Macs… still lagging in gaming, except for web/social games.
Depending on who you ask or what you read, Macs continue to hover in the same 4-10% market share they have languished in for the last 20 years or so. No amount of marketing seems to make much of a difference.
In fact, if Apple spent a fraction of its marketing budget on making gaming viable on the Mac, one has to wonder if that would have seized more market share.
At long last, Apple has finally canceled their grossly counter-productive “Get a Mac” ads (more well known as Mac vs. PC ads). I have often wondered how much longer Apple would continue to give Microsoft/PCs free publicity. Years ago, the PC guy became far more loveable and endearing, and the Mac guy became more of a self-important, arrogant, douche.
For many people, the piss poor gaming support is a major reason people don’t even give Macs a second glance. For perhaps the first time in two decades, a revolution in the gaming industry is threatening to break down that wall: casual/web games. We all know how popular these are becoming, and finally they are games that Mac users can play as well. Then again, maybe Jobs and his hate for Flash will strangle this baby in the crib.
Would you be more likely to buy a Mac if it ran more games? Do you think the rise of social/web games is a major opportunity for the Mac to make aggressive gains in market share? Or is it all irrelevant, because no matter what happens Apple will always be their own worst enemy due to their obsession with proprietary standards and reliance on haughty snobbery to sell products?
One of the problems I’ve found with Macs is that they are a lot like using laptops for gaming, but worse, in that they are difficult to upgrade/mod as well as expensive should your system no longer possess the power to play a game. Generally, a PC is easier/cheaper to keep updated which keeps me fully in the realm of PCs for gaming, as far as computers are concerned.
It’ll be interesting to see if Steam’s arrival on the Mac makes a difference. I know that a lot of the console-loving podcasts out there are run by people with Macs, and many of them were gushing at being able to play titles like Portal and Torchlight last week.
Gaming on a computer (as opposed to a console) has always been about being ‘close to the metal.’ There was a ‘meta-game’ about making your computer work the best it can. In that sense there was always a ‘hobbyist’ aspect to PC gaming. In the early years of the PC, there were boot disks with memory managers that you had to load just to get your game running. After that, came networking and other technical setups that most people didn’t understand. Finally, came specialized 3D and sound hardware and the constant dance of updating your drivers.
Far from being a chore, for most PC gamers these things were part of the fun. It was a challenge to get your box in shape to play games better than everyone else.
The whole concept behind the ‘Mac’ experience is that you don’t even know the metal exists. This kind of specific hobbyist configuration goes against everything Apple holds dear about a computing experience. That is the specific reason that games never took off there. Mac enforced an ‘as-is’ environment, but games have always been so cutting-edge that an ‘as-is’ environment just isn’t good enough.
That’s changed recently. In the last 5 years hardware has outpaced software something fierce. Crysis is still the poster-child for highly demanding games, and Crysis is getting old. People are starting to game primarily on commodity machines. There is no more (or very little) tweaking involved. (Heck, I’ve gone almost 2 years without replacing any drivers on my PC, that’s unheard of.)
That change, more than anything else, allows Macs to become viable as a gaming platform. The fact that you can buy a system of the shelf that doesn’t need any ‘tweaking’ to play the current games makes it so the ‘non-tweakable’ Macs are just as useful as the PC’s. (PC’s that are still tweakable, but are remaining un-tweaked.)
That same argument holds up the idea that ‘casual gaming’ is breaking down that wall. Flash games don’t require tweaks. They are simple enough, they just work on anything. However it’s not just casual gaming that’s coming over. Steam and Source are coming over, and that’s hardly casual. It’s rumored that Unreal Tournament 3 will be available for Mac’s over Steam. That’s as hard-core as you get anymore.
I’ve wanted a Mac since the introduction of OS X. There are two reasons I haven’t gotten on.
#1. My Windows PC is a glorified gaming console. If it wasn’t for games I’d have been using Linux as my desktop 10 years ago. Getting a Mac just destroys that.
#2. Way too expensive. I live on a budget that demands I get the most out of every dollar. I’ve built all my PC’s from individual parts. Try that with a Mac.
It seems that the “Mac Gaming revolution’ might eliminate problem #1. However, I’ll still have problem #2, so I’ll probably be stuck with Windows for the foreseeable future.
Don’t forget, Steam just launched their platform for Macs, and led off with a free download of Portal. That should help boost gaming on a Mac.
My computer is a Mac. My last computer was a Mac. Prior to that, I built all my own PCs, a couple of them tricked out fairly nicely.
I’m not sure that you’re asking the right questions, though. You headline your post with ‘Mac still lagging in gaming’ as if that was the end all purpose of computers. I have to doubt if Apple was ever using that as a measure of their own success.
I do not think it has made much of difference in their market share, which might have been more than it is now, but it always would have been relatively marginal to the PC/Windows juggernaut. For it to have been any different, the last thirty years of personal computers would have had to have happened very differently.
