There are many problems with the Macintosh consumer market. There are two weaknesses in particular that I see as very pressing, yet neither has gotten much attention from the Mac world. With all the controversy surrounding Apple in the last 18 months, the Mac industry is in danger of being blind-sided by the effects of this tunnel vision. I am addressing both of these issues in a two part series. This is Part II:
The subject of games in the Mac market has received more attention than the retail issues I discussed last week. It is common knowledge to those of us who love to play computer games that PC software dominates this huge market. It seems that the folks at Apple may not know that along with the lack of retail space, the lack of games is the next biggest factor keeping families from buying Macs.
Parents often times buy computers specifically with their children in mind. They want their kids to have every advantage possible in today's world. Many parents want their kids to be computer literate. Frequently, parents want their kids to show them how to use a computer for use at their adult jobs.
The Internet is also a determining factor in parents' computer selections. If you want your kids to have access to all the information that your neighbors' children have, they must have access to the Internet. While not as ubiquitous as the telephone, the Internet is becoming more transparent on a daily basis. At an ever increasing rate, many schools are now requiring even middle school students to perform research on the Internet for class projects. Those papers must often be typed (read: printed) and this too requires a computer.
All of the societal and economic pressures are there for parents to buy a computer for their family. Because of this, more and more computer buyers are first-time owners. The computer is leaving the world of luxury and entering the world of appliances. At the same time, computers still have an aura of complexity about them. So for many of these 1st time buyers, their kids often know much more about computers than they do. These consumers tend to buy the computer that their child recommends.
Enter the child. The number one thing that a child wants to do on a computer is play games. They will use school, the Internet, and educating their parents as tools in the war to get a computer. Deep down, however, they want to blow things up, drive fast cars, solve puzzles, find treasure, and fly spaceships. Most especially, they want to obliterate their friends in a nice friendly head to head death match of Quake.
You can't play Quake on a Mac (until this summer). In fact, you can't play most of the games that are available for the PC on a Mac. Kids want PCs because they are cool, their friends have them, and they can play games on them. Kids even think that PCs are more technically advanced than a Mac. After all PCs have Sound Cards and a two button mouse!! Macs don't!! This kind of ignorance is one of the most frustrating aspects of being a fanatical MacHead.
Don't get me wrong, there are some very good games available on the Mac. Most of them, however, have been available on the PC for months or years, and one by one, the big game developers are dropping Mac development at a brisk clip. GT Interactive and LucasArts are leading the way (despite the fact that George Lucas is, by all accounts, a Mac fan). My question is, who can really blame them? Developers simply don't make as much money on Mac games as they do on their PC counterparts. Never mind the fact that even today, there are games with large portions developed on a Mac that never see that happy smiley face grace their covers. If developers were making money on Mac games, more would be in the market.
Here comes the child part of the equation again. One reason why there are not many games sold for Macs is the fact that the majority of game players are buying PCs. Why are they doing this?, because there are more games for that platform. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the Catch 22 in this scenario.
For a long time Apple actively discouraged games on the platform in order to promote the notion that the Mac was not a toy. In 1996 this was partially rectified by the GameSprockets project. GameSprockets offered system level support for many functions needed by game developers. This included sound, networking, input devices, and graphics abilities. By using the GameSprocket APIs, developers did not have to reinvent the wheel for these types of functions, they simply drew upon the abilities built into the Sprockets. This shortened development time considerably. These functions are also ones that PC developers have taken for granted for some time.
Using GameSprockets, Blizzard Entertainment in particular did a superb job of porting Warcraft II to the Mac. The 3D Stereo found in the Mac version of the game surpassed that of its PC counterpart. Warcraft and Warcraft II have also been huge successes on both platforms and Blizzard will likely continue to follow their dual platform strategy.
Games like Marathon (and its sequels Marathon II and Marathon Infinity) also broke some of the rules. Many Mac gamers (including me) have known that Marathon is one of the finest games ever made. While Bungie released Marathon and its successors exclusively for Macintosh, economic pressures have been whittling away at the developer. This is witnessed by the PC release of Marathon II last fall, and will continue to be evident from all of the company's forthcoming titles.
