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by John Martellaro
June 5th, 2006
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Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln |
Every once in awhile I read a story on the Internet that just doesn't seem to sync with my experiences at Apple. Most of the time, the story is derived from what the author wishes Apple would do for their own benefit. Or perhaps, more generously, they see it as a benefit to Apple, but the perception is based on an incomplete understanding of Apple.
Recently, I read a story about Apple that questioned why Apple hasn't been more active in the gaming world. Let's just start with the general premise that many people who are enthusiastic about Apple and its products and are enthusiastic gamers often express disappointment that Macintoshes aren't stronger gaming platforms and that Apple doesn't seem to ever take steps to make it one. The idea, of course, is that if Macs were supreme game computers, sales would go up. What could be better?
What I'm going to express next is just my opinion, but an opinion derived from experience: Apple has no real corporate interest in the gaming community and does not see computer games as a path to success or a better image for Apple. That's not to say that some parts of Apple don't enjoy games and their promotion. Just look. But 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.
Of course, all that may seem obvious to many observers of Apple. And yet, many continue to wish that their favorite computer company would put so much effort into the market that the Mac would become the premiere game platform. Right now, that's not a realistic expectation.
One reason is the practical realities of business. Historically, the slim profit margins for modestly priced games require large sales numbers to recoup the investment and turn a profit. For years and years, Apple's market share has barely been sufficient to entice game developers, although there are some notable exceptions.
In my view, this long drought in the gaming business has allowed Apple management to reflect on how they really feel about the game business. Especially during the time that the iCEO became the CEO. To some extent, the recent "Get A Mac" commercials provide some insight into Apple's thinking.
Note that gaming relates to power. The user is in control of his universe and seeks to exert his will. So any discussion of games has to include the utilization of power.
First off, let's look at some facts.
1. Without making any judgments and without getting into a discourse on current military events, it is nevertheless no secret that Steve Jobs has concerns about some components of the military and its leadership. Now that's a complex statement because it has a lot of overtones that I don't need to get into. Because you don't earn respect by being disrespectful, any further comment is irrelevant.
2. The "Get a Mac" ads say something subtle about power. Recall what I said previously about the two actors representing the computer, not the user. There is some additional, subtle symbolism in those ads that says something about Apple's public (not internal) image of power. The PC, who wears a suit, is the computer that's used as an instrument of power. Having been in federal sales, I can tell you that the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy have embraced Microsoft almost completely. [1] The PC can be taken as an instrument of willfulness and power that shouldn't be but often is abused in that role.
3. If you look at the WWDC 2006 list of presentations, there is very little explicit material on gaming. The tracks are focused on core OS technologies and information technologies. And while there has always been a gaming center at WWDC where young developers are kept entertained, you'll see very little high level emphasis. It's just something that is tolerated and allowed to grow and flow at its own pace.
4. Apple sells consumer and professional computers. They differentiate them based on the power of the graphics subsystem. The message there is clear: If you're a professional, you should be editing movies with Final Cut HD or manipulating RAW photos with Aperture. If you're a consumer on a more modest budget, then you get hardware more oriented towards writing and surfing. This is a clear marketing message from Apple that de-emphasizes games for the consumer, no doubt about it.
On the other hand, those who are really into games want the fastest possible hardware and the lowest possible cost. It doesn't take long to find a litany of negative comments on the Internet about how Apple's most affordable consumer systems are just not up to serious gaming. Rather than complain, this should be taken as an outward sign of Apple's most serious branding intentions:
Yes, games are fun, and we love many of them, but this is not the most significant message we want to deliver as a company.
This mixed message confuses and annoys many Apple customers.
I want to close with a comment on why Apple's culture is so mixed on the subject of games. I think it's a recognition by Apple's management that this is a fact of life for most of its younger employees. But amongst many more senior managers, including Steve himself, I suspect there is some lingering concern about the essence of the game market. Computer games, as we've come to know them, are mostly (not always) about aggressive behavior, conflict, battle, wars of power, domination, and sometimes, in the worst cases, some very unwelcome social behavior. To put it bluntly, death and destruction.
Apple's public culture appears to celebrate, on the other hand, creation and life. When you have several hundred senior managers at Apple who are most likely married and typically have children, you'll find a culture of affirmation, family, and life. There have been many instances of Steve doing a keynote and demoing, say, iMovie, in which children are involved. More than once, I heard Steve say, after editing one of those movies on stage, "This is why we do what we do."
Games are a part of life, learning, and growing. Some computer games have terrific redeeming value, and many do not. Action movies and games permeate our culture, and in some ways, they just can't be ignored in our day-to-day lives. But that doesn't mean that Apple's management believes that considerable emphasis needs to be placed on this market when there are so many other more important things for people to do with their lives and their computers.
Remember, it's not in Apple's culture to hold people back. They create insanely great tools for people to build whatever their imagination can conjure up. In addition, Apple could try to build the greatest game machine on earth. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) built those kinds of expensive graphics toys for years. Today, they are in bankruptcy.
Finally, Apple likes control. They need and love to manage and control the image of their company. If Apple computers were to become the darling of the gaming industry, then the natural evolution of the worst driving out the best would infect their culture. So Apple doesn't mind supporting game developers, but they just don't want to let outrageous success in gaming cause them to lose control of the Apple message.
I know, it's contradictory and complex. But that's the hidden dimension of Apple.
[1] The U.S. Army has shown me better perspective.
John Martellaro is a senior scientist and author. A former U.S. Air Force officer,he has worked for NASA, White Sands Missile Range, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Apple Computer. During his five years at Apple, he worked as a Senior Marketing Manager for science and technology, Federal Account Executive, and High Performance Computing Manager. His interests include alpine skiing, SciFi, astronomy, and Perl. John lives in Denver, Colorado.
