Sorry, Mike, I think Apple will keep its hardware money to itself. Thanks for the offer, though.
This is a good indicator that Apple's plan -- to sell a superior computer for OS X and Windows -- is being taken seriously. It's a daring plan, but if it works, Dell has the most to lose.
I'm sure I'm posting this way too late for anybody to notice, but...
Apple will make sure that OS X will never run on a non-Mac. They've already been through this with earlier versions of the OS. In the past, I believe they placed proprietary hardware on the motherboard that the OS needed to run. When people tried to make Mac clones, they were technically successful, but they never made it to market because Apple controlled the IP, and successfully sued to stop it. (Why isn't Power Computing making Macs anymore? Because Apple didn't renew their licence.) Apple is very good at using the law to its advantage. They won't stop now.
However, the interesting news is that Apple is willing to let users run Windows on a Mac. I think this is yet another brilliant move. Remember that Apple is a hardware company. They make very little money from OS X compared to how much they makes on the Mac. From that perspective, Apple doesn't care what you run on a Mac, as long as you run it on a Mac. Apple clearly intends to cut in to the Windows market by being the best computer to use for Windows, as well as OS X. They are taking a page from their iPod experience: make the best product, spread it to different sectors, and take over the market.
If this plays out -- and that's a huge 'if' -- then it will be much easier to ween people off of Windows and on to OS X when the Mac has a larger install base, regardless of what operating system people are using. But even if OS X doesn't catch on, and Windows successfully competes to become the best OS for the Mac, then MS will have legitimized the Mac as an important platform to be supported. With MS backing the Mac, and given the Mac's reputation for superior quality and service, Mac sales will explode. Then Apple will take all the money made from hardware sales and laugh all the way to the bank.
The key ingredient to all this is production time. I'm just speculating, but look at the chain of events: Apple already has an Intel OS, an Intel development environment, and Intel dev kits. The last step was the most public one, striking a deal with Intel for hardware. They'll be shipping Intel Macs in a year, fully six months before Longhorn is scheduled to ship (for now). Not only did most people not suspect this move, they thought it was impossible for ideological reasons. But Jobs is no ideologue, he's a pure capitalist. It's quite possible that MS was just caught with their pants down. They're so heavily invested in Longhorn that they can't react to this move. The next OS X is scheduled to appear exactly when Longhorn does. If Longhorn slips again, then OS X -- only on a Mac -- gets all the fanfare. And if they ship Longhorn on time, and the Mac can run it, Apple will sell more Macs.
It simply brilliant. Like watching Fischer play chess.
In my experience the girls I know actually prefer playing Dead Or Alive 3 as the women characters with attitude & huge bouncing breasts rather than play "cute" and "girly" games
Maybe the point is that these shouldn't be the only two options. The most popular games among females have been Pac Man, Tetris and The Sims. And what's been great about these games is that they were popular with women and men. Maybe we shouldn't focus on making games for women, but instead focus on not making games exclusively for men.
BTW, I always add a stray character at the beginning of my passwords when I write them down so even if someone gets the paper I wrote them down on they won't know my password.
Heck, why not just have a one-character password, and not write anything down at all?
The blurb should be edited to say, "EA did something. It doesn't matter what. Don't we all hate EA?"
This site has become useless as a discussion of anything related to EA or gaming in general. It has devolved to a bunch of groundless EA bashing. If your gonna call out EA for funding education, I don't see how anybody will take you seriously when you call out EA for overworking employees.
I'm glad that at least one person tried to make the discussion about corporate sponsorship of academic programs. (FWIW, I think it's a good idea for corporations to pay as long as the school retains complete control of the curriculum.) But when it gets drowned out by all the haters, you have to ask, Why bother?
So, where is all the outrage against Take-Two? Where are the calls for boycotts, the anger at anti-competitive business practice, the hatred for companies that buy up other companies, and put other teams out of business?
Nowhere.
This is proof positive that people hate EA not because of what they do, but because they just repeat what they are told. EA gets the blame for everything the game industry does, and all the other companies get a free ride. Honestly, how can you give a crap about exclusive licences or buying up companies or labor practices and let everybody else get away with it? How can you care about these issues when you cheer a company for doing today what you just flamed another company for doing last month? You can't. Nobody cares about these things. Everybody just cares about beating up today's bad guy.
EA profits are DOWN for the year-ago quarter. Yes the profits are up for Christmas, but they always are. That's not the measure of the success of sales. You don't compare Christmas sales to Labor Day sales. You compare Christmas sales to Christmas sales. EA profits are DOWN. EA stock did go up, but that's because they beat predicted earnings.
