment about this Dell system in his local paper's technology section and he says, "You know, maybe Dell isn't so bad after all. I'll be OK with getting that."

Whether or not that thought process is actually carried out I don't think is a question. Whether it will be carried out by thousands of people, that's for Dell to find out.