Hoping for a Mac version right out of the box!

[civ_king]

Apple has updated the MacBook Pro line, finally:

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

And not a moment too soon, becuase my white MacBook is falling apart. So we know that Firaxis should be aiming to have the OS X version of the game run on i5-520M CPUs (dual core with hyperthreading, so four logical cores) with 4 gb of RAM and a Nvidia GeForce GT 330M with 256 mb of video RAM, because those will be my specs.

Oh, and feel free to annouce the Mac version any time now, guys. Don't be shy, all the other kids are already doing it.

now about the Mac Pro and iMac, I was wishing for those more

 

[Duuk]

iPhone Civ5!

 

[civ_king]

iPhone Civ5!

can't/wont happen

 

[Duuk]

You're only saying that because you're a PC fanboi!

 

[EmpireOfCats]

can't/wont happen

Well, not sure. Obviously, the full Civ V will not be coming to the iPhone or iPad, but they'd be insane not to try for a scaled-down version. I'm thinking that the iPad especially would be fun for "board games" once people get the hang of the interface.

But let's start slow. Let's get a Civ V version for OS X out the door, first. Because it will be nice to have Left 4 Dead, Portal, StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 running natively, but without Civ, it just won't be the same.

 

[civ_king]

You're only saying that because you're a PC fanboi!

I'm reading this on MY MacBook, I said that because IIRC the iPhone has only 256MB RAM, and has a weak processor, Civ takes a lot of power

Well, not sure. Obviously, the full Civ V will not be coming to the iPhone or iPad, but they'd be insane not to try for a scaled-down version. I'm thinking that the iPad especially would be fun for "board games" once people get the hang of the interface.

But let's start slow. Let's get a Civ V version for OS X out the door, first. Because it will be nice to have Left 4 Dead, Portal, StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 running natively, but without Civ, it just won't be the same.

yep, I native

 

[Quintillus]

Continuing our helpful hints to Firaxis about which decision on a Mac version would be the right one, today we check out a study by Deutsche Bank:

While Apple has just 7% of the share of revenue, it's grabbing 35% of the operating profit. Deutsche Bank attributes it to the strength of the Mac/Macbook lineup. Other companies are losing profit margins because they have to pay Microsoft for software.​

(Via Daring Fireball)

A lot of people here have been talking about market share, while others have been talking about market share growth. Now we add another factor: Strength of the platform. HP and Dell and Lenovo are hurting because of the infamous "Microsoft tax". Even without the added profit from iPods, iPhones, and (probably) iPads, that bodes well for Apple's long-term future.

Hey, Firaxis, how about siding with the winners?

More like Apple has an operating system that people want these days, and they have no competition for selling that operating system (minus the odd Mac Clone maker in Germany or Russia). Thus once you've got a customer who's convinced they need to have Mac OSX, Apple has a customer, with no competition driving the prices down. Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, et. al., are all in competition, driving down the prices. If Lenovo were the only company selling Windows computers, you can bet that prices would be a lot higher for Windows PCs than they are today.

And if you don't think the lack of competition is very important to Apple's high margins, look at what they do when someone does try to compete with them and sell Mac clones - such as Psystar. They sue them into oblivion. The only reason there is at least one Mac clone maker in Russia is that Apple doesn't have the legal power to sue them out of existance there. Probably similarly in Germany. Sure, they put in their EULA that you can't install OSX on non-Apple hardware, and they put technical barriers in place to make it difficult, but really it's just classic monopolistic business practices. So far it hasn't cost Apple in any major court cases, but if they keep it up and continue to gain market share it will. Microsoft wasn't losing money for any monopolisitic practices when they had 10% market share, either.

And do you really think it would improve Dell/HP/etc.'s profitability much if they didn't have to pay for the OS they included? Sure, it might in the short term, but before long price wars would inevitably bring their prices down by the $60 or whatever it is per copy that Microsoft charges them, and the operating margins would be the same. It's competition, not a mythical Microsoft tax, that causes PC makers' margins to be low.

As for Firaxis, targeting the most profitable per-unit computer maker doesn't do them any good if they aren't selling the most units. If they really went by that, they might well be releasing Civ on some IBM mainframe first. They're going to place their first development dollars where 93% of the market is, and why not? More money for them sooner that way. And it's not like there's a competitor who makes an excellent Civ competitor for Windows only - they'll be top dog whatever platform they target first. What sane company wouldn't choose to release Windows first in October and OSX six months later, rather than both in December/January and just too late to hit the holiday season?

