I wonder what the trolls would think of this one

[edX]

here is an article that talks about feedback to David Coursey's experiment to go back to using a mac full time.

follow this link

so the more times i hear this argument that games are so important an issue in remaining a pc user, i have to ask myself which platform and its users is really for kids and the immature?

or is it just that after fighting with your pc all week, people feel like they need at least the chance to win?

[mrfluffy]

on the subject of games, the mac has historically been called a toy but PCs have all the games (except the impossible chess). Can anyone tell me why?

[vanguard]

I read the article. Only one of the people who wrote back mentioned games. He also said that he would switch "next month" if his games worked on a mac. Another mentioned that mac users were elitist. After hearing you call PC users immature I can't help but wonder if he's right.

Again and again I keep hearing mac users claim to be more technical than PC users. As a guy who lives in both worlds let me tell you, PC users are just as technical as mac users. Of course both platforms have their gurus/experts and both platforms have their dodos. Let's not act elite.

And finally, good games cost $10-15 million dollars to make nowadays. They could never make a profit if they only ran on a platform with less than 5% of the marketshare. (Linux has this same problem). Beyond that, most games aren't even ported because even porting can be too expensive to make money with such a small userbase.

Hopefully, that will change.

[vanguard]

One last thing, your subject is "what the trolls would think of this one". Then you procede to make fun of PC users.

Who's trolling?

[Jadey]

Originally posted by vanguard
And finally, good games cost $10-15 million dollars to make nowadays. They could never make a profit if they only ran on a platform with less than 5% of the marketshare. (Linux has this same problem). Beyond that, most games aren't even ported because even porting can be too expensive to make money with such a small userbase.

Hopefully, that will change.

If this were true, NOBODY would make games for Mac or PC. That 5% marketshare figure is thrown around so much as though it were piddly. Actually, 5% translates to millions of users. If a company can't be profitable by doing a bit of porting to gain that many more potential clients, they're running their businesses poorly.

Games are important though. They are the only thing the average user does that pushes the hardware envelope. Average users don't edit broadcast quality video in real time. Gamers keep the consumer PC industry going forward. The strange thing though, is that games SUCK on PCs.

I use PCs and Macs too. My neice got survivor for Xmas this year for her PC. It won't install. We've tried it now on 5 different brand new PCs. All meet, and exceed the hardware/software requirements. Final Fantasy on PC wouldn't play the sound, even though our sound card passed the built-in sound test for the game. I have other examples, if you want some. Games on my Mac on the other hand always work. More and more games are shipping for Mac too. This wouldn't happen if the platform wasn't a viable business for games. Have you read Sony's press releases lately? I love the "Your Mac is welcome here!" message now when I go to the <a href="http://www.station.com/">station</a>.

Even though this is true, I still prefer to play most games not on my Mac or PC, but on my <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/guin/PhotoAlbum9.html">gaming consoles</a>. There's NO overhead of an OS, just high-end graphic cards and a CPU dedicated to rendering those polygons.

The only games that play better on a computer (Mac or PC) are strategy games like Starcraft, Civilization, and massive-multiplayer online games. The strategy games come out on Mac too. It's the MMORG that the Mac is lacking in right now. Sony will be the pioneer that changes it. First person shooters are also good to play on computer 'cause you can get online and frag strangers easily. It's the online part that makes these currently better than consoles, but all the big game consoles out now have internet connection capability, or it's coming soon. Big FPS shooter games also are all on Mac.... and they work.. out of the box.

[simX]

What you said just pinned what I felt right on the nose, Jadey. You sure know what you're talking about. There are 25 MILLION Mac users out there, and if a company doesn't think it can make a profit by doing a piddly port of a game to the Macintosh, then they're a f*#@ed-up company. Seriously, if it's a good game, then it will sell, and they will make a profit by porting it to the Macintosh.