By any measure, GameSprockets were a massive leap in the right direction to attract more game developers to the Mac. That was why Dr. Amelio put the technology in maintenance mode in March. Whether or not it was his idea, he okayed it. Maintenance Mode means that few resources will be devoted to further development and implementation of Game Sprockets. Despite this situation, Chris DeSalvo, the one remaining engineer in the Sprockets team, has done a remarkable job of finishing existing development and attempting to put the word out that Sprockets still existed, a job that Apple seemed to consider unimportant. Of all the moves that Apple had to make in March to bring the company back to profitability, putting Game Sprockets into maintenance mode was the most absurd, foolish, shortsighted, and least intelligent.
To add insult to injury, Apple then announced that GameSprockets would not be brought over to Rhapsody. What they did not announce was the fact that most of the functionality of GameSprockets would be or already was a part of Rhapsody. Once again, it was Chris DeSalvo who let the gaming world know this through the newsgroups and Mac gaming sites on the Internet. There was a lot of trepidation running through the Mac gaming community at this time. Clearly, better communication would have allayed many of those fears in both the development and user community. This is further evidence of Apple's blindness to the importance of games.
For many years, the lack of games was not as pronounced as it is today. In addition, Apple's core markets could only find the capabilities and ease of use they needed or wanted on Macintosh computers. These two facts helped Apple maintain a nice hefty chunk of market share. The reality of today is that Microsoft has narrowed the gap in ease of use and capabilities. It is still there, but much less marked. Most of the software that once existed only on the Mac is now available for PCs as well, but PC-only software has not made the same crossover. "Macintosh-half the taste and none of the flavor!" I know that sounds redundant, but it illustrates my point.
It is possible that Rhapsody (including the recently confirmed Rhapsody for Intel and Rhapsody for Windows) might unintentionally deliver a solution to what Apple has never seen as a problem. John Carmack has already announced Quake 2 for Rhapsody even though he has still not received support for hardware acceleration of OpenGL (a 3D technology that he has asked Apple to include in Rhapsody). During the WWDC, Apple demonstrated a Rhapsody version of Quake based on Quakeworld and Quake 2 code that Mr. Carmack put together with "some free time" he had the weekend before the WWDC.
Of all the demonstrations performed at the WWDC, I think that this one might have been the most important. Mr. Carmack is one of the single most important figures in the world of gaming right now. In most ways, his company, id Software, has set the standards that others must meet. Where id goes, many other developers will follow. If other game developers see that they can significantly reduce development costs by developing on Rhapsody, then they may flock to the platform. With a Rhapsody for Mac port being a recompilation away, developers would have little reason NOT to issue "Mac" versions of their games. The economics of R&D; might win the battle that Apple has never bothered to fight.
With game choice and availability no longer an issue, kids would take the opportunity to find out that the fastest computers in the world are Macs powered with Power PC chips. They might learn that the Pentium with or without MMX is still a 2nd rate competitor of the Power PC. They might even find out that they don't need that SoundBlaster card anymore. If the best gaming platform in the world bears a Mac/Rhapsody emblem, computer retailers will have to use a very large stick to try and keep Johnny Consumer away.
I received a lot of correspondence from part I of this series. Many of the people writing mentioned the dearth of Mac games in their comments about the lack of retail space. Many also recounted their own efforts of supporting Mac retail and evangelizing retail clerks and consumers. Some even suggested that it is our job as Mac users to promote these concepts. I say that it is an absurd situation when a multi-billion dollar corporation leaves it to its customers to promote the interests of that very company. The developments of today are the result of years of mismanagement. I have stated before that I believe in Dr., Amelio and I think he is doing an excellent job under extraordinary circumstances. I think that his efforts are showing more results on an almost daily basis.
I also think, and this is the kicker, that Dr. Amelio must embrace the power and importance of the consumer and the game player. These two factors are the driving forces behind the success of Microsoft and Intel based machines. They are more important than artists, movie makers, web designers, and desk top publishers combined. The platform can no longer survive with just these niche markets, and the time has come for Apple to recognize this.
In the meanwhile, I am going to go buy System 7.6 so that I can make Open Transport work on my Mac for the first time. You see, I really want to play Command & Conquer over the Internet...
What do you think? I invite your feedback at editor@macobserver.com.