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Most Recent Columns From Hidden Dimensions
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- My Tour of Duty at Apple, Part II - August 30th
- Apple, The Cluetrain and The Money - August 22nd
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Observer Comments
Mon Jun 05, 2006 2:59 pm Subject: Apple v. Microsoft
QuoteWhen you have several hundred senior managers at Apple who are most likely married and typically have children, you'll find a culture of affirmation, family, and life.
By contrast, when you have several thousand senior managers at Microsoft who murdered their own siblings to get ahead in life, you get things like the "iPod killer" and the "PDF killer". Do you all realize that Steve Balmer doesn't let his own kids have iPods, or use Google, or make PDFs? When this generation of Microsoft children.. let me clarify, I mean the offspring of current Microsoft employees, not the Microsoft employees themselves... anyway, when this generation of Microsoft children grow up, they will be functionally illiterate. But they'll be good at Grand Theft Auto,.
Have you been to the Apple Retail store lately. They love selling all sorts of games for the Mac. The problem Apple had with their Macs is the same with Games: Distribution. The Retail and online stores hope to change that. If it can get shelf space a Game will do very well and that is one of the goals Retail has.
Your analysis, that Apple has no corporate interest in gaming, is flawed in that you rely in part on the observation that Apple does not have marketing pages on it's web site dedicated to the gaming market (even though you do point out that it has web pages about gaming). Whereas Apple does have web pages dedicated to markets like Small Business and Science.
Unofrtuantely I believe that this view is flawed because gaming is a consumer market application. And yet Apple has no specific Consumer Market pages as they do Small Business and Science pages. Despite this fact I think few would argue that Apple has little interest in marketing directly to consumers. Thus not having a specific marketing page cannot lead one to believe that Apple is not interested in a market.
Further, it is not hard to find many examples of when Apple has spoken directly to the gaming community (such as a World of Warcraft demo in a Stevenote, the gaming area set up at WWDC, bundling Nanosaur on an iMac, etc.).
Thus, the foundation for your opinions seems shaky to me. I agree that Apple may not spend as much attention on gaming as it does, for example, music. But that is no proof of what Apple "thinks" about it either way, other than it is likely not as good a business as music.
Last, the point about "Control" and a "bad element" forcing out a "good element" is really without context or foundation.
All-in-all not so well researched a story.
"Apple sells consumer and professional computers."
Right there is where you lost me. What's more consumer than games? There is a heck of a lot more gaming going on at the consumer level than there ever will be with iMovie.
I see nothing wrong with at least offering a build to order option where one could order a serious gaming machine.
Mon Jun 05, 2006 4:00 pm Subject: Control means long-term support
Steve has said it before, and I caution people about it all the time: think long and hard before adding a feature, because you'll never be able to take it out. We've seen the uproar when Apple stopped including a floppy disk, the IrDA port, serial ports, etc.
Think about the iPod. Now that Apple has added iPhoto support, video support, external camera support, recording support, whatever-iMissed support, can they ever take them out? The same is true for iPhoto cards, albums, calendars, or whatever feature any of their products have - you can bet there's a team of people that think long and hard about adding each and every feature.
When Apple added DRM to the iTunes Music Store, they knew that it would have to be a solution that would last for decades. They dedicated themselves to a technology, and to *supporting* that technology, for time eternal. Games are designed to run on existing hardware, and expect maybe 3-5 years of solid support from the community.
Music is a core group for Apple, a group arguably more reliant on Apple products for their livelihood than gamers. Yet do you hear a large outcry from the Music crowd that Apple is "neglecting" them by not including MIDI in/out ports on their computers?
When my uncle worked at SGI, he was on the review committee for a new piece of hardware. There was a team of 10 people dedicated to arguing why *each port* should be included. The MIDI team was able to convince the committee to support that interface, and the USB team was not. SGI thought that MIDI ports would make them money, USB ports would not.
My brother recently closed his music studio and opened a video studio. He realized that garage bands would not make him money, but music and wedding videos would. Apple realized that gamers would make them some money, but consumers at large would make them more. Some play games, but *more* play music, have digital cameras, watch TV shows.
So I agree that Apple neglects gamers in the short term, providing just-adequate support. It's because to maintain control they focus on the absolutely vital features that will sustain the company in the long term. We've seen what supporting every feature for every group has done to Microsoft. I'd hate to see that happen to Apple.
...and buying a bit too much of the Cupertino propaganda.
Here's an alternative perspective. First, a point by point consideration...
1.) *Everybody* has opinions on the military (and its leadership), even the military and its leadership. Attaching gaming to attitudes on the military, especially when sim games (which foster a culture of affirmation, family, and life) are actually the biggest game sellers, is reaching in the wrong direction.
2.) The "PC" in the suit is a caricature of the power the PC has. Of course is it, it's an Apple ad. If we wanted to accurately portray the PC (especially given point #1), we'd put the PC in an Air Force or a Navy uniform. Hm. Right or wrong, that wouldn't exactly help sell Macs. Okay, then we'd put the PC in an Armani suit to reflect the it can it afford a bit more since it has more than the 2% worldwide market share of the Mac.
But there's something deeper than this...
Apple pigeon-holed itself as "niche" because it wanted to be the "power" computer while PCs were catering to gamers. Jobs was, in effect, trying to attract the power users that he's apparently now mocking.
Hm.
In a sort of karmic blowback, marginalizing the sales power of games made the PC the tool of the populace instead of the Mac. Wider platform adoption meant that's where developers went... and it's why, ironically, there are more copies of Photoshop and Maya running on PCs than Macs. Seems odd, doesn't it?