The reason that everyone is opposing EA lately is because of the slave-like conditions that their employees are forced to work under. That, and their ridiculously unfair business practices with the NFL, forcing Sega (which, in my honest opinion, has much better sports games and has been the only company to take a multiplatform stance) to shut down their sports division.
The point of the parent was that EA is not behaving any different from other game companies. Take-Two just got a "ridiculously unfair" exclusive license with the MLB PA. And working conditions are bad throughout the gaming industry, and in other computer industries as well. You still haven't answered the question: What's with the obsession over EA?
And I'd seriously like to know, because I work at EA, and I'm supposed to be working on MVP Baseball. (And, no, I don't work like a slave. I'm treated very well, and I'm really proud of the game we produced this year.)
I totally agree. Stories like these sound like more irrational EA bashing. Every game company aspires to control the market, and programmer abuse is ubiquitous, but EA is getting all the attention. The sum effect is to give a free ride to all the other game companies. Would this outrage exist if Sony were buying the stock? How well does Sony treat its employees? How many companies has Sony acquired? Would Sony "deserve" to buy the stock?
I should point out, though, that there are plenty of game companies not owned or controlled by EA or Vivendi, and the purchase of Ubisoft stock would result neither in ownership nor control (at least not without 30.1% of the stockholders siding with EA).
I work for EA, and let me tell you: I can totally relate. I love my job and I work long hours at, and I've never been asked to, and nobody on my team has been asked to. (In fact, I've been asked to go home a couple of times.) I work long hours because I love my job, and the people I work with are smart and cool, and the entire company supports my effort, which is crazy because I write games all day. EA certainly doesn't take advantage of me. I feel like I'm taking advantage of them. My experience has been just like avitzur's, but with a paycheck. I'm glad I found a company that supports this level of enthusiasm, like avitzur did (eventually).
Please remember that EA is a big company with many managers, and everybody's experience is not the same. Happy employees don't post blogs.
I work for EA. I work long hours. I've never been asked to work past 6pm. I *have* been asked to stop working and go home for the night. I write games and I love it. It is my dream job.
No offense to you, but I wish people would stop thinking they know all about EA because they read a blog.
How does EA's competitive business practice make their games worse? I really don't understand what Slashdot has against successful companies. I agree that rich != good, but that doesn't mean rich == bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that poor == good.
EA is dumping a ton of money into another game company. I think if EA gave a billion dollars to the poor there would be 100 posts here complaining that EA is trying to put the Salvation Army out of business.
Meanwhile, all the rage you put towards EA for overworking their programmers is giving all the other game companies a free ride. It's been documented by the IGDA that employee abuse is prevalent in the game industry, but I guess it's ok if Sony or Microsoft does it, because "EA Sux, d00d!"
Hate EA games if they're bad. Hate EA managers if they're bad. But hating EA itself is like hating the air because it's cold. Sad times indeed.
No, ea_spouse's husband works in Cali. Nice try, though.
As for EA's motiviation to innovate, it is not an eternal contract, and NFL wants a quality game. EA wants to put out a great game to make sales, but if NFL didn't like the game, they could have just pulled the licence. Now, if NFL doesn't like the game, they'll just cancel (or not renew) the exclusivity agreement.
I am a programmer at EA and, without being specific in any way, I just want to say that not all of EA is like what has been posted on the blogs. I'm not saying they're not being truthful, and I have no reason to doubt them. I'm just saying that my experience is nothing like that, and that EA is not monolithic. I'd also like to say that, during my 14 years as a programmer, I've seen much much worse than what I'm reading on the blogs. (I'm surprised there isn't a class action suit on the same grounds against doctoral programs. And I paid them!) And by no means is this isolated to even the gaming industry. I once spent four straight days at work (no showers, no trips to Burger King) working on a database client.
Bad management and employee exploitation are wrong and should be stopped. Just please keep in mind that EA isn't the alpha and omega of programmer abuse.
From the ad: "The problem is that there is no adequate system in place that allows music lovers access to their favorite music while compensating artists and copyright holders."
It's in place, it allows music lovers to access their favorite music, artists are compensated, and so are copyright holders. I suppose you could say it's not adequate because all tracks have not been made available yet. If all tracks are made available on iTMS, would this not satisfy EFF?
As the author of a "hate mail" (starting "Flamebait- My question is: Why is MacNN giving any attention to this?"), I can verify that my post was taken from MacNN and not mailed to the author. It was meant as a critique of the article, not an expression of hate to the author as it is presented.
So let me take a moment to reiterate the original point.
I am, like any Mac user, deeply concerned when somebody claims that Apple is using false numbers. The author is welcome to his or her opinion, but I found the claim - that the Veritest numbers are false - was never substantiated: they're as true as any other benchmark. So, no biggie.
