It's No Game At Apple 175
Mac Observer is running a piece by John Martellaro looking at why Apple isn't into gaming. It's just one man's opinion, but he makes some interesting arguments. From the article: "The reality is that Apple has struggled for a long time to avoid the perception that Macs are toys, and so their principle emphasis is on science, small business, education, and the creative arts. All very grownup stuff. If a market doesn't appear on Apple's main page tab, you can be sure it's a secondary market."
Umm...Halo? (Score:5, Insightful)
And Myst.
And why they featured game design prominently on a number of user examples on their home page for some time.
Probably why they partnered with Bandai lo those many years ago to create the Pippin.
It's a secondary market because Apple hasn't gained traction, not because Apple wants it be a secondary market.
Creative arts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm forgetting something, but isn't game design a creative art?
Disappointing Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, I thought the following was funny:
All games have conflict, even the simplest childrens games. As much as we hate to hear this, the executives at Microsoft are not hedonistic killing machines bent on destruction (OK, except Ballmer if there's a chair around). Heck some of them might even have wives and children, just like those Apple managers who support a "culture of affirmation", whatever that means. I seriously doubt aggressive game content is the reason Apple sucks at games. Suggesting that Apple users want to live on a higher plane of existence where there's not "unwelcome social behavior" or aggression is why non-Mac users get ticked off at you guys.
If your corporate message can be severely tainted by a video game, you've got bigger problems. When I'm fragging people in UT on my Windows PC, I don't often forget that Microsoft is pushing Office/Vista/World Domination. In fact, I like Windows more because I can play my killing game, my educational/puzzle games, do my word processing, surf the web, etc. I think that's promoting more of a "culture of creation and life" than Apple does by trying to shove their philosophy down people's throats while making it appear trendy.
And one more "we're better than you" for the road.
Re:Science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here [apple.com] you might find a lot of very serious applications that are getting used on a daily basis. This [macresearch.org] is a quite recent initiative. But it's clear from the way Apple has incorporated distributed computing into the heart of OS X that it takes science seriously (if you have a Mac, have a look under the Sharing in System Preferences and look for Xgrid).
Moral high-road? (Score:3, Insightful)
Game Publisher: "Hmm... I can get hundreds of millions by releasing this on PC, or I may hit two or three million by going for the Mac market."
No brainer there.
Minority group (Score:5, Insightful)
I would guess from my exposure to Macs over the years, that most Macs high-end (game friendly) macs are purchased as single-use items for money-making purposes, and low-end macs are purchased for family members of high-end mac users OR because someone somewhere demended a mac for a specific use (University IT depts, school boards, etc).
For the rest of us caught in between high-end mac users and high-end PC gamers, there are the consoles. Consoles provide the high-end game machine without having to justify buying TurboTax to run on it.
We have seen the minority and they is us.
Jerk stole my post (Score:5, Insightful)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=187341&cid=15
"Macs are OK for games...
That's what Apple was afraid of hearing back in the '80s an what lead them to ignoring the games market.
He took that and fluffed it out into a complete article!
Different fun? (Score:5, Insightful)
The no-games cry also applies only to the latest 3D monster games. Nobody complains that they can't play Bejeweled on a Mac; because they can do it just fine. There are tons of great, fun games for the Mac. They just aren't the ones that get all the buzz from the hardcore crowd.
Re:Disappointing Article (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is the kind of mistake you pay your marketing guys to help you avoid.
I've been in on business decisions of this nature, albeit on a much smaller scale, and I know how this thought process works. In order to get more revenue, you try to goose up your volume by spreading out your product line. The logic seems reasonable: you take something you already know how to do, in this case design a computer, and design a somewhat different computer. It seems on the surface safer and easier than getting into a completely different business. But in fact, it's the worst possible thing you can do.
People who talk about Apple being a company that breaks the rule of "do one thing best" are wrong, because they define what Apple does incorrectly. By that way of thinking, Apple is a personal computer company, and providing a cheap computer (albeit through a licensee) is just more of the same. Producing an iPod is a radical departure. But in fact Apple is not a personal computer company: they're a company that produces luxury technological appliances. Offering a cheap PC means Apple has to be a high end and a low end computer company at the same time. Offering IPods is simply occupying the same niche in the music world that they do in the personal computer world. It's doing one thing well, only in two places.