Let's not forget that Apple was a part of the AIM alliance (with long-time powers IBM and Motorola) to create POWER microprocessors. Granted, the POWER era was while Jobs was away cobbling together NeXT... Now why did Steve leave our beloved Apple? Power struggles.
At NeXT, Steve was convinced his cube would change the world of computing. When it didn't he came back to Apple and built *another* cube that he called a supercomputer. Not just a computer, but a machine that had...
You know what's coming...
wait for it...
You guessed it: more "power."
Then what happens? When PowerPC isn't cutting it, he cuts loose. Does he go the philosophical underdog AMD? Nope. He goes where the power is: Intel.
Points #3 and 4 really become superfluous at this point, though the closing statement: "...Apple likes control..." really sums it up. It's not even so much that Apple likes control, it's that *Steve* likes control. And what is control but power? Remember this: "I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do."
-- Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004
Finally, coming back 'round to the military theme, Steve is a general. Despite a lack of tie and windsor knot, he approached the Mac-PC differences like a military campaign. Remember this: "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
-- Steve Jobs, Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996
Power is definitely an issue with Steve Jobs. The biggest shame is that his own need for it ultimately limits just how much Apple could change the world.
Excellent analysis by John Martellero and by Rezonate. As for other comments, I think you overestimate the profitability of gaming versus other markets, such as the home video and photography market.
As for the image that Apple's are not primarily for gaming, that was one message that caused me to switch a few years ago to the Mac OS platform. Although I love gaming, I didn't want a gaming computer as much as I wanted a hassle-free graphic design and multimedia computer. The scarcity of games was a plus and not a minus in my case.
I have to say that, in my experience, you are underestimating the value of games to the decision to purchase a home computer. I spend a lot of time talking to people that are interested in switching to the Mac. People with families inevitably ask me two questions:
• Will the Mac run all my kids educational software?
• Will the Mac run all my kids games?
Most of the time, the reality of the Mac in both those market (less so the edutainment market than the game market) kill the switch. That is *most* of the time, as in just about all of the time. Yes, they would rather put up with the hassles of Windows than switch to a computer that causes their teenagers to throw a fit because they can't play the latest games with their buddies.
Yes, Apple needs to support the gaming industry better. It will have an impact on their sales and penetration not just in the consumer market, but in many small businesses, too.
If you remember back before "Windows", Apple had a hard time keeping the public from thinking of the Mac as a toy computer. "Real" computers used a command-line interface and allowed you to tweak all sorts of OS stuff, or at least that what PC users would tell you.
Apple did not encourage games back then, they were trying for the business market and were doing pretty well with a 15% market share (remember them days?). Then Windows comes along and Apple has to stay ahead of MSoft and does, but Msoft carries it DOS acolytes along and keeps its market share. Eventually the propaganda and the Apple doomsayers and some bad management knock the market share down to today's level.
Back in the late 80' and mid 90's the Mac gaming world was in pretty good shape, several games came out on the Mac first and sometimes only on Mac. Then Apple loses market share and game design becomes cost prohibitive. Game porting evolves. Apple never does really get behind the gaming world and today you see the results.
Apple should not worry about looking like a toy today, because everyone has a GUI. But now they are worried about protecting their niche markets (which they should), but they need to be a bit bolder and reach out for more. They will have a tough time in the business market (although it could be done). The gaming market should be easier to crack and it's a lot bigger than Apple seems to think.
The market they really need to hit is the home entertainment market. It's wide open! Get the Mac to become a PVR (personal video recorder), link it to a sound system, throw in some of Apple's quality software and you will have something that people will pay top dollar for! Start selling these and guess what? People will want games on this system. People get Macs at home and then start asking why not at work too?
I love my Mac, but guess what? Two Years ago I broke down and bought a PC, I wanted to play games! I stil have my Mac and use it for everything but games now. I'm shopping around for a PC based PVR now. I would love to buy an Apple branded PVR, but the third party choices for Mac PVR hardware are few and lacking in features.
Now that Apple makes a computer that can run Windows I may replace my G4 with a new tower when they become available. I can play my games and enjoy a friendlier OS when I am not playing.
I'll keep my hopes up!
Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:46 pm Subject: What world are we talking about?
I the last ten years since I've been actively using (and sometimes, evangelising) Macs, I have yet to come across a person who would ask me if Macs can run their games. I have told dozens of ignorant Windows users about the benefits of a Mac; switched quite a few of those over to the Mac side. Informally, I have talked to, probably, hundreds of computer users about The Mac. Never did anyone interested in buying one ask if some specific Win game exists on the Mac platform. In other words, nobody I spoke to cared much about gaming. They asked about Word; they asked about Outlook (I offered Entourage); they asked about PowerPoint; Paint Shop Pro (I said Photoshop or Graphic Converter); MSN Messenger, AIM Messenger, Yahoo messenger....
I'm sure there must be people who would rather spend $1,000+ to play games (rather than $300 for a console); I would still very much agree with Mr. Martellaro that profits on games are slim and promoting (actively) gaming could hurt Apple's clean image more than it would help sell Macs. Today's gaming reality is that 4 out of 5 games out there are first-person-shooter games (complete with plenty of blood and gore). Apple doesn't need that.
Quote
When you have several hundred senior managers at Apple who are most likely married and typically have children, you'll find a culture of affirmation, family, and life.
Boy this article and some of its comments feel like older, conservative, and prude people. I fit into the quote above yet still love games. I play World of Warcraft regularly and love it. (6.5 million players at $50 to buy the game, plus $15 a month to play, makes for some serious dollars by the way.) I have a household in which you'll find a culture of affirmation, family, and life, too. As a thirty something I really don't see the rationale as to how a person would think one negates the other. I honestly dismiss that notion entirely, It's a game.