But it it the tone of the article that got to me. Claims like, "Apple is attempting to deliberately mislead," and "Apple cheated" and "a significant percentage of [Mac users] are crazy fanatics" have no place in a technical discussion of benchmarks, and undermine the author's believability. All authors have a point of view, but bias is another animal altogether. Authors need to be open-minded to be believable, and this author's use of hyperbole and emotional phrases betrays a certain zeal. Despite what may have been the author's best efforts, the article is not a level-headed, rational discussion about benchmarks. It is a fanatical rant.
And, hey, I'm all for fanatical rants. Not only do I enjoy them, but I am the source of many. My objection, though, was to the editors of the Mac News Network (MacNN) for posting this article, unqualified, as news. It is not news. News informs, and a fanatical rant actually does the opposite: it polarizes. People take a side and stick with it, regardless of facts. The speed of the new G5s is a very very important issue, and this article is a step backwards in understanding these highly complex comparisons.
So, needless to say, I find it *highly* telling that my editorial objection was co-opted by the author as "hate mail." And the response to it just further underscores my point that this is not a rational investigation, but a crusade.
I'd also like to note that, for whatever reason, MacNN has since removed the news article from their site.
I'm glad that the comparative level-headedness of/. (and that's saying a lot) is picking apart these numbers, and that a detailed analysis is poking through the posts. But I'm saddened that they are buried amongst a landfill of posts from passionate, persuasive people spending their neural energy on "mac fanatics" and "deceptive marketing."
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, Mike, I think Apple will keep its hardware money to itself. Thanks for the offer, though.
This is a good indicator that Apple's plan -- to sell a superior computer for OS X and Windows -- is being taken seriously. It's a daring plan, but if it works, Dell has the most to lose.
I'm sure I'm posting this way too late for anybody to notice, but...
Apple will make sure that OS X will never run on a non-Mac. They've already been through this with earlier versions of the OS. In the past, I believe they placed proprietary hardware on the motherboard that the OS needed to run. When people tried to make Mac clones, they were technically successful, but they never made it to market because Apple controlled the IP, and successfully sued to stop it. (Why isn't Power Computing making Macs anymore? Because Apple didn't renew their licence.) Apple is very good at using the law to its advantage. They won't stop now.
However, the interesting news is that Apple is willing to let users run Windows on a Mac. I think this is yet another brilliant move. Remember that Apple is a hardware company. They make very little money from OS X compared to how much they makes on the Mac. From that perspective, Apple doesn't care what you run on a Mac, as long as you run it on a Mac. Apple clearly intends to cut in to the Windows market by being the best computer to use for Windows, as well as OS X. They are taking a page from their iPod experience: make the best product, spread it to different sectors, and take over the market.
If this plays out -- and that's a huge 'if' -- then it will be much easier to ween people off of Windows and on to OS X when the Mac has a larger install base, regardless of what operating system people are using. But even if OS X doesn't catch on, and Windows successfully competes to become the best OS for the Mac, then MS will have legitimized the Mac as an important platform to be supported. With MS backing the Mac, and given the Mac's reputation for superior quality and service, Mac sales will explode. Then Apple will take all the money made from hardware sales and laugh all the way to the bank.
The key ingredient to all this is production time. I'm just speculating, but look at the chain of events: Apple already has an Intel OS, an Intel development environment, and Intel dev kits. The last step was the most public one, striking a deal with Intel for hardware. They'll be shipping Intel Macs in a year, fully six months before Longhorn is scheduled to ship (for now). Not only did most people not suspect this move, they thought it was impossible for ideological reasons. But Jobs is no ideologue, he's a pure capitalist. It's quite possible that MS was just caught with their pants down. They're so heavily invested in Longhorn that they can't react to this move. The next OS X is scheduled to appear exactly when Longhorn does. If Longhorn slips again, then OS X -- only on a Mac -- gets all the fanfare. And if they ship Longhorn on time, and the Mac can run it, Apple will sell more Macs.
It simply brilliant. Like watching Fischer play chess.
Maybe the point is that these shouldn't be the only two options. The most popular games among females have been Pac Man, Tetris and The Sims. And what's been great about these games is that they were popular with women and men. Maybe we shouldn't focus on making games for women, but instead focus on not making games exclusively for men.
Heck, why not just have a one-character password, and not write anything down at all?
This site has become useless as a discussion of anything related to EA or gaming in general. It has devolved to a bunch of groundless EA bashing. If your gonna call out EA for funding education, I don't see how anybody will take you seriously when you call out EA for overworking employees.
I'm glad that at least one person tried to make the discussion about corporate sponsorship of academic programs. (FWIW, I think it's a good idea for corporations to pay as long as the school retains complete control of the curriculum.) But when it gets drowned out by all the haters, you have to ask, Why bother?
Nowhere.