Also, one other thing: just because there are 15 thousand different versions of solitaire out there on the PC and only a handful on the Mac doesn't mean that the state of gaming sucks on the Mac. It's QUALITY, not QUANTITY. And as Jadey said, Mac gaming is of much higher quality, regardless of the fps you get (and seriously, you DON'T need anything above 80 fps).

[vanguard]

Actually, I didn't say 5%. I said less than 5%. I think the fact that most games aren't ported is says it best, it's hard to make money on a platform with a small market share. (BTW, Loki, the Linux gaming company just went out of business.)

Both Myth II and Myth III didn't work for me on my iBook. Myth II let me play about 5 missions and now it won't go any further. Myth III only let me play the training mission. Mac gaming isn't perfect either. (Actually, my experience has been terrible. However, it's not much experience so I can't put too much faith in it.) I also prefer my gaming console, a sony PS2. BTW, it has an OS.

As for the FPS, I agree completely. You don't need crazy numbers to make a good game.

Finally, the thread was about an article with feedback to a reporter who is trying a mac. Some of it was positive and some of it was negative. I really wrote just to make sure that Ed knew he was trolling.

[RacerX]

posted by Vanguard
Who's trolling?

and

I really wrote just to make sure that Ed knew he was trolling.

Actually, I think Ed is trying to find me some trolls to play with. It just hasn't been the same with out Manic to play with (even though he did go over the top way too often).

posted by Jadey
Games are important though. They are the only thing the average user does that pushes the hardware envelope. Average users don't edit broadcast quality video in real time. Gamers keep the consumer PC industry going forward.

I completely agree! I may be the first to hit trolls with the Gamer label, but it is games that have made our equipment faster and less expensive over the years (though a bind belief by the average user that only the fastest systems can run their word processor hasn't hurt either). If only the people who really needed the the system resources were the only ones buying the high end equipment, the demand would be so little that the prices would put those systems almost out of reach. I would point out the prices of the Macintosh IIfx and the Quadra 950 were almost three times that of the PowerMac G4/867 of today, and that maxing out the RAM on those older systems would have cost almost as much as the systems themselves (while today we flip a coin on wether to buy more RAM or a pizza).

As for the state of Mac gaming, it is understandable that that games that have little or no audience in the PC world would not be ported to the Mac world, but games that do very good on Wintel (or look like they are going to be very good) do make it to us in time. I am happy with my current stable of games (Doom I & II, Unreal & UT, Quake II & III, Elite Force, Rainbow Six & Rogue Spear to name a few of the ones I enjoy), and feel no need to have the newest games today (because I'm still playing with some of the oldest). So we get a reverse market share of the games (we make up less than 5% of buyers, so we only see maybe the top 5% of games), there are some real bad games out there that make money on the Wintel platform because someone is going to buy a copy sooner or later.

posted by Vanguard
Again and again I keep hearing mac users claim to be more technical than PC users. As a guy who lives in both worlds let me tell you, PC users are just as technical as mac users. Of course both platforms have their gurus/experts and both platforms have their dodos. Let's not act elite.

With Mac OS X, Macs have become completely useful systems right out of the box without buying any other software. And we have a very nice selection of software if we do need more. The only problem is that we have that selection because we are vocal about wanting a selection. The only reason our platform has survived to this point is because we have demanded that it survive. We are required to act elite.

As for technical claims, I'm sorry, but it is very true. I have an almost 3 to 1 ratio of Mac clients to PC clients, and yet my PC clients make up more than half my business. Why? Because the Mac users can fix most problems on their own. Per system, there are five times as many IT professionals working on Wintel than any other platform (that is about a 100 to 1 ratio compared to Mac IT). Why? Because the average user can't fix some of the most average problems that come up on PCs. This is very real, and in no way puts down high end users of PCs.

After spending the last 72 hours repairing a number of Windows systems, I have honestly thought about dropping support of Windows 95/98/Me completely! And I have been known to push my clients toward Windows NT/2000 just because I know that those versions do everything they need (and I'll get called less). Then again, Windows paid the rent for this month, so why should I complain.