I've seen several stats that the gaming industry is larger than the movie industry in dollars. The above game has generated $325 million in initial sales and rakes in $97 million dollars per month, not for one or two months but for years. My point being that I don't think this industry should be dismissed lightly.
I can relate to someones comment about nobody asking about games on the Mac as I am the Secretary of a Mac Computer User Group and admittedly very few of the membership are interested in gaming. They, also, match the description of older, conservative, prude people in general.
However, the younger generation, thirty something and under I'd say generally do care about games. Most people do not buy their first computer in their 40's and up. They'll probably buy their first one in their 20's, and game support and supply is a significant buying factor for them. The PC wins this category and is a significant factor in the twenty-something becoming a PC user rather than Mac user, probably for life in most cases.
As for the comment about a $1,000 computer versus a $300 console. My computer does much more than play games. I need a computer for other things than just playing games, however, if it can be my gaming platform then my gaming platform is free. Why spend $300 on a console when I need a computer anyway?
I've been very happy with my decision to make my first computer a Mac; I am also, a bit of a Mac evangelist and have, also, sold several people on getting a Mac. But I can, also, tell you that if it wasn't for Blizzard Entertainment I would have to seriously reconsider. For those who don't know, Blizzard is really the only major game developer that doesn't shun the Mac and releases all of its games simultaneously for the Mac and PC. The average game might keep my interest for a month or two. Blizzard's games keep my attention for years so they, and pretty much they alone, have been filling that need for me on my Mac.
I have no desire for Apple to make games because honestly this is one area that I don't think they could do a good enough job. Casual games, yes, serious games, no. But I do care about having a computer that can handle the demands of a game and play the game as the game developer meant the game to be played.
I don't get all the intrigue insinuated by this article. IMHO it's a bunch of hot air. I'll tell you why Apple won't market a "gaming" machine...
It's because even if they made a powerful gaming machine it wouldn't matter. Game makers would still make their games for the PC first and the Mac second... like they do today. Game players want the latest/greatest game, and they'll never have that on a mac. It's not the lack of mac game-playing machines that causes this, it's the small market share. Apple did make a push into gaming back in the days of OS9, but the games never came from the game developers so Apple stopped wasting their time on something that was out-of-their-hands.
QuoteGuest wrote:
I don't get all the intrigue insinuated by this article. IMHO it's a bunch of hot air. I'll tell you why Apple won't market a "gaming" machine...
It's because even if they made a powerful gaming machine it wouldn't matter. Game makers would still make their games for the PC first and the Mac second... like they do today. Game players want the latest/greatest game, and they'll never have that on a mac. It's not the lack of mac game-playing machines that causes this, it's the small market share. Apple did make a push into gaming back in the days of OS9, but the games never came from the game developers so Apple stopped wasting their time on something that was out-of-their-hands.
Unfortunately this sounds quite logical to me. Makes more sense than the article.
Tue Jun 06, 2006 12:34 am Subject: Blizzard Saves Apple
I strongly agree with the Guest who commented that Blizzard keeps him with the Mac. I have not broke down and purchased World of Warcraft, but I still play Diablo II regularly. Blizzard makes great games, and if I could not play them on my Mac I would have to consider deserting the platform.
Also, he is correct in that younger people are interested in games. I have sold several people on Macs. The older people generally could care less about games. Younger people, however, really do generally care about games. For these people, it is a much tougher sell. That is unfortunate because young people once they have selected a platform tend to stick with it because they 1) have invested in it, and 2) are comfortable with it.
I would also like to point out that Jobs and Woz were game people, making Breakout. For what it is worth, I do not think Apple either embraces or shuns the game community. It can only do so many things, and gaming simply is not its focus. This,however, does not mean Apple does not want game developers on board. Apple in its past has often implemented technology and responded to game developers needs to make it easier for those developers to make games for the Mac. Accordingly, it is not fair to say Apple is somehow taking a negative stance in regard to games.
It is worth saying too that Microsoft really never did anything to win the game market other then gaining such a huge market share. If Apple's market share grows, more games will come to the Mac. Simple as that.
Thanks for the article. You helped me see the light but it wasn't exactly the point you were trying to make. You said that games are mostly "...about aggressive behavior, conflict, battle, wars of power, domination, and sometimes, in the worst cases, some very unwelcome social behavior." These qualities are supposed to be the ones that would make Steve Jobs disdain games or at best treat them as secondary interests for Apple. This could very well be true, but I would add this: What are Steve Job's personality/character flaws if not "about aggressive behavior, conflict, battle, wars of power, domination, and sometimes, in the worst cases, some very unwelcome social behavior."?? When I read that list I realized that many of those describe Steve Job's bad side of his personality. We all know his "good" side, but he just can't get away from conflict and treating people harshly. Witness the melt down with Woz and his camera-throwing at one of the MacWorld Keynotes a few years ago. He's anything but peaceful sometimes. If taking what you said in your article for truth, then I would simply add that Steve Jobs disdains games because what they are mostly about reminds him subconsciously of his own bad character flaws! This makes the most sense to me than anything as to why Jobs disdains games. Every time a killer game like Doom 3 or WoW comes around computer gamers spend a minimum of 600 dollars to 1000 upgrading systems in order to play them. Jobs clearly would rather sell fewer machines than to get in on this business, and it is probably unconscious self-loathing that is the reason. Fascinating.
It's not quite true that Apple was worried about being seen as toys, the fact is, as anyone who knows anything about computers, gaming machines require real horsepower and Apple by and large produced toys that couldn't play them.
With thier switch to Intel even Apple users are finally seeing how much faster the Apple can run.
Hard-core gamers want hard-core (e.g. expensive) computers. Apple has yet to come out with their Intel replacements for the G5 tower. When they do, I am sure there will be enough CPU and graphic horespower to satisfy pro video and hard core gamers. Personally, I can't see spending $3000 on a computer, mainly to play games.
