Sign the Petition!

biscuit

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
Messages
38
Let's get as many signatures as humanly possible. We want to wake up the MacSofts and Ataris of the world to the needs we have as Mac users. The need to be treated equal and to not take the back seat to PC gamers. We want Civ 4 delivered in a timely fashion!

Sign it and pass it on! Post and spread this everywhere you think a Mac gamer will see it.

Civ 4 Mac same as PC release date petition.

Thanks,
Andrew
 
biscuit said:
Sign it and pass it on! Post and spread this everywhere you think a Mac gamer will see it.

Sure, why not.

But, don't post this at the MacGamer Forums. I did that once, and they banned me. Imagine that, me, getting banned. :confused:
 
I've signed it, but I don't see it doing much good. They'll judge the commercial proposition when deciding where and when to spend their development and marketing dollars, not a plea for fair play.
 
Thanks for signing Alan (and everyone else, for that matter). I know it will basically fall on deaf ears (or blind eyes rather) and that it's probably unrealistic from a business standpoint, but that doesn't make it right. At least it will let them know we are sick of being treated like second-class citizens. And the very least, it will voice our concerns as a unified front and give them something to chew on, knowing we won't be "silent" consumers.

I know from personal experience that it's just not a good business practice to ignore the wishes of your main source of income and treat them with disrespect.

Trabpukcip:
Atari still handles tech support, yes? I've gone to their site recently for info and it looked as if they were still handling issues. Nonetheless, when the "final" petition is ready, we'll get it to the right people.

Just wondering what you guys think. How many signatures will make an impression on the developers?
 
biscuit said:
... but that doesn't make it right.
Right and wrong are not business concepts, they are moral ones. Their impact on the bottom line is negligible or negative if the number of disaffected customers is small compared with the cost of satisfying them.
I know from personal experience that it's just not a good business practice to ignore the wishes of your main source of income and treat them with disrespect.
I spent 40 years in customer-focused businesses. Mac users are not the 'main source of income" for whoever is making Mac port licencing decisions. Windows users are, and Windows users couldn't care less whether Mac users can play Civ IV at the same time as them.

Ainwood is right, they know how many Mac copies they expect to sell *if* they release it, and it would take a major surprise to make them revise that assessment.
 
Utterly meaningless, unfortunately. Such petitions won't tell anyone anything they don't already know, and certainly won't ever be considered in any decision-making process. The only thing you can ever hope to accomplish is to make yourself feel like you're "doing something" - much like watching something bake in the oven.

And, yes, if petitions are posted on forums where the user agreement AND the main forum page expressly state in bold that all petitions are forbidden... you're almost certain to get banned for it. And rightly so.
 
Beamup said:
And, yes, if petitions are posted on forums where the user agreement AND the main forum page expressly state in bold that all petitions are forbidden... you're almost certain to get banned for it. And rightly so.

Yeah well, I didn't read it. Lazy, but an honest mistake. :)
 
Beamup said:
Utterly meaningless, unfortunately. Such petitions won't tell anyone anything they don't already know, and certainly won't ever be considered in any decision-making process.

I can vouch for this. Anyone with any say or influence in the Mac version already knows the obvious - Civ4 would do well on the Mac. Because most Mac users, developers and publishers know what I've just said and know the futility of Mac petitions, they're unlikely to sign it. That leaves PC developers, publishers and users - and they really don't care. ;-)

Put another way, it'd be like starting a petition to get Sims 2 for the Mac if it hadn't already been announced.
 
Alan: Nonetheless, right and wrong are also decisions. And decisions factor into business concepts, so essentially I disagree. Read any of Dale Carnegie's books and you'll see what I'm talking about. Treating people and your customers with respect is good business. There is no morality issue. It's common sense and good judgment.

My message wasn't directed at the developers who cater to PC users. Mac users are the main source of income for Mac-based developers and for this particular title. Regardless of whether they develop for PC users or not, you still can't disrespect your consumers. If you are trying to sell product, you don't alienate your consumer base, plain and simple.

Consumer voices do change and influence business decisions all the time.
You're painting a half-empty outlook here. If we had thousands of voices (which is not likely, but worth attempting), we could sound the alarm and turn some heads in our direction.
 
Beamup said:
Utterly meaningless, unfortunately. Such petitions won't tell anyone anything they don't already know, and certainly won't ever be considered in any decision-making process. The only thing you can ever hope to accomplish is to make yourself feel like you're "doing something" - much like watching something bake in the oven.

Some petitions do work. I am sure that the "petitions" sent to UPN about Enterprise did help and other TV shows have been renewed based upon major fan base action. Then again, read my sig. :goodjob:
 
All roads lead to the cemetary, but look on the bright side of life, wontcha? No need to be quite so pessimistic. I don't care about the me in this. I care about the why and frankly, it's been going on way too long for us to lay back and take it. Perhaps "we" need to cast a wider net. This is a much bigger issue. Although a lofty suggestion, we may even need to get tough and use words like "boycott." Words that get the attention of those looking at the bottom line.

And I really don't care if I get banned. Gettting a new account anywhere is almost as easy as breathing.

Beamup said:
Utterly meaningless, unfortunately. Such petitions won't tell anyone anything they don't already know, and certainly won't ever be considered in any decision-making process. The only thing you can ever hope to accomplish is to make yourself feel like you're "doing something" - much like watching something bake in the oven.