As technology currently stands though, it cost me all of $60 to install virtual machine software on my new Mac that lets me run Windows as a background process. I installed Star Trek Online, which I wish I hadn’t wasted my money on, and Torchlight, which was fun to finish, but I really haven’t played it much since. If the rumor that they’re building an MMO on the same IP holds true, I’ll be happy to try it on Windows. Everything else I currently run is Mac native.
WoW has a Mac client, of course, so I can not only run that natively on OS X, but run it well enough that my PC wielding friends are jealous of it when they see it. Back in the day, I played EQ on my old Mac just fine.
FPS games are clearly a whole different ball of wax though and can place more stringent demands on systems, their needed specs, and the people who build them. While I’ve played a good number of them in my time, I’m just not as big a fan of FPS games and don’t really miss them.
I guess what it comes down to is that what I really want is a new MMO that isn’t facile, recycled, repetitive crap. Platform is irrelevant. Clearly, I would prefer it to have a Mac client, but I’m not a hater. I don’t need it to be Mac only and I’ll be just as happy if it only runs on Windows.
I just don’t understand the anti-Mac vitriol.
No I ask that because gaming is the primary purpose of this blog. Since this isn’t a news blog, just about everything you read here will be about gaming in some way, or how some news item affects gaming.
I agree things would have had to happen differently. But one of those things that would have had to happen differently is the Mac would have needed to either:
1) More aggressively support gaming.
2) Support an open standard for the mac platform.
Maybe I’m just old, but I remember the days when Apple dominated market share, not PC. In that day, I used to get this catalog every month from which you could order games. The list of games available for Apple (the Apple II series) was triple or more what was available for the PC.
I do not think it is a coincidence that when Apple was the dominant platform for computer gaming, it also dominated market share. And once PCs were the dominant platform for gaming, they took over and dominated market share.
Virtual machines have so many issues, problems, incompatibilities, and lacking driver support that I’m not sure I even need to go here. Not only is this an extra cost and an extra hassle, but it raises its own issues. It is not a substitute, and typically only the more hardcore types bother with virtual machine software.
While there are a few games with Mac clients (Blizzard has traditionally been VERY good on this front – a further example of their accessibility, accessibility, accessibility mantra) that is the exception.
It is not just FPS games on the Mac, it is RTS, RPG, and just about every other genre out there that is lacking on the Mac.
Well yeah, but that isn’t the subject of this particular post.
Huh? There is none. How can you read posts that say something like this “I love the Mac. I think it is awesome. I totally want to have one. In fact, I’d like to have its babies. But sadly, the Mac still sucks for games even after all these decades, so I never get to have my Mac love child.” and call that vitriol? That is people professing a desire to own a mac, and lamenting the fact that Apple doesn’t even give them the option due to their stubborn refusal (or failure) to support games.
Is Mac fanboism rearing its head here? That’s usually the explanation for someone calling something anti-Mac or Mac vitriol when clearly there is no such thing taking place here.
Yes, it is a gaming blog. Fair enough. I wouldn’t be reading it if it weren’t.
Yes, Apple could more aggressively support gaming. I certainly wouldn’t mind. However, I’m not sure what new open standard you’re looking for them to support. Do you have some particular examples that you think would be key for gaming studios to swing towards more Mac development?
I think it was coincidence. Or at least you may be reversing cause and effect. When PCs began taking the lead in market share, all the game developers jumped on that ship, as any sane business would. Sure, Apple had a huge lead back in the day, but it was also a day when their were plenty of alternatives. I have fond memories of playing Gunship on my friend’s Commodore 128 and my first computer was an Amiga.
Once the microcomputer became the personal computer, x86 architecture proliferated through the explosion of PC clones that spread like wildfire, most running a Microsoft OS, as I’m sure you remember. It all exploded on the business side of things and suddenly their were PC’s everywhere and they became affordable enough for people to buy them for home use. Apple did try the same tactic, via licensing, but it simply didn’t work for them. Part of that might have been bad business on their part, steep licensing fees and what not, but a big part of that was simply that the Mac clones were just crap.
Apple lost whatever market share they had to business, mostly driven by the dominance of MS Office, rather than by any inherent advantage in Windows. They held onto a bigger share in education, where they were already entrenched, but that wasn’t going to let them hold onto market dominance, and gaming went to the new king of the PC market – Windows.
If your argument that “once PCs were the dominant platform for gaming, they took over and dominated market share” were true cause and effect, then you’re saying it was the game producers themselves that destroyed Apple’s market share. They must have all decided at approximately the same time that they all hated developing for Macs and risked their existing business models to switch to Windows, causing Apple’s market share to dwindle to nothing under the mighty power of game studios.
No, we don’t need to go into virtual machine software. I was simply pointing out that it’s widely available at a reasonable price. Still, if I were doing hard core gaming, I also have the option to dual boot my Mac and run Windows right on the iron.
The vitriol I was seeing was in your original post. It just seemed very angry to me and I didn’t understand why.
Apparently, you didn’t like the ad series. That’s cool. Saying it with “At long last, Apple has finally canceled their grossly counter-productive ads” seems less cool headed. Using phrases like “at long last” and “grossly counter-productive” aren’t exactly friendly.