For the rest of us, all I need is a few educational games for my 7 and 3 yr olds to play on my iMac. I love games, but I just don't have time!
I forsook the Apple II I used in graduate school for an Atari 400, because the Atari had lower case (yes, I am that old). Except for the chicklet keyboard, the Atari was a better design. It even had a separate graphics chip and for its day, it excelled in games.
When Atari came out with a machine to compete with IBM PC, few noticed it. Do you remember the Atari ST?
Today's low end Apples are well advanced beyond the early Atari's, so if there really is a market for low end games then the gaming advocates could make a living. But then reality hits and you realize that all the low end gamers spend less money to get an Xbox.
But if I could make a dollar profit on each game and sold one to every other iPod user, then it might be worth my while.
Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:00 am Subject: Finally someone who sees what makes the Apple brand strong.
These days, one rarely sees people who even *consider* that a brand could be based on it's staff's personal values. Brands are supposed to be based on consumer research. Branding observers rarely discuss brand values as things that can be held and discussed. Usually brand values are being seen as abstractions floating through society, which you can tag on products the way that seems most opportune.
Even though your story is highly theoretical, it's based on the assumption that a good brand consists of values held sincerely by it's leadership. I love to believe that and I've never seen it withspoken.
What about the cost that would be involved in Apple putting in the horsepower (ie: high end graphics cards, etc.) in their consumer line of computers? Note that the consumer line (which is where people seem to want to see more gaming power) are computers with hardwired graphics.
For the non-gaming world, Macs are already viewed as too expensive compared to Windows boxes. If Apple were to put gaming graphics in their consumer line, it would drive prices up further, enhancing the complaints that Macs are overpriced, and probably result in more lost sales from non-gamers than they would get in sales to gamers.
Uh huh. He then says "It's not in Apple's culture to hold people back." Um, yes it is - that's why you can't upgrade an Apple. Steve Jobs would like nothing better than for you to throw your computer away once a year and buy a new one: that's how their business model is designed. And that's the reason Apple doesn't push gaming on a Mac: computer gaming encourages an upgrade cycle that Jobs just doesn't want to encourage. FLORIAN ECKHARDT
For the love of God, shut up. I'm a 27 year old Graphic Designer and Videographer and I've been forced to use Mac's for the past 10 years. I hate everything about Mac, OS 8, OS 9, OS 9.2, and every version of OS X That's been forced on me since college.
My company spends over 3K a year fixing this Mac due to the constant hardware and software crashes. Thank god I have a PC (NOT an IBM as most of you Mac douche bags still call them) at home that's stable and lets me do what I want, when I want to do it. I've never had to pay some dorky guy $500+ because my PC stopped printing..
http://www.discreaderror.net/updates/blog/02-08-06/osxsucks.jpg
Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:30 pm Subject: Re: It's No Game at Apple
QuoteThe idea, of course, is that if Macs were supreme game computers, sales would go up.
The idea is that the Mac must be at least a decent gaming platform or sales would go down.
QuoteIf a market doesn't appear on Apple's main page tab, you can be sure it's a secondary market […] If you're a consumer on a more modest budget, then you get hardware more oriented towards writing and surfing. This is a clear marketing message from Apple that de-emphasizes games for the consumer, no doubt about it.
According to the entertainment software association 50 percent of all Americans play video games! Games are at the very heart of the consumer market, 38 million computer games (excluding console games) were sold last year in the U.S. with sales exceeding $900 million. You think people should remain confined to "writing and surfing"?
QuoteApple has no real corporate interest in the gaming community and does not see computer games as a path to success or a better image for Apple…
Better serving the needs of customers is not a path to success or a better image? And of course games can foster hardware upgrades.
QuoteComputer games, as we've come to know them, are mostly (not always) about aggressive behavior, conflict, battle, wars of power, domination, and sometimes, in the worst cases, some very unwelcome social behavior. To put it bluntly, death and destruction.
Your view is incredibly narrow, what about sport games, racing games, platform games, simulation games? Sales genre data: Only 15% of games sold in 2005 were rated M (mature). And even if people want to play Postal2 on their Mac, Apple's duty to its customers is not to take the morale high-ground or to stop them for dubious reasons. You can use Apple pro software to shoot a porn movie. So what? Will they cancel Final Cut Pro? Oh, don't forget the nefarious iSight, amateurs could use that.
And surfing can be very dangerous too, there is so much porn, spam and malware online, and rampant piracy. Maybe Apple should remove this functionality for our own good. This would not be a deal breaker anyway, we could still use our shiny Macs offline to write some stuff.
QuoteApple 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.
Believe it or not but computer games are grown-up stuff. Game player data: The average age of the game buyer is 40 years old. 26 percent of most frequent computer game players are between 18 and 35 years old and 44 percent of most frequent computer game players are over 35 years old. Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
This whole article is rendered false by one word, Pippin. Apple does(did?) like games, enough to make a videogame console based on their Mac hardware. And they got their ass kicked straight out of the videogame business. I'm not talking about an XBox-type ass kicking, I mean like CD-i! End.
"Apple's public culture appears to celebrate, on the other hand, creation and life. When you have several hundred senior managers at Apple who are most likely married and typically have children, you'll find a culture of affirmation, family, and life."
Talk about non sequitur. Per this logic, those in the military don't have family, and they don't affirm life. Not even when they're put in harm's way in conflicts involving racial genocide like Bosnia or even to pursue those who conspired and carried out the worst terrorist acts ever on our own soil. I think it's amusing that you think the AF and Army are "bad" for using Windows, but I wonder what you'd say if we found Macs in the caves at Tora Bora.
