Aitrus
   |
Posted - 2006.07.06 07:57:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Mekrunt
In the end, this whole thing is about the chicken and the egg paradox. Is it really up to CCP to take the risk to break free from the endless chain? I'm not sure, and it certainly is not up to me or us, the players, to decide that.
technically it is. Ultimately a company goes where the customers are. But as you said, the amount of potential marketshare is questionable.
Quote:
If anything, World of Warcraft would be a good indication of the market. It runs on both Linux, Mac OSx and Windows. The games is the largest MMO in atleast the western part of the world, if not the whole world. Now how many of those 6 (or 7?) milion people that play the game do it on a Mac or on Linux? Well, I don't know anyone who does...
Myself and four other people in my guild. (Please hold the tomatoes)
Quote:
Do HP, Dell, Alienware, etc. ship their PC's with Mac or Linux? No they don't! And the people that buy such PC's do form the biggest market. Arguably, Apple is getting a comeback now that their name has become known by your average computer user due to the Ipod.
HP, Dell, etc all ship with Windows because Microsoft has made it lucrative to do so. I'm sure there are all kinds of discounts associated with exclusivity.
Quote:
Now here's another thing to consider, what kind of people are atracted to eve? Certainly not your average person that plays CS or WoW on his new Alienware or Dell. Does Eve potentially have a more Linux biased (relatively!!!) player base? I'm not sure.
There is one thing that is undeniable about the Mac userbase: It's zealotry. Eve is a game that WOULD appeal to the mac community. You bring these people a good game, and they will sing your praises to all who will listen.
Eve's advertisement is largely word of mouth. That is something that works very well in the Mac community.
Quote:
But is it worth the risk to invest a couple of milion bucks into something that might potentially boost the income only slightly (A few percents), but also has the potential to be a huge money sink (Because if it ends up not being profitable, you'll still have to keep supporting it, or else it's bad PR which will demage income even further!)? This is completely up to CCP to decide, and it seemed like they didn't want to take that risk.
Is this any different from a DX10 client? CCP is talking about something that will simply be an upgrade to the existing userbase. PC gamers are the most likely candidates for DX10 adoption, and they already have an opportunity to play this game. You aren't tapping into a new market, you're simply trying to cater to a niche within that market. (Yes DX10 will be the new standard, but that is a long way off)
The DX10 client doesn't encourage new customers, it encourages retention of existing customers.
Quote:
But, right now they seem to be working (or are atleast thinking about) a new engine. If this new engine could do well on all systems (whether it uses OGL, D3D, or somthing else is completely irrelevant from a buisness point of view (and a buisness point of view is in the end all that's looked at, like it or not!!)), it would be a great bonus. I doubt they'd spend alot more extra just to be able to suport it though, since it just doesn's seem worth the risk.
So, will we see better Mac/Linux/other os support in the future? Maybe, but most likely not on the current engine!
If they're going to be rewriting the engine anyway, now is the time to do it. It's already budgeted and planned for. ANOTHER rewrite on top of the DX10 client would be absurd.
However, I'm sure that tons of work and money has already been put into the new client, and the idea of such a radical development change is most likely not in the cards. All I can do as a paying customer is voice my desires, and if they are not met choose to stop paying for a product that no longer meets my expectations.
|