Sorry for the economics lecture, just sayin' that there's some good reasons other than Microsoft both why non-Apple PC makers have lower margins, and why a software company would target Windows first. And unless you have an awful lot of money to throw at the problem or a few hundred thousand OSX users willing to pre-buy, you probably aren't going to be able to change anything about it.

 

[civ_king]

More like Apple has an operating system that people want these days, and they have no competition for selling that operating system (minus the odd Mac Clone maker in Germany or Russia). Thus once you've got a customer who's convinced they need to have Mac OSX, Apple has a customer, with no competition driving the prices down. Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, et. al., are all in competition, driving down the prices. If Lenovo were the only company selling Windows computers, you can bet that prices would be a lot higher for Windows PCs than they are today.

And if you don't think the lack of competition is very important to Apple's high margins, look at what they do when someone does try to compete with them and sell Mac clones - such as Psystar. They sue them into oblivion. The only reason there is at least one Mac clone maker in Russia is that Apple doesn't have the legal power to sue them out of existance there. Probably similarly in Germany. Sure, they put in their EULA that you can't install OSX on non-Apple hardware, and they put technical barriers in place to make it difficult, but really it's just classic monopolistic business practices. So far it hasn't cost Apple in any major court cases, but if they keep it up and continue to gain market share it will. Microsoft wasn't losing money for any monopolisitic practices when they had 10% market share, either.

And do you really think it would improve Dell/HP/etc.'s profitability much if they didn't have to pay for the OS they included? Sure, it might in the short term, but before long price wars would inevitably bring their prices down by the $60 or whatever it is per copy that Microsoft charges them, and the operating margins would be the same. It's competition, not a mythical Microsoft tax, that causes PC makers' margins to be low.

As for Firaxis, targeting the most profitable per-unit computer maker doesn't do them any good if they aren't selling the most units. If they really went by that, they might well be releasing Civ on some IBM mainframe first. They're going to place their first development dollars where 93% of the market is, and why not? More money for them sooner that way. And it's not like there's a competitor who makes an excellent Civ competitor for Windows only - they'll be top dog whatever platform they target first. What sane company wouldn't choose to release Windows first in October and OSX six months later, rather than both in December/January and just too late to hit the holiday season?

Sorry for the economics lecture, just sayin' that there's some good reasons other than Microsoft both why non-Apple PC makers have lower margins, and why a software company would target Windows first. And unless you have an awful lot of money to throw at the problem or a few hundred thousand OSX users willing to pre-buy, you probably aren't going to be able to change anything about it.

what if they include a downloadable cider package so it can run on OSX? that takes a competent person less than 100 person/hours, not native speed, but it would OSX

 

[EmpireOfCats]

More like Apple has an operating system that people want these days

It's not only the operating system, unless it is in the the widest sense of the world. It's that stuff just works. Plugging in an external monitor, for instance -- I took part in a presentation at work yesterday where the guy spent the first ten minutes of the hour trying to get his Dell to talk to the beamer (I have problems with my Dell laptop from work at home too, with my 24" brand-name monitor that Linux and OS X work with just fine). Time Machine is the only way I have gotten my wife and parents to do any sort of data backup. I don't have to fret if they have their virus protection up to date, because you don't need it. It's stuff like that.

One main reason I've just ordered a MacBook Pro is the all-metal body. I currently have one of the "plastic" MacBooks, and they suck (as in, don't buy one). My wife has the metal body MacBook already, and it is robust enough you could use it as a weapon during a rat plague. Apple's magnetic power connector has saved both our machines dozens of times from being pulled to the floor by our children, our cat, and various visiting dogs. More stuff worth the extra money.

So, yeah, the operating system is nice, though I use Google Mail anyway and still have the tendency to drop into the CLI from my Linux days. It's the whole package and the attention to detail.

(And though I hate to admit it, it is also the design. My Dell from work, though fast enough with a Core 2 Duo, has buttons and jacks at seemingly random places, stupid blinking lights (why do I need to know if Windows is accessing the hard drive?) and generally gives me the impression somebody threw it together with nay a thought to what it would look like. Maybe I'm getting old, but having a computer that doesn't look like it was designed by low-IQ Klingons drunk on skunk blood is rather nice.)

Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, et. al., are all in competition, driving down the prices.

What they are certainly driving down is the quality of their products. I remember when ThinkPads were still made by IBM, and they were beautiful, especially the very small ones. Now -- yuck. Maybe that is unfair because they switched companies, but still. I'd rather pay a bit more and have a machine where they don't cut corners.

Probably similarly in Germany.

The situation in Germany is a bit more complicated because you (simply speaking) legally own software, there is not of thise "license" or "rent" stuff like in America. This means that you can legally buy and sell OED versions of Windows on eBay, which is where I got my copy of XP for my Linux dual-boot machine for Civ IV. Perfectly legal. Microsoft doesn't like this at all, and really doesn't like talking about it less people in the rest of the world get ideas.

They're going to place their first development dollars where 93% of the market is, and why not?

First, that market share number is misleading, because it includes the enterprise market. We have a whole office with about 200 Windows computers, none of which will ever see a single game in their life. Apple's market share on the private consumer market is far higher, and what is more important, growing like a fart-prone cat on a bean plantation. This is what makes Valve so interesting: Because of Steam, they know exactly which hardware their cusomers are using, and they've decided to release stuff for OS X now, too. This should give Firaxis, who don't know what their users are running stuff on, pause for thought.

Second, this is simply not good enough anymore in today's market. Software development is at the point where you can build Windows and OS X versions at the same time with an acceptable amount of work -- see Blizzard or Valve. Firaxis as a company is missing out on low-hanging fruit, which, to give the business lesson right back to you, is stupid. If I had Firaxis stock (don't even know if they are listed, though), I'd be foaming at the mouth. Firaxis needs to get their software development out of the 20th century.

 

[civ_king]

It's not only the operating system, unless it is in the the widest sense of the world. It's that stuff just works. Plugging in an external monitor, for instance -- I took part in a presentation at work yesterday where the guy spent the first ten minutes of the hour trying to get his Dell to talk to the beamer (I have problems with my Dell laptop from work at home too, with my 24" brand-name monitor that Linux and OS X work with just fine). Time Machine is the only way I have gotten my wife and parents to do any sort of data backup. I don't have to fret if they have their virus protection up to date, because you don't need it. It's stuff like that.

One main reason I've just ordered a MacBook Pro is the all-metal body. I currently have one of the "plastic" MacBooks, and they suck (as in, don't buy one). My wife has the metal body MacBook already, and it is robust enough you could use it as a weapon during a rat plague. Apple's magnetic power connector has saved both our machines dozens of times from being pulled to the floor by our children, our cat, and various visiting dogs. More stuff worth the extra money.

So, yeah, the operating system is nice, though I use Google Mail anyway and still have the tendency to drop into the CLI from my Linux days. It's the whole package and the attention to detail.

(And though I hate to admit it, it is also the design. My Dell from work, though fast enough with a Core 2 Duo, has buttons and jacks at seemingly random places, stupid blinking lights (why do I need to know if Windows is accessing the hard drive?) and generally gives me the impression somebody threw it together with nay a thought to what it would look like. Maybe I'm getting old, but having a computer that doesn't look like it was designed by low-IQ Klingons drunk on skunk blood is rather nice.)



What they are certainly driving down is the quality of their products. I remember when ThinkPads were still made by IBM, and they were beautiful, especially the very small ones. Now -- yuck. Maybe that is unfair because they switched companies, but still. I'd rather pay a bit more and have a machine where they don't cut corners.



The situation in Germany is a bit more complicated because you (simply speaking) legally own software, there is not of thise "license" or "rent" stuff like in America. This means that you can legally buy and sell OED versions of Windows on eBay, which is where I got my copy of XP for my Linux dual-boot machine for Civ IV. Perfectly legal. Microsoft doesn't like this at all, and really doesn't like talking about it less people in the rest of the world get ideas.