<i>According to the entertainment software association 50 percent of all Americans play video games!</i>
How many of those are graphics-card-eating 3D games? 5%? 10%?
Most people I know play solitaire and simple stuff like that when they're on their computer - whether it's Windows or a Mac or Linux - and just about any machine will run that crap. Of those, some will hop on their playstation or xbox to play what they term "real games". I find most don't even know those same games are available on their computer, but their computer may not have the h/w to let them play them.
They may be trying to focus on 'seriousness' in their marketing, but they reverse their position with ads that try to be hip and catchy for today's youth.
The fact of it is, that games sell PCs. They sell more high end PCs than office ever will, and they sure as HELL sell more than Final Cut or anything like it will. For every video-editing nerd out there, there are a dozen young hip gamers who like electronics. Apple is style savvy, but very lacking in true substance when it comes to it. They give you a nice packaging with a subpar interior.
There's a reason the games industry is a multibillior dollar competitive industry, and video editing (about all that Apple has ever *truly* been "better" than a PC at) can't outsell that.
Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:25 pm Subject:
Response to previous two guests:
Anonymous #1: You know nothing and contribute nothing. What should the Mac be able to do that it doesn't or can't? But since you know nothing you'll find that hard to answer.
Anonymous #2: The game isn't compulsory. If you don't want to play it, don't play it. Play music instead. It's not a reason not to by an iPod. (PS I didn't know that game was there - it's not very good, BTW)
[Goes off to spit into the wind]
I lost track of who in the comments said this: "The idea is that the Mac must be at least a decent gaming platform or sales would go down."
I totally agree with that. I'm 40 and I enjoy playing computer games, and I've never purchased a Mac that couldn't play the then-current games decently. I have a lot of Mac using buddies who are various ages with various jobs and 2/3 of them are into being able to play current games on their Macs. A friend of mine recently was getting all worked up over the new MacBooks for the great performance of the Intel CPUs and was considering selling his PowerBook to buy 2 MacBooks, but in the end he said he couldn't bring himself to do it because he knew he wouldn't be able to play his favorite games. His PowerBook would do ok, so he stuck with that. That's 2 lost sales right there due to shared intel video memory. I'm in the same boat. I like the MacBooks a lot but why would I want a notebook so poor at doing 3D? I think Robert Morgan of Barefeats said it best about using a Mac for lackluster computer tasks and also gaming:
"Defenders of the mini have even emailed me saying, 'Why would anyone want to play games on the Mac mini?' Why would you want to play games any Mac? Because you can!"
He goes on to say,
"Games are not just something people do for fun. We like them because they rigorously test the advanced graphics features like shading, reflectivity, dynamic shadowing, transparency, distortion -- features used by the Mac OS's Dashboard, Finder windows, and Video FX in iMovie HD. If OpenGL and Core Image features can't be rendered quickly and accurately, it detracts from the whole Mac experience."
http://www.barefeats.com/mincd.html
>It is worth saying too that Microsoft really never did anything to win the game market other then gaining such a huge market share.
Not really. Having a big market share of the PC OS market definitely helped. But still, Microsoft made a huge push back in the mid 90's to launch and promote APIs like WinG and then DirectX and features like Autorun to move PC game manufacturers to Windows from DOS. You could say that this was inevitable, because of the increasing numbers of 3D games, the emergence of 3D-accelerated video hardware, Windows' good driver support for it, and the lack of any real vendor-neutral standards for it otherwise (i.e. in the DOS world), and the built-in network stack as multiplayer gaming took off. Still, in order to hook the larger developers whose volume would have allowed them to just stick with supporting only selected vendors' hardware (e.g. 3DFX's), Microsoft really had to promote it at them directly, or let them drift away as it moved toward NT-based Windows and away from DOS-based Windows.
Arguably Apple had it easy; after all, the QuickDraw API got 3D support soon enough, there was no OS transition to worry about at the time, and between game developers who consistently ported their games to the Mac (e.g. Blizzard), and the occasional developer who produced some quite successful games solely for Mac (e.g. Bungie), it saw a fair amount of use.
It's difficult to predict what would have happened if Microsoft had screwed it up. Would the Mac be the gaming platform of choice? Would DOS still be around? Would the main PC gaming platform have been something else entirely?
In the OS X era, with OpenGL supported on basically all computer platforms, it's pretty easy to target a game at the Mac along with Windows and have equivalent graphics performance on equivalent graphics cards. So Microsoft's huge market share is less of an obstacle. Now that I think about it, if John Carmack at id Software hadn't refused to use DirectX for Quake II, Windows might not have widespread accelerated OpenGL support. In a way, Mac users of Google Earth (and other OpenGL applications easily ported to Mac) can thank the popularity of the first-person shooter on Windows for it. It's only with the XBox to point to that Microsoft can say the economics favour DirectX development again, and still only partly.
Now if only Apple had low end systems with a video hardware upgrade path...
Let me start out by saying that the only thing that prevents me from buying a MacBook, with its powerful graphics card, IS the lack of mac compatible games. It seems like the new macs with high-powered graphics cards are begging to be used as portable gaming machines. Macs rarely use it to the fullest potential.
"But 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."
But other OS's are toys? I'm pretty sure that scientists, businesses, and education commonly use the Windows or Linux platform. Creative arts? Sure, Macs still have the upper hand with better tools, but Windows and Linux platform creative arts programs are still common.
"Note that gaming relates to power. The user is in control of his universe and seeks to exert his will. So any discussion of games has to include the utilization of power."
I'm sorry... What? In games like Sim City, which can also be played on a mac, you get absolute control over the universe? This also completely excludes other games, which happen to be non-strategy or non-first person shooters to be non-existent in the Mac community. Also World of Warcraft, arguably one of the most popular games out now, is playable on a Mac, where one person can do anything he/she wants in a virtual-world. If that's not 'power', what is?
