Why does WotC hate Macs?

[SteveC]

I agree with everything you said but this. How do they know? I never filled out a survey by them that asked what Operating System I use. They may have an abstract number that someone in marketing throws around, but they aren't magically clued in to how many Mac users are among their fans.

Here's where I'm coming from on that issue: they have two things: first, customer surveys, which if anything would tend to overestimate the number of Mac users, since anyone I've ever met who has any interest in Macs whatsoever will say they own and use a Mac on surveys...even if they use one only peripherally.

Second, they have traffic information on their site. I partially manage a couple of websites, and the tools that are provided by my vendor for free give me a pretty good idea of how many people use what OS and visit the sites. There are much better tools out there for this purpose that you can actually pay for.

I think between these two things, they have a good idea of what their internet savvy customers use. Now I think that the real reason they aren't supporting Macs is that the company they've contracted with is full of Microsoft employees, but that's just because of where they are. I don't think that the D&D Mac userbase is under reported in WotC's minds, especially among their designers!

--Steve

 

[Ghaerdon Fain]

Maybe they were rolling too many d20's and missed the whole Web 2.0 App thing. Cut out 10% and if geekdome is important to them, according to Revision3 numbers, 30% of online geeks. So I guess that's nice that they can be so secure.

This shows their short sightedness. 2.0 Apps guys thats the only way to go.

I will NEVER go back to a PC and after building Windows machines and d/l all 24 disks of "Chicago" back in the day, one would think I'd be all nostalgic: NO! I'll always love D&D but my computers? Naw, I just want something to work with no virus' and ease of use. This will be the first time I'm encountering a problem. Bad on WotC.

 

[Ghaerdon Fain]

They looked at the numbers and decided that they would lose money by offering Mac support. I can't believe that there are four pages on this.

Maybe this tells them something that they missed!


sorry for the double post

 

[Lord Zardoz]

They hate macs for the same reason so many other people with any involvement with software development hate them.

For the amount of effort that is required to support the platform, you could instead support a platform which will make you a great deal more money.

The typical strategy for this sort of problem is to do the PC version first, then debug the PC version, and then maybe port the PC version over to Mac if there is enough demand to make some sort of profit from the effort. If the profit is not obvious enough, than it does not happen.

As a guideline, consider the sorts of games that do manage to show up on the Mac.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[RtrnofdMax]

While it may not solve all of the issues with DDi, HeroForge will be available to satisfy the char gen needs of those with Macs. In fact, it will run on PCs, MACs and Linux. Check out the link in my sig to sign up for the forums and get more information.

 

[Maggan]

I never filled out a survey by them that asked what Operating System I use.

Have you ever visited the WotC website? If so, you've given them information about what operating system you use, what browser you use, what IP adress you use, and some other stuff.

/M

 

[TrainedMunkee]

I just installed XP on my Macbook Pro. I don't run any windoze programs, but I'm going to try DDI for a year when it comes out. I figured on it taking me a month to get XP up and running. With the help of Bootcamp I had it running in three hours. I had VMWare running an hour later. I love Macs. The only hitch was a sound error, or lack there of. After I Googled it, it was fixed in ten minutes. If you don't have an Intel processor, you are out of luck.

Space

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Not to hijack (much), but what's up with Safari going viral via iTunes? A few weeks ago my iTunes software started asking me if I wanted to download Safari. I'd answer "no", but it would pop up again a few days later. I never did figure out where to turn it off permanently, and my wife isn't as careful, so I came home one day to find Safari installed on my machine trying to take over my web defaults.

Bad spouse! Bad! Bad Apple! Bad!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Since the thread has been all about computers and nothing about 4e for a couple of pages, I'm moving it to the Computers and Software forum

 

[Kzach]

Not to hijack (much), but what's up with Safari going viral via iTunes? A few weeks ago my iTunes software started asking me if I wanted to download Safari. I'd answer "no", but it would pop up again a few days later. I never did figure out where to turn it off permanently, and my wife isn't as careful, so I came home one day to find Safari installed on my machine trying to take over my web defaults.

Yeah, that's been a pretty major complaint from Windows users ever since they did it. To be honest, I agree with them, it's a pretty stupid move by Apple. They want to win over PC users, not piss them off.