The mini is an interesting case because in some ways it resembles the Pippin. But the Pippin was really just a cheap Mac knockoff. And while the Mini is a indeed a cheap computer, I bet most people who buy them don't think of them that way. Apple was smart to make the tiny form factor, even though it would probably be cheaper to make a mini tower or desktop form factor. It means the $$/cubic inch is high. Also they explicitly marketed it to PC users who had had a positive experience with the iPod. From the point of view of that user, they probably have a Windows PC they can live with, but hate. At $500, the mini looks like a luxury, but one that you can afford if you want it badly enough. Like the iPod. I think some Mac users might have switched to the mini for the form factor, but if you're an Apple consumer drone who's been trudging the upgrade treadmill for years, the Mini isn't going to be an upgrade, more of a sidegrade. I bet a lot of the ones who broke down and bought a Mini for form factor bought another Mac as well.
Re:I Didn't Realize the Onus Was on Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that most games--either for Mac OS or for Windows--are made by third-party vendors (yes, I realize that Microsoft has several game titles of their own).
What is interesting is which game companies MS has acquired. Of the four I know of, two of them were the biggest mac game company at the time of their purchase and immediately stopped making timely mac released thereafter. Maybe MS sees games on the Mac as more important than Apple does?
And it also seems to me that the reason there aren't lots of games for Macs is because there isn't that much demand for them.
Actually, there are a lot of mac games. Pick the ten most popular games of 2005. How many are available for the mac? All of them are out for the mac. Five out of ten were released at the same time as the PC version. It's not that macs don't have games, it's that macs don't get unsuccessful games and game releases often lag the PC release. Many companies don't write portable games (they use DirectX because it is cheap) and then don't want to invest in porting it until they are sure it is going to be popular. When they make a lot of money, they start the port and the mac version comes out 6 months later.
Think about it from a third-party vendor's point of view: Why get into the business of making games for a platform that only has 5% of the market (or however much Apple has at the moment) when there is most certainly more money to be made creating games (or other software) for Windows-based PCs?
The answer is the same reason they make games in the first place, money. Take a look at a big company, like Blizzard or Id. They code using OpenGL and best practices. It is a minor expense to make a mac port, or a console port. They have cleaner, better code and are not as beholden to MS specific tools (DirectX) that are outside their control. Most of their porting costs are up front, but that is okay because they know their games are going to be successful. Smaller companies have less money up front and less talent. They need to get something out the door now. Many of them code using DirectX and if they are successful they port to consoles and macs with the assurance that they have money coming in already. It costs them more in total and their results are buggier on both PCs and Macs, but the initial investment is smaller. Others are not successful and never make a port to anything.
And I can't speak for all Mac users, of course, but that's part of the reason I have multiple machines at home: Macs to do actual work on, and a Windows machine for playing games.
I'd say the more common theme is macs for doing work and casual gaming. Macs for work and consoles for slightly more serious gaming. and Macs for work and everything for gaming for hardcore gamers. Of course all that might be changing soon. A mac that can run games (and other programs) with WINE or fast enough in a VM may obviate the need for a second machine for a lot of us.
Re:Apple isn't wrong very often... (Score:4, Insightful)
(source [wikipedia.org])
Just look at all those sickeningly violent games...
Just the facts... (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, what he is stating isn't an argument. He's not challenging anything nor stating a divergent or opposing view to why Apple is not that interested in gaming, or the gaming market.
Third, if you think it's an opinion or argumentative in any way, then you are totally clueless about Apple as a corporation and should not comment at all.
Finally, if rumors are true, Apple may be making an experimental "foray", if you will, into the gaming market with an upcoming set of products, and Mac OS X improvements. I can assure you that it's an experiment at best and if sales (and developers) don't increase with the foray, it will die a very quick and painless death.
Apple is about creating tools, not toys. Yes, this is contrary to popular opinion-an opinion that Apple has had little success in reshaping-but it is, nevertheless, true. Apple's computers, for some mind boggling reason, have never been accepted as "real computers" because they weren't user customizable, nor able to have games played on them. Well, that's because they designed them to be tools, not toys! The unfortunate reality is that a majority of society's first entree into the computer world is buying a PC to play games on. I find this sad that someone would plunk down hundreds if not thousands of dollars for a tool only to use it as a distraction from reality; a complete and total time sink. When you stop and take a good hard look at it, it's really pathetic. I can't think of a similar purchase or endeavor to relate it to, it's that stupefying to me.
Sure, when I was eight, the initial thing that attracted me to a computer was the games, but as soon as I learned about programming (which was also at age eight) and the ability to create applications for utility purposes, science, etc., that initial attraction immediately turned into admiration of the tool.
Computers have the ability to change the world at the will of man. They can be used to create or discover things that man would take centuries to create or discover on his own, if ever. Sure, I will occasionally play a computer game, but I don't spend a lot of time doing so. I'd much rather be using it to create than to pretend. THAT'S an opinion. Feel free to argue with it all you want.