This is proof positive that people hate EA not because of what they do, but because they just repeat what they are told. EA gets the blame for everything the game industry does, and all the other companies get a free ride. Honestly, how can you give a crap about exclusive licences or buying up companies or labor practices and let everybody else get away with it? How can you care about these issues when you cheer a company for doing today what you just flamed another company for doing last month? You can't. Nobody cares about these things. Everybody just cares about beating up today's bad guy.
More pathetic anti-EA propaganda.
And I'd seriously like to know, because I work at EA, and I'm supposed to be working on MVP Baseball. (And, no, I don't work like a slave. I'm treated very well, and I'm really proud of the game we produced this year.)
I should point out, though, that there are plenty of game companies not owned or controlled by EA or Vivendi, and the purchase of Ubisoft stock would result neither in ownership nor control (at least not without 30.1% of the stockholders siding with EA).
Please remember that EA is a big company with many managers, and everybody's experience is not the same. Happy employees don't post blogs.
No offense to you, but I wish people would stop thinking they know all about EA because they read a blog.
EA is dumping a ton of money into another game company. I think if EA gave a billion dollars to the poor there would be 100 posts here complaining that EA is trying to put the Salvation Army out of business. Meanwhile, all the rage you put towards EA for overworking their programmers is giving all the other game companies a free ride. It's been documented by the IGDA that employee abuse is prevalent in the game industry, but I guess it's ok if Sony or Microsoft does it, because "EA Sux, d00d!"
Hate EA games if they're bad. Hate EA managers if they're bad. But hating EA itself is like hating the air because it's cold. Sad times indeed.
No, ea_spouse's husband works in Cali. Nice try, though.
As for EA's motiviation to innovate, it is not an eternal contract, and NFL wants a quality game. EA wants to put out a great game to make sales, but if NFL didn't like the game, they could have just pulled the licence. Now, if NFL doesn't like the game, they'll just cancel (or not renew) the exclusivity agreement.
Like the iPod, Apple now sells color versions of iCurious. I just ordered iCurious (Yellow).
Sorry, to clarify, I worked on that database client at a different, non-EA company.
Bad management and employee exploitation are wrong and should be stopped. Just please keep in mind that EA isn't the alpha and omega of programmer abuse.
You think that was the worst designed mouse ever? As an avid mac user, I take great offense. Clearly this is the worst design mouse ever. Please.
From the ad: "The problem is that there is no adequate system in place that allows music lovers access to their favorite music while compensating artists and copyright holders."
What about the iTunes Music Store?
It's in place, it allows music lovers to access their favorite music, artists are compensated, and so are copyright holders. I suppose you could say it's not adequate because all tracks have not been made available yet. If all tracks are made available on iTMS, would this not satisfy EFF?
If so, is copyright law really broken?
As the author of a "hate mail" (starting "Flamebait- My question is: Why is MacNN giving any attention to this?"), I can verify that my post was taken from MacNN and not mailed to the author. It was meant as a critique of the article, not an expression of hate to the author as it is presented.
/. (and that's saying a lot) is picking apart these numbers, and that a detailed analysis is poking through the posts. But I'm saddened that they are buried amongst a landfill of posts from passionate, persuasive people spending their neural energy on "mac fanatics" and "deceptive marketing."
So let me take a moment to reiterate the original point.
I am, like any Mac user, deeply concerned when somebody claims that Apple is using false numbers. The author is welcome to his or her opinion, but I found the claim - that the Veritest numbers are false - was never substantiated: they're as true as any other benchmark. So, no biggie.
But it it the tone of the article that got to me. Claims like, "Apple is attempting to deliberately mislead," and "Apple cheated" and "a significant percentage of [Mac users] are crazy fanatics" have no place in a technical discussion of benchmarks, and undermine the author's believability. All authors have a point of view, but bias is another animal altogether. Authors need to be open-minded to be believable, and this author's use of hyperbole and emotional phrases betrays a certain zeal. Despite what may have been the author's best efforts, the article is not a level-headed, rational discussion about benchmarks. It is a fanatical rant.
And, hey, I'm all for fanatical rants. Not only do I enjoy them, but I am the source of many. My objection, though, was to the editors of the Mac News Network (MacNN) for posting this article, unqualified, as news. It is not news. News informs, and a fanatical rant actually does the opposite: it polarizes. People take a side and stick with it, regardless of facts. The speed of the new G5s is a very very important issue, and this article is a step backwards in understanding these highly complex comparisons.
So, needless to say, I find it *highly* telling that my editorial objection was co-opted by the author as "hate mail." And the response to it just further underscores my point that this is not a rational investigation, but a crusade.
I'd also like to note that, for whatever reason, MacNN has since removed the news article from their site.
I'm glad that the comparative level-headedness of