Friday, June 09, 2006

Mac gamers don't exist

I found this little gem of an article over at the Mac Observer which posits that the reason there aren't any games on the Mac is because Steve Jobs hates games. According to this dolt, Jobs doesn't want to break into the billion dollar game industry for moral reasons. John Martellaro (the moron pictured here) actually wrote this:
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.
What? Is that whythe Ipod Nano ships with a cannon turret shooting game? Is that why Jobs appeared on stage in 2001 with John Carmack (founder of id, maker of Doom, Quake and the progenitor of possibly the goriest, most destructive games ever created)? Besides the article being mostly untrue, pure conjecture is an apt description, it pisses me off on an wholly other level. A debate has raged in the comments section of the article, mostly pointing out how retarded macs really are and how ignoring a huge set of customers (gamers) for moral reasons is just plain dumb. I had to add my two cents, most of which has to do with the general anti-gaming sentiment in our culture that I've ranted about incessantly before. You've heard it all before, loyal readers, but I have a moral obligation to share my latest with you. That's what you come here for, after all, right? Or am I the only one who cares about this shit and you'd rather hear about the red sox and drinking on the job.

Anyway, here is the text of a comment I left on the article somewhere around the bottom of page two:
The whole article is based on the idea that games=bad.

This is an antiquated idea, which the overwhelming statistics posted in some comments above show. The writer shows his age and his moral bias a little too much to be considered a legitimate journalist.

But this article underlines my biggest problem with Apple, the holier-than-thou attitude that nearly every single mac user adopts as soon as they buy one piece of white plastic. Just because you use a certain brand of computer, you are not a better person.

You're not even that savvy of a consumer, because it's clear that these people are easily influenced by the image that Apple projects through its advertising.

The truth is, Macs break just as often as Windows boxes. I've seen it happen, I have a lot of holier than thou friends who complain about taking their Mac to Tekserve while praising the system in the same breath. And I'll reiterate what above posters have pointed out, if Apple had a market share higher than 2%, there would be a lot more viruses for OSX. Macs are less powerful gaming machines and much less customizable, while being more expensive. I guess the white plastic tree is an endangered species, its costs a lot to manufacture anything using it.
Flame away, Macboys!

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