First, that market share number is misleading, because it includes the enterprise market. We have a whole office with about 200 Windows computers, none of which will ever see a single game in their life. Apple's market share on the private consumer market is far higher, and what is more important, growing like a fart-prone cat on a bean plantation. This is what makes Valve so interesting: Because of Steam, they know exactly which hardware their customers are using, and they've decided to release stuff for OS X now, too. This should give Firaxis, who don't know what their users are running stuff on, pause for thought.

Second, this is simply not good enough anymore in today's market. Software development is at the point where you can build Windows and OS X versions at the same time with an acceptable amount of work -- see Blizzard or Valve. Firaxis as a company is missing out on low-hanging fruit, which, to give the business lesson right back to you, is stupid. If I had Firaxis stock (don't even know if they are listed, though), I'd be foaming at the mouth. Firaxis needs to get their software development out of the 20th century.

1) ah reminds me of the day I got my MacBook, installation consisted of putting my name and filling 4 other fields! upgrading to snow leopard was easy, put the disk in and let it install! very easy to do,

2) I second the don't buy a plastic MacBook motion

3) I run Norton to protect my system from non-viruses

3) with Windows, not only has price decreased but quality too

4) Lucky! (OEM)

5) hasn't been hard to do a Mac port of a game since Macs went Intel

PS MacBook Pros are better for gaming than Alienware

 

[EmpireOfCats]

So, Firaxis: Apple published their quarterly results yesterday, and Mac sales are up 33 percent to about three million units. Yes, this is the growth rate: They sold a third more machines than in the same time the year before. Those are a lot of computers that are just crying out to have their own copy of Civilization V.

One of them is my spanking new MacBook Pro 15" with an Intel i5 2.4 GHz, 4 gbyte of RAM and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M -- this gives you the specs you should be aiming for, if you could be so kind (I had originally wanted the i7, but it is the dual-core, not quad-core version).

Now, the nice thing about the i5-520M is that it has Extended Page Tables (that's Nested Paging for you AMD people), so I could probably get Civ V to run on the virtualized Windows XP fast enough. But wouldn't you rather I enjoyed the full glory of the game in native speed, so I can amaze my friends and shock my enemies?

See, me too. That's why we need an OS X version right out of the box. Thank you!

 

[Chalks]

So, Firaxis: Apple published their quarterly results yesterday, and Mac sales are up 33 percent to about three million units. Yes, this is the growth rate: They sold a third more machines than in the same time the year before. Those are a lot of computers that are just crying out to have their own copy of Civilization V.

If I sell one ham sandwich this quarter and two ham sandwiches next quarter, I'll have had 100 percent growth!

*eta* Duuk is better at maths than me

Woo!

PC sales were up 25.8% during the same period to 81.7 million units.

Top notch work Apple, way to increase market share by 0.6%!! Look out Firaxis, at this rate, in another hundred years you'll really need to consider devoting some development time to the platform!

Seriously. Do you have tunnel vision or did you intentionally post this to mislead?

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Seriously. Do you have tunnel vision or did you intentionally post this to mislead?

No, I just know what I am talking about.

Those large PC numbers, including the (slower) growth, always include company computers. Lots and lots and lots of company computers, none of which will ever see a game in their lives. For example, my company is just switching everybody from desktop PCs to laptops. That's about 200 units sold on the PC side at least. Is this good news for Firaxis? Nope. As far as game companies are concerned, we might as well be buying new typewriters, or extra-thin pencils, or even dead cats.

Apple's position in the enterprise market is, well, almost non-existant. There are lots of reasons for this; one new one -- just as an example -- is that Apple doesn't allow virtualized versions of the desktop version of OS X (which sucks). This area is owned by generic PCs and Windows. So almost every Mac sold goes to a private consumer, one of these people, in other words, who might just buy a game from Firaxis. If only they could.

This is why Valve and Blizzard are now offering OS X versions. Valve, again, knows exactly what hardware its customers are using, down to the last GHz, because of Steam. I'm sure they're not going to all this effort because they like Steve Jobs' happy smile.

Actually, the situation is even worse. A large part of the current growth in PC sales is simply pent-up demand after the recession -- companies postponed new machines, and now they are replacing their old PCs with new ones. This will pass, and means nothing for games companies anyway. Just more dead cats.