"Finally, Apple likes control. They need and love to manage and control the image of their company. If Apple computers were to become the darling of the gaming industry, then the natural evolution of the worst driving out the best would infect their culture. So Apple doesn't mind supporting game developers, but they just don't want to let outrageous success in gaming cause them to lose control of the Apple message."
If Apple has control of their image in professional aspects, why don't they just gain control over their image in the gaming area? If anything, the key issue is probably the difficulties involved in changing the games into a mac platform. Other than that, there is no reason for developers to hold back the ability to sell their games on different operating systems. I'm just doubtful that Mac is missing out on a huge market, and a great chance to expand their audience, just because they want to protect their 'image'. They might as well enter the gaming market with a better 'image' than the competitors.
Gamers don't use macs "." Mac users try to game.
If you want a 100% proprietary carebear, lolipop looking piece of over priced $#!% buy a mac and fit in with whatever demografic apple has narrowed out for you to fall into. If I can't rip the memory out and go to compusa to replace it or do , swap a hard drive or decide to gut the whole box I don't want anything to do with it.
On the rational side mac's are over priced and trendy. They lack directx support and are making no advances in their own technology and no the opengl api is not worth $#!%. They don't offer even the ability for a performance mac. OSX is not fast and when it comes down to it they just took a linux box and made a proprietary x server front end that under performs.
If you consider yourself a gamer or even a techie you will own a windows box for gaming and a linux box for everything else both of which you built yourself. Plug debian!
Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:11 am Subject: Re: Crap on a MAC
QuoteAnonymous wrote:
Gamers don't use macs "." Mac users try to game.
If you want a 100% proprietary carebear, lolipop looking piece of over priced $#!% buy a mac and fit in with whatever demografic apple has narrowed out for you to fall into. If I can't rip the memory out and go to compusa to replace it or do , swap a hard drive or decide to gut the whole box I don't want anything to do with it.
On the rational side mac's are over priced and trendy. They lack directx support and are making no advances in their own technology and no the opengl api is not worth $#!%. They don't offer even the ability for a performance mac. OSX is not fast and when it comes down to it they just took a linux box and made a proprietary x server front end that under performs.
If you consider yourself a gamer or even a techie you will own a windows box for gaming and a linux box for everything else both of which you built yourself. Plug debian!
You lost credibility completely with the first paragraph. After that, it was all "blah, blah, blah."
Try to get your facts straight before posting. It works a lot better that way.
QuoteIntruder wrote:QuoteAnonymous wrote:
Gamers don't use macs "." Mac users try to game.
If you want a 100% proprietary carebear, lolipop looking piece of over priced $#!% buy a mac and fit in with whatever demografic apple has narrowed out for you to fall into. If I can't rip the memory out and go to compusa to replace it or do , swap a hard drive or decide to gut the whole box I don't want anything to do with it.
On the rational side mac's are over priced and trendy. They lack directx support and are making no advances in their own technology and no the opengl api is not worth $#!%. They don't offer even the ability for a performance mac. OSX is not fast and when it comes down to it they just took a linux box and made a proprietary x server front end that under performs.
If you consider yourself a gamer or even a techie you will own a windows box for gaming and a linux box for everything else both of which you built yourself. Plug debian!
You lost credibility completely with the first paragraph. After that, it was all "blah, blah, blah."
Try to get your facts straight before posting. It works a lot better that way.
you lost credibility when you said he lost credibility. lol apple sucks
I alos used to love them on my Amiga, but that went the way of the Dodo due to the misconception that it was a gaming machine only.
A sad loss.
So I understand the resistance to re-create that mistake, but in all fairness, times have changed. Look at AMD? The perception for me was that AMD is not as stable as Intel, but it was better for games, and look at AMD now... people don't think it's for gaming anymore, but a valid competitor to Intel!
Hmm... Most business people today have grown up gamers... unlike the time of the Amiga. I say it's time for a rethink.
Nobody forces you to read an article about Apple on the internet. Nobody even forced you to come to this page.
If you hate Mac OS, maybe you're in the wrong business, or at least the wrong company. You don't _have_ to use Mac OS.
Also, you thank god you have a PC...
Did you never realise that P.C. stands for "Personal Computer"?
I have an iBook here at home. It's my PC.
You could be pedantic and call anything that isn't mac a 'non-mac', though I actually think calling them IBMs would be simpler and anyone who doesn't understand that probably doesn't know how to turn a computer on anyway.
Oh, and thanks for going through two whole paragraphs without insulting Mac users... Oh, wait... You didn't manage that, did you?
Next time concentrate on getting a point across, that way, people will like you better.
Oh, by the way, my post above was referring to:
QuoteGuest wrote:
For the love of God, shut up. I'm a 27 year old Graphic Designer and Videographer and I've been forced to use Mac's for the past 10 years. I hate everything about Mac, OS 8, OS 9, OS 9.2, and every version of OS X That's been forced on me since college.
My company spends over 3K a year fixing this Mac due to the constant hardware and software crashes. Thank god I have a PC (NOT an IBM as most of you Mac douche bags still call them) at home that's stable and lets me do what I want, when I want to do it. I've never had to pay some dorky guy $500+ because my PC stopped printing..
http://www.discreaderror.net/updates/blog/02-08-06/osxsucks.jpg
Oh, by the way, my post above was referring to:
QuoteGuest wrote:
For the love of God, shut up. I'm a 27 year old Graphic Designer and Videographer and I've been forced to use Mac's for the past 10 years. I hate everything about Mac, OS 8, OS 9, OS 9.2, and every version of OS X That's been forced on me since college.