The “hate for Flash” thing seems out of place. While the iPhone/iTouch/iPad don’t support Flash, it works just fine on Macs themselves, so its more of a straw man arrangement when talking about gaming on Macs.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong. ::shrug::
Man, those ads were terrible. I’m not a Windows guy. I’ve been using linux for 3 or so years now. If Apple had have taken a different approach, I might have been typing this post on a Mac. As it is though, that ridiculous ad campaign has now associated the Apple logo with “Smug douchebag” for me. No thanks Apple, I don’t feel like paying 25% more just so I can feel like I’m better than everybody else.
“Apple Logo = Smug douchebag”… Yes, Outsider, that is the legacy of that ad campaign.
Porlock, I personally watched and participated in the abandonment of the Mac in the late 80s and early 90s as the computer gaming surge was happening. When I started college, the Mac was the gaming platform of choice. Risk, Tetris, and a host of other games. But the Mac utterly failed to maintain itself as a viable platform for gaming, whereas the PC did (largely because of the open architecture). It became far easier to make games for the PC than the Mac, and so people did.
That happens to be the same way the PlayStation stomped the Nintendo – maintaining a platform that is EASIER to make games for. It is not a coincidence at all how often this pattern repeats itself.
By the mid 90s, the Mac was trounced, and people were using PCs primarily.
This wasn’t just with business. This was with everyone. Games were a large part of it. Every PC can word process and do spreadsheets. MS Office exists on the Mac too, you know. The only thing the PC can do that the Mac cannot is games. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that games are definitely a large factor in the PCs market share dominance.
Why do I have to be friendly? That ad campaign was insulting, smug, and irritating as hell. It was funny maybe 1 or 2 times, and the rest of the time it reeked of snobby arrogance. The fact that it has finally been killed is a relief. It does not deserve any “kindness” or “friendliness.” I think Mac did more damage to itself with that ad campaign than it has since the Newton.
If you don’t think Apple/Jobs hates flash, you didn’t read Steve Jobs’ recent open letter where he trashed flash mercilessly.
The arrogance of Steve Jobs completely turns me off anything related to Apple. So does that company’s insistence on “closed” environments – I enjoy tinkering with my gaming PC and I’m also very fond of playing modded games, niche beta tests ect. The main draw of PC vs console gaming as I see it openess – which is the total opposite of what Apple offers.
The fact MACs are so overpriced also really doesn’t help things on the gaming front.
The way they even control the ap market just amazes me. Why should the maker of the device also have control of what content can be bought for it? That is a classic vertical monopoly.
Apple will always be their own worst enemy due to their obsession with proprietary standards and reliance on haughty snobbery to sell products.
Took your question, made it a statement, works just as well.
Since Mac started using intel chipsets, the only real differences “Under the hood” between a Mac and a PC are the OS and the aforementioned proprietary standards.
…Oh, and the price tag, which is often unforgivably inflated on a Mac. And we won’t even go into how they not only don’t support user servicability, they go out of their way to actively attempt to prevent it.
Someone (it might have even been you, Muckbeast) posted an article a while back where a business analyst went over how the cost of adopting Macs by the business community meant that they would never get so much as a look in the immediately forseeable future. He didn’t go into specifics but I think the lack of servicability and their proprietary nature is kin to this. I would suggest that the gaming industry has similar reservations.
This would suggest that Mac is totally reliant on purchases from joe public to remain solvent.
What I don’t understand is why. Why stick to pre-packaged stock machines with an alienware-esque pricetag? Why not embrace the hobbyist builder? Why instinctively go for lawyer-rape on people who want to mod your products?
Perhaps it is Australia’s proximity to the asian market which colours my perceptions, but I have always viewed mac products as something appropriate to a thinkgeek catalogue. Interesting, visually appealing, often original in application but well behind the 8-ball in functionality. For example, Australia has had video calling since approximately 2001 with the release of Hutchison Telecom’s ‘3′ network. Telstra and Optus, two of the country’s major carriers were quick to follow suit.
It was never widely adopted and exists now as more of an interesting side-feature. Unsurprisingly the mobile content market more than made up for this. I’m now seeing the apple fanboys drooling over the new iPhone, and how it will finally have videophone capability. 10 year old technology and they’re acting like it’s a brand new thing… But we’re not talking about the fanboys here.
At the end of the day, the iFads are gimmicks. Google’s Android O/S looks set to take a large, jagged-toothed bite out of the iphone market, and if Nokia has any brains, the Symbian O/S will soon get an upgrade also. With so many competitors on the market for mobile games and content, I can’t see apple holding onto the ‘apps’ monopoly for long, and when the cult of mac finally starts fraying at the edges, I don’t think Microsoft will bail them out again.
It almost seems to me that Apple is becoming a consumer electronics and services company rather than a computer/software company. That actually makes a bit of sense because those types of devices are not things people demand open standards for.
Does anyone think it is possible that 10 years from now there would be no more Macs at all? Just iBooks, iPads, iPhones, iPods, etc?
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