Apple, on the other hand, is actually growing their user base, and has been for some time now (when you look at that chart, remember the next bar goes up to over three million). People don't switch from Macs to Windows, they switch from Windows (or in my case, from Linux) to Macs. Then they stay with Apple, became the rabid fanatic psycho-fanboys so beloved by all, and proceed to convert more people to the Cult. I could tell you about the secret handshake, but ... well, you know the rest.

Anyway -- as pointed out in earlier posts, writing software for OS X and Windows at the same time is no big deal anymore and hasn't been since Apple switched to Intel. This isn't the 90s. Firaxis just has to get its act together and want those extra sales for a little more effort.

 

[Chalks]

I assume you're implying that there has been a 25% increase in the number of company computers, and companies don't play games so they're not part of the "gamer" target audience.

Out of interest, what percentage of Mac owners are you claiming to be gamers? Using entirely conjured statistics, of course, I'd be willing to say that most people who only own a Mac probably aren't gamers, because if they really cared all that much about games they'd buy a PC. Because they probably want to be able to play games. Call me crazy.

And I'd say that the fact that perhaps less than 1% of mainstream games have a simultaneous Mac release speaks more about how influential the "I only own a Mac" gaming community is than the fact that Valve decided to port their distribution system to the platform 7 years after its initial release. They really got right on that one.

You're not going to get a simultaneous Mac release because "I only own a Mac" gamers are such a tiny community that it is very difficult to justify the effort. Although you will get a Mac port. Eventually. Because getting another 10k copies sold after the initial rush has gone down is nice.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Using entirely conjured statistics, of course, I'd be willing to say that most people who only own a Mac probably aren't gamers, because if they really cared all that much about games they'd buy a PC.

And before Apple switched from Power PC to Intel, you would have been perfectly correct. That's the way it was in the Bad Old Days.

But ever since Jobs gave IBM the finger, the Intel/ATI/Nvidia hardware lets you "dual boot" with a tool called Bootcamp. For example, I played Civ IV and Left 4 Dead on my iMac until I built a quad core dual-boot Linux server. Apple is basically a hardware company, so they make it very easy for you to run Windows by taking care of all the driver crap for you. Win XP on my iMac was rock-steady.

This is what makes Valve's OS X release of Steam so interesting. AFAIK, they are the only game company that knows exactly what hardware their customers are using. And suddenly, they decide to release a Mac version. Hmmm. Sounds like somebody did the math.

Because getting another 10k copies sold after the initial rush has gone down is nice.

That certainly. But also, there is no sign at all that Mac sales are going anywhere but up, so they are getting themselves in a good position to be a big name in a growing market -- and I'm not even talking about the iPod and iPhone games they could sell. Firaxis isn't. They won't go broke by ignoring OS X, but they are going to miss out on a lot of sales.

 

[Chalks]

"A lot" as in probably less than 1% of what they would get otherwise. Your definition of this phrase is different to mine.

Out of interest, how does your ability to play non Mac native games on a Mac support the argument for a native client? If they can say "well, people will either use WINE or dual boot anyway" why does that make them more likely to put the time and effort into a simultaneous cross platform release?

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Out of interest, how does your ability to play non Mac native games on a Mac support the argument for a native client?

It is a question of effort and cost. At the moment, I have to reboot the Linux server to play Civ IV or Left 4 Dead seriously -

[I just checked: Civ IV will run under Win XP and VirtualBox on the new MacBook Pro, far better than it does on the Core 2 Quad with Linux and VirtualBox -- the i5's superior support for virtualization makes a huge difference -- but it simply isn't fast enough to be fun.]

- so I don't get to play as much. Which I know, so don't buy that many games. However, Diablo 2 works just fine with VirtualBox, not to mention Masters of Orion 2 (it probably fits in the cache, it's so old), so when I have a little time to kill, that is what I do.

And that's me, who sort of grew up with the Linux command line. Your average computer user is not going to install either Bootcamp or VirtualBox -- if it doesn't run natively, he just isn't going to buy it. This is what I mean by opening new markets.

Second, cost. To dual boot, I not only have to buy a copy of Windows, but you also have the "hidden" cost of stuff like virus protection software. The second operating system takes time to install and needs to be updated and all kinds of stuff like that. In other words, it's an expensive hassle.