My company spends over 3K a year fixing this Mac due to the constant hardware and software crashes. Thank god I have a PC (NOT an IBM as most of you Mac douche bags still call them) at home that's stable and lets me do what I want, when I want to do it. I've never had to pay some dorky guy $500+ because my PC stopped printing..
http://www.discreaderror.net/updates/blog/02-08-06/osxsucks.jpg
Quoteengrish wrote:QuoteThe idea, of course, is that if Macs were supreme game computers, sales would go up.
The idea is that the Mac must be at least a decent gaming platform or sales would go down.
According to the entertainment software association 50 percent of all Americans play video games! Games are at the very heart of the consumer market, 38 million computer games (excluding console games) were sold last year in the U.S. with sales exceeding $900 million. You think people should remain confined to "writing and surfing"?
Engrish is spot on.
I'm 33, I work in IT. I own my own home, have two vehicles, and would be described as middle class. The last Mac I bought was a used 1.25Ghz PowerBook for my wife to use, since she has gone back to school. My last machine from Apple was a Quicksilver 733Mhz tower. While it's been one of the easiest machines to work on that I've ever owned, it was really more expensive that it should have been. I would have replaced it a couple of years ago, expensive or not...
...but, I needed to upgrade my home built, Athlon gaming system. My servers run a very lean (CLI-only) install of Slackware Linux on mostly inexpensive hardware, so they've not caused me not to buy a new Mac.
The last upgrades I purchased were also not for the Mac. They were for my Athlon so that'd it be able to play Oblivion better. That did kinda eat into the new Mac fund, somewhat.
Before Apple came out with the announcement that they were going to switch, and then the astonishing Conroe benchmarks, I was looking at whether I wanted to build a new Athlon 64 based gaming rig or buy a faster Mac.
My thinking was as such; the Mac can run a buttload of terminal sessions (iTerm), Xcode, a webbrowser (Firefox), a multi-protocol IM client (Fire), and four or five other things at the same time, and it's slower than I like. But, when I'm playing some of the heavier games, my framerate goes to crap, and I can't really keep up for LAN games. Wait for the Mac when working on projects (annoying), or choppy games (really annoying).
I'm just hoping that Apple pulls their head out of their *** (like when they dumped OS9), and releases something with SLI or decent video card options. While I'd prefer to run games under OSX, I can easily install Windows on the new machine and play games that way. But it NEEDS to be able to take some decent gaming cards... ARE YOU LISTENING APPLE?
Probably not...
----
Please have some courtesy, and do not respond if you're 14 or otherwise emotionally handicapped. I've probably been using computers since before you were born, and run more operating systems in my home than you probably know exist.
i remember not 6 years ago steve stood on stage with john carmack making a point to show how the mac was great for games and john then made a point to say how easy it was for developers to compile for mac in the quake 3 engine.
i remember before that, at the launch of the original imac how steve again stood on stage showing off virtual game station from connectix. again touting how great the mac is for games.
if you think apple is willingly staying out of an industry that for the last 4 years, has outgrossed the motion picture industry youre severely misguided.
You could argue the Mac OS platform has great potential to achieve a lot of basic office functionality, you could claim it's a great companion for college students to get their work done on, you could also claim that it's a great platform for families to do photo/video work on and surf the web and such, and I would agree with you. I don't think Mac OS is really that bad of an OS at all.
I'm an IT administrator and freelance IT contractor, I work with x86 PCs only. Linux and Windows are my buddies. I've had to deal with many Apple systems in the past, and I can't say I've honestly had any better experience on them than I would have on a Windows PC. I can also honestly say that I've seen more Mac OS systems crash than I have Windows XP systems crash in the past 5 years. I'm a C/C++ programmer, MS/My/Pl/SQL, and web interfacer on the side, and I wouldn't even consider Mac OS as any sort of a reasonable platform to develop anything on. Frankly, there just isn't a decent market for one thing.
I'm the kind of person that will pay for a quality product. Looks don't appease me unless there's something to back those looks up under the shell. With Apple's new switch to the x86 platform, what good is buying an overpriced x86 PC with a proprietary OS on it when there are cheaper, and at least just as efficient, alternatives? Price is an incredibly large factor in most consumer's minds when purchasing products, to toss that to the side is ludacris. The "Mac" simply doesn't cut it in affordability category in comparison to the WinPC platform alternatives.
There's one thing that really ticks me off about Apple though, their advertisement. They act like they're better than everyone else, like their $#!% doesn't stink. Personally that kind of attitude in a "professional" company doesn't strike accord with me. If you don't have the clearly superior product in the world, don't go around with your pinky in the air putting down the rest of the competition. VW is another great example of this.
From what I've experienced using many different platforms over the years, Mac OS is far from as expandable as a linux/windows platform, especially in business. That is also to say that they are no where near as safe from viruses and such as they'd like to think, the fact is that most people don't care enough to even write malicious code for Mac OS, for now. If the platform continues to grow, where do you think the virus/spyware market will shift to? Nothing is perfect, you know.
I'd also like to ask why in the world would you be running linux on an x86 Apple PC when you can get a cheaper PC, with probably more power, elsewhere? If you dual boot, sure, that's fine, but I'd probably chose linux over Mac OS if you're compitent to navigate the depths of linux distrobutions in the first place.
This is an interesting topic. I know I didn't dicuss gaming in my post, most of you have already made concise points about it, so I just discussed the Mac OS platform in general instead. I don't think inviting the gaming market on to the Apple platform would bring any more revinue anyway.
I recall Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates referring to the GPL and free/open source software as cancers. Bill Gates has long in the past called sharing source code and software "stealing from the authors". Microsoft has thusly been branded as a closed source and commercial software vendor. Seems pretty personal to me.
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