And, yes, if petitions are posted on forums where the user agreement AND the main forum page expressly state in bold that all petitions are forbidden... you're almost certain to get banned for it. And rightly so.
 
biscuit said:
All roads lead to the cemetary, but look on the bright side of life, wontcha? No need to be quite so pessimistic. I don't care about the me in this. I care about the why and frankly, it's been going on way too long for us to lay back and take it. Perhaps "we" need to cast a wider net. This is a much bigger issue. Although a lofty suggestion, we may even need to get tough and use words like "boycott." Words that get the attention of those looking at the bottom line.
There's a difference between pessimistic and realistic. Realistically, there's no point. The situation is as it is for logical, fundamental business reasons. The people you're directing this petition at would like to change things as much (or probably more) than you do. But it just isn't practical.

And that's above and beyond the twin factors that (a) you'll just be telling people things they already know and (b) they'd have to be crazy to make any business decisions based on petitions with even several hundred signatures anyway.

Also, threatening boycotts won't do you any good either unless you could somehow manage to get a very large fraction of the entire Mac gaming community to sign on. Which you won't. It also won't do any good if you DID manage that unless the underlying factors determining why things work they way they do change because, again, the Aspyrs, Macsofts, and so on of the world don't like the situation any better than you do. They'd already be doing things differently if they could.

In order for things to change, mainly what's needed, as I understand it, is for (a) Winblows developers to design and code their projects from the ground up with Mac ports in mind and (b) Apple's market share to grow enough to make (a) profitable. Preaching to/threatening the choir will do not an iota to affect either of those things.

biscuit said:
And I really don't care if I get banned. Gettting a new account anywhere is almost as easy as breathing.
Not if the admins in question are willing to use a big enough stick. I seem to recall at least one occasion when Corey started banning entire ISPs when a previously-banned poster came back.

Vegasgustan said:
Some petitions do work. I am sure that the "petitions" sent to UPN about Enterprise did help and other TV shows have been renewed based upon major fan base action.
Sometimes, yes. It happens pretty much ONLY when the people making the decisions were wrong about what their customers thought (does not apply in this case, all Mac publishers/developers are perfectly well aware of how Mac gamers view the situation) AND the petition/equivalent action is on a sufficiently large scale to demonstrate that (as in, a large fraction of the customer base).
So even if you got every single Mac user alive to sign... it wouldn't do any good because the petition can't tell anybody anything they don't already know.
 
Ive signed the petition - MAC Games...Now!
How about that for a slogan!?

Personally Im prepared to wait a few months as the PC users drown in the mess of Direct X bugs and farting around with driver updates. Civ 3 on the Mac is almost perfect in its stability and if the price for a game that works well is a few months delay, let the PC pondlife have it first....they dont have it best do they?

And finally...one person emailing the developers doesnt do much. But then another, and another, and soon they start to realise that people with Macs have money to spend on games. The market under OS X has improved games for the Mac greatly and climbs slowly but surely. The can of **** market, i mean PC market is bleeding customers to Playstation, XBox, Mac...anyone basically whose games work!

Happy Christmas All
 
biscuit said:
My message wasn't directed at the developers who cater to PC users. Mac users are the main source of income for Mac-based developers and for this particular title.

I'm unclear on how petitioning these folks will open eyes, or to use your words, cause them to "respect their customers" in any measurable way.

In case it's not clear, I was the main programmer for the Mac port of Civ3 and I now work for another Mac game publisher (Aspyr). That this particular petition is being formed strikes me as slightly odd, given that Civ3 had a near-simultaneous release on the Mac in the first place, mostly as a product of the urging of everyone on the Mac side (and with some help from Firaxis) in the first place. Compared to most other Mac games, Civ3 had a pretty remarkable release in this regard.

Let me just say again: petitioning anyone on the Mac side for a game or series that is wildly popular on the PC side isn't an effective use of your time. *We* already know - we play and love these games ourselves, and we love the Mac. Telling Aspyr or MacSoft that you do as well, particularly for a no-brainer like Civ4, just ends up being an exercise in self-gratification.
 
This really should have been addressed as a much broader issue to the larger Mac gaming development business community. I don't think you are seeing my more general point about Mac gamers being treated like second-class citizens. Do you think they respect us by shipping buggy titles a year after they hit the PC market with marginal support? I see your point about the Civ 3 launch dates, but this is aimed at Civ 4 and ideally, all Mac titles.

I appreciate your hard work, but yours and Alan's experiences don't make either of your opinons any more qualified on this topic than the average user, who know exactly how they are being treated. I worked for 5 years at a game developer as an Art Director, but who cares? I'm not using that as a point to bolster my opinion. Now, that would be self-gratification. This is definitely not about ego at all. I could care less about that. This is about getting some respect as a consumer and not being treated like an afterthought. It's that simple. Anyway, I saw the business mechanics of how they dealt with their Mac releases and I know other companies have similar approaches. It's sad.

I don't expect much of this petition as it would be very difficult to get the signatures required to raise the eyebrows of the developers. I took action with the thought maybe, just maybe, something could be done. Maybe I'm wrong to think an industry can change, but groups do it everyday. It's just getting the group together that's the trick. This is after all, America, where consumer voices can have impact, given the numbers and appropriate channels.
 
I tend to agree with Brad; this petition is more or less "preaching to the choir".

However, there is a feature that Firaxis should be petitioned upon while the game is still in development, and that is using TCP/IP for the multiplayer. I think that I saw an interview on InsideMacGames.com (with either Brad or Glenda Adams) back when Civ3:pTW was still in development for the PC side that Westlake was pushing Firaxis to use TCP/IP instead of Microsoft's DirectPlay for the networking. As we all know, they went Microsoft and we Mac users still don't get to play multiplayer all these years later. THAT is worth a petition, e-mail writing campaign, or something, because it is simply a slap in the face to Mac users.

I still can't understand why they took a step backwards in this regard when Civ 2 used TCP and was so great cross-platform.

JoAT
 
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