Being realistic is “Mac bashing” now apparently
Of course it is (for some). It's not just Apple, but there's a reason Apple among others is called a cult, for which the die-hard fans, often called "fanbois" (not in a negative way) are responsible for.
Time to quote my "favourite" game review again:
Myst was, of course, a game championed by the worst people who existed in the 1990s: Mac owners. Mac owners had a problem. They'd spent a vast amount of money on a machine that had about seven games available for it total, no right mouse button, and no eject button on the floppy drive. They'd been sold such a lemon, and such an expensive lemon, that there was nothing for it but to double-down and pretend it was by far the superior choice. "Well actually it's MUCH better for graphic design work," they'd say, having never done any graphic design work, nor ever intending to. ("And why should I need an eject button when I can drag this icon laboriously across the desktop and drop it on this other icon instead? Or more usually unfold a paperclip and frantically wedge it into this tiny hole on the front of the machine conveniently located where your PC wastes space with a button.") And they'd delude themselves and all those around them that the scant few games they could play were all absolute stone-cold classics. Thus Myst. The Macciest of all Mac games, a shiny veneer plastered across empty nothingness.
Source:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/is-myst-still-one-of-the-worst-games-ever
The above described "self deluding" is two fold. It helps to ignore anything that doesn't fit the narrative. It also helps to make people feel better in a bad situation. It's often witnessed in young children, but also in adults despite less frequent. You often see first responders telling people "it's going to be fine" instead of "you're toast and got 5 minutes left". It does work.
You're not going to change those exhibiting the above cited behaviour. You're not going to change the opinion of an anti-vaxxer that claims you're injected with chips, so Bill Gates can take control over you. You're also not going to change someone that claims 5G is mind control by the government or the earth is actually hollow and lizard people live inside. They're convinced and it makes them feel batter, anyone else is a puppet and controlled. And anyone not agreeing with the holy grail of Mac gaming (in this particular case) is "Mac bashing" as per the quote above.
These threads here and other forums are read by people in the gaming industry now and then. We actually have a private discord by now discussing these threads. I know at least two people at Apple that check in occasionally. That does include developers, marketing and psychologists. And in the end, it's really textbook psychology. The behaviour as quoted above is usually from people who
- Do not work or have any experience in the industry
- Do not own the "enemy" system they're targeting, only the "worshipped" system
- Do focus on few negative examples of the system they're targeting
- Ignore the negative examples of the system they're targeting
- In the case a previously hyped product for the worshipped system turns out to be a dud (be it buggy, gameplay or performance wise), thing's are turned around and it becomes a small "exception", that is not worth discussing or not even worth mentioning.
We could have thousands of threads about excellent PC and console games. Yet we don't, because those of us who are realistic don't care about promoting every press release, announcement or similar. We know about it and unless we want to discuss gameplay aspects specifically, because we're playing the game, we don't care posting about it. That's what a one-liner on Twitter or Instagram might be for. And those exhibiting the above quoted behaviour surely won't post anything positive about the "enemy".
Furthermore, we could have many threads about Mac games that are bad. It could be bugs, performance, bad gameplay or otherwise. We don't. The worshippers are not going to post anything negative about "their system". And those who are realistic don't think it's worth to open a new thread just to point out flaws. We know there are good and bad games out there, again be it bugs, performance or gameplay... and that's true for any platform, Mac, PC, console or mobile and above that movies, tv series, cars, shoes, really anything. The fact that, looking at absolute numbers instead of percentage, there are so many "negative games" for PC, console and mobile (and that includes iPad and iPhone) is purely based on the sheer amount of titles for that platform. There are a gazillion times more games on PC, consoles and mobile than on Mac.
There is a good side to the worshipping aspect though, at least for psychologists analysing the behaviour and developing strategies to target potential buyers/markets and as a result increasing the worshipping of products with the hope to reach a certain point that it swaps over to other target groups. This isn't unique to games or computer systems, it's found everywhere. Remember when "Bladerunner" came out in the 80s? It was an absolute dud back then. So they analysed the situation and decided to market it to certain target groups (let's call them "sci-fi nerds"), of which most loved the movie and those who didn't, followed along because they didn't want to be the outcasts of an outcast group. Eventually it became widespread enough that a tipping point was reached to "non sci-fi nerds" and since all those people (the original target group) loved it so much, even those who didn't like it agreed that it's a good movie.
Apple are masters of psychological analysis and marketing. They often show incomplete graphs or plots without axis labels, advertising false information. The worshippers will follow and further spread it and many people won't check facts. There was a recent post about how great Apple's non-backward compatibility is and then a statement about an article which referenced an Intel white paper with the claim that Intel drops backward compatibility and they only copy Apple. Obviously that's not true as they didn't read or understand that paper at all as that's not what Intel is doing, but many follow along... in other words, Apple can be happy about this behaviour, it brings in money. But in a way, their role in 2023 has reversed from what they said in "1984" and they're happy about "do not question", "follow blindly" and "obey".
In any case, I think these threads can be positive. The worshippers have something that helps them to feel better, it might even have a positive aspect on mental health (something Apple is heavily investing in). Those of us that are realistic have something to talk about and have fun in our Discords or at events like the upcoming WWDC or maybe dinners afterwards, while not not really taking it too serious. And those of us that are psychologists or analysts have something to explore for new marketing and sales potential.
I'd take Feynman over Freud any day, but think in the end, it's a win-win situation.