Now, with native OS X games, there is none of this. You just buy the damn game. I can tell you right now that I'll by getting both Star Craft 2 and Diablo 3, because I know I will find the time to play them, even if it is just half an hour here and there between what I really should be doing while sitting here. It's awfully hard to lie to yourself that you're working if you have to reboot the whole computer every time .

In summary, native games make it more likely that people will buy them, let alone play them.

EDIT: Sorry, missed the last part of your question first time around. The effort for the game producer is getting less and less, so there comes a point when the OS X market is large and the effort small enough that you start to make money. Valve seems to think that this moment is here now or going to be here very soon. My argument is that it should be the same for Firaxis, though they have less data about their customers' hardware and so might be missing the jump.

 

[Chalks]

Your average computer user is not going to install either Bootcamp or VirtualBox -- if it doesn't run natively, he just isn't going to buy it.

Your average computer user is going to buy a PC if he wants to play games. Someone who buys a Mac wanting to play games is either someone who is going to find out how to get them to run, or something who has no idea what they're doing and goes "Mac no work with game blarharhrhahar" then buys a PC.

The market that consists of people who bought a Mac wanting to play games on it, doesn't own a PC, doesn't know how to get PC games to run on a Mac and is just sitting there going "blarhrhrhrh game no work. Blarrhrhhr! Game still no work! Blarrrhhh. Still no work..." is infinitesimally small.

Those are the only real gamers who are going to be able to play the game because of a Mac client. You may also get a few casual gamers who buy your Mac release of the game because it's one of maybe 5 games that will be released for the platform this year and they thought they'd see what a "game" was like for their new "Mac computer thingy".

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Your average computer user is going to buy a PC if he wants to play games.

Only if he is a teenager or willing to buy a second computer next to his work machine. And in many cases, the slot of that "second computer" is now taken by a console.

See, a lot of gamers are like me now -- slightly overweight 40+ years old who have grown up with computer games (Civ, Civ 2, Civ 3, Civ 4, of course). We have families and jobs and cars and mortgages and all kinds of other stuff to think about. Our computers are work machines first. A second computer has to pass the, uh, Financial Planning Board, and while everybody in the family loves the Wii, an extra PC just for daddy's games is not going to fly too often in this economy (I got around it by dual-booting the home server -- and yes, it absolutely, totally has to have four cores and a Nvidia graphics card, honestly).

This is how a colleague of mine is going to end up with a 13" MacBook Pro. So far, he's been using a Sony at home, and it is getting old. What he wants first of all, though, is a PlayStation 3. Fine, his wife says, but the new laptop will be a work machine. He came to Apple via his iPhone, which he absolutely adores [personally, I still don't see the appeal, but whatever], has taken a good look at some other Macs (like mine), and is set to buy one next paycheck.

Now pretend you're Firaxis. How are you going to sell him Civ V?

The game is too complicated for the PlayStation, which uses some strange PowerPC chip anyway -- it's from the same family that Apple dumped. If you want his money, sell him an OS X version he can just install and make sure that the system requirements are so low that he can play it on a laptop (which might be tight in this case, but Firaxis has said they want to keep the reqs down). Don't worry about the screen, he can hook up the MacBook to his HD TV set.

This is how you sell him Civ V. You build an OS X version along with the Windows version.

 

[Chalks]

Only if he is a teenager or willing to buy a second computer next to his work machine. And in many cases, the slot of that "second computer" is now taken by a console.

What on earth are you talking about? Most people buy PCs for use at home. Most people who play games on *not a console* play them on PCs.

What fictitious land are you living in where the only people who play PC games are under the age of 18?

Are you saying that everyone else is playing games on Macs? Really? What an interesting statistic you have there. Would you mind citing your sources on that? Or any logical reason to think it is true?

The percentage of people who own a Mac is small. The percentage of people who own ONLY a Mac is even smaller. The percentage of people who own only a Mac and want to play games is even smaller still. The percentage of people who own only a Mac, want to play games but can't work out how to dual boot or run WINE is utterly insignificant. And of that insignificant number of people, most of them will go buy a PC to resolve their problem.

Nobody is sitting at home wanting to play games on their Mac, just waiting for people to release a Mac client for things. Nobody. They're playing games some other way or they're not interested in the first place.

Do you know why you're sitting there going "I don't understand why nobody releases Mac clients for games out of the box"?

It's because you have absolutely no grip on reality.