| Me Too!
Rich Pizor, Senior Editor
Anyone who's been online for any length of time remembers (with some trepidation) the great "AOL Hits the Internet" debacle. For the relative newcomer, allow me to explain why — to this day — you may receive insults (warranted or otherwise) for possessing the infamous "@aol.com" as an email address.
AOL, as everyone knows, is a proprietary online system. When the Internet ceased to be the exclusive realm of military researchers and college students, AOL began losing customers who wanted Internet access. AOL did what — from their point of view — probably looked like the smart thing: they threw open the floodgates and provided Internet access to their users...with no warning, no preparation, no instruction, no nothing.
The results were not pleasant. Newsgroups especially were flooded with hordes of what became known simply as "me too" posts: postings in which the entire thread to date was copied into one message, with the phrase "me too!" appended to the top or bottom.
Much as I hate to admit it, the Mac game market has become nothing but a giant "me too!" post.
Don't believe me? Wander over to the Macintosh Gamer's Ledge, and take a look at their surveys page. Using July 18, 1999 as an arbitrary baseline, the Top 10 survey contained:
- 5 ports of of PC games that were at least a year behind
- 3 ports of PC games that were released only after PC version was named some game magazine's Game of the Something
- 2 games that were released simultaneously cross platform
Nothing on that list was innovated on the Mac. Nothing at all.
Continuing down the top 15 games of all time, we find:
- 8 ports of PC games that were at least a year behind
- 4 games that exist only on the Mac (though 3 of these are interations of Marathon)
- 3 games that were innovated on the Mac but did much better on the PC
And people wonder why no one develops new titles for the Mac anymore?
Delta Tao recently released a highly in-depth, pervasive online role playing game called Clan Lord. It's Mac first — and I believe (to date), Mac only. No one has heard of it, really, because we're all into our third year of signing petitions in a fruitless attempt to get Ultima Online ported to the Mac. Pangea recently released a beautfiul new platformer called Bugdom, but the announcement got swallowed up by the fact that Quake II had gone gold — nearly 2 years after the PC fact. Come on people! Activision had this game on sale to the LINUX community before they grudgingly agreed to distribute a Mac port, and there's no way there are more of them than there are of us. Reality Bytes managed to do an innovative, simultaneously cross-platform release of a new kind of 3D runaround called Dark Vengeance, but no one noticed...because Lara Croft and her tremendous assets had finally made an almost 3-years late debut on Mac screens.
What do game developers hear? "Me too! Me too! Me too!" from mac.game.community@aol.com.
As a long time member of the Macintosh video game press, a die-hard Macintosh user, and one of the original video gamers (my dad worked for Atari when the 2600 was the ultimate wet dream of the pixel pusher) I am certainly pleased to see that the Mac game market has been revitalized. As one of those who found it difficult to keep the faith during the Dark Ages of the Amelio Era, I'm both ecstatic and relieved that the Mac has become a viable platform again. The sad truth, however, is that we aren't going to increase our market share if we don't get something unique on our platform. I applaud Sierra for finally treating the Mac like an equal citizen — to the extent that Nascar 3D Pinball and Ceaser III were released nearly simultaneously. I am disgusted with a community that catapults Tomb Raider II into the top 5 — when it's more than 18 months late. I am thrilled that Escape Velocity is one of the top-selling Mac games of all time. I'm chagrined that the "simultaneous" release of StarCraft (delayed for over year with no explanation) is as well.
More to the point, I'm devastated that there is no incentive, financial or otherwise, for game companies to produce a game on the Mac first or exclusively.
This is not an issue exclusive to the Mac. Nintendo's much-lauded N64 was trailing sales of the Sony Playstation (only a 32-bit system) for the first 18 months of its life, because the Playstation simply had better games. Betamax, a superior format for home video presentation, died a hideous death because VHS had more tapes. We already know that quantity does not beat out quality — we wouldn't be Mac users otherwise — but in each case we have a system that lost out simply because it had nothing uniquely compelling about it. From a game player's standpoint, that's exactly where the Macintosh is today.
Delta Tao president and founder Joe Williams sums it up best:
"Apple's 'me-too' game strategy is better than the 'we hate games' approach of the past, but it won't attract customers. There will always be some Wintel-only games. If all the Macintosh platform has to offer are identical (even simultaneous) releases, we're second best. To be on equal footing, we need Macintosh only, Macintosh first, and Macintosh better games...Yes, it is important to play catch-up. But at some point it's important to take the lead." Testify, brother.
For the Mac to have any chance of gaining that equal footing, we all need to work together. Apple needs to get its butt in gear and realize that it's in Apple's best interest to promote Mac games — as opposed to Mac ports of last year's PC games. We of the Mac press need to pay at least equal attention to our own homegrown efforts.
Most importantly, as Mac consumers, we need to vote with our dollars, rather than with petition signatures. |