Re: Why doesn't the Apple II have a gaming community like C64, Atari, DOS, etc

["N.N. Thayer" <nnthayer@hotmail.com>]

On Mar 12, 6:41 pm, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
> I never cared much for gaming, so that was no more than a novelty for
> me.  In fact, as I think back to the user groups I attended, I'd have
> to say that gaming was always a minority interest.  Most Apple users
> were into productivity apps and programming.
>
> Perhaps that's to be expected for a $1000-class machine--it was just
> too expensive to be used as a toy.  ;-)

I suppose it's partly a matter of which communities one dwelled in -
the dominance of the Apple II in the early issues of CGW is really
quite impressive.  Wargames and RPGs were the order of the day, and
the Apple II was clearly the vehicle of choice.  On this publication's
pages, at least, other platforms barely existed.

And my way of thinking is that the capabilities of a $1000-class
machine should be cumulative; for that kind of money, it should be
able to encompass the less-serious inclinations of any less-serious or
less-expensive competitors.  :)

> In fact, when I selected the Apple II, I fully expected that it would
> be an inexhaustible source of mental stimulation and joy, resulting
> from using it to explore concepts and to create things.  That has
> turned out to be the case.  ;-)
>
> Games never had that kind of potential for me--nor do they for anyone
> else, I suppose.  They are more like pop songs that you play for a while
> then largely forget.  (And they turn a universal computer into nothing
> more than a "phonograph".)

Speaking as a bonafide Gamer (TM), I'd say that the kind of mental
stimulation, conceptual exploration, and robust creativity to which
you refer is quite easily found in both game playing and game
development - definitely with today's games (certain sophisticated
diamonds, often from indie developers, in the rough of flashy AAA
titles), but even amongst the simpler games that existed back in the
industry's infancy.  Even at that time, there were developers
attempting to imbue their games with higher meaning.  Crawford, who I
mentioned earlier, said in an episode of Computer Chronicles about his
game Excalibur (released in '83 for Atari 8-bit systems) that he
wanted to ...

" ... express to people the ideas behind von Clausewitz's statement
'War is the extension of policy to other means.' That is, I was a
little tired of wargames that glorify war, so I wanted to show that
war is something that sometimes cannot be avoided but must never be
entered into in a cavalier manner. Really, I was trying to teach
concepts of leadership, and so in the game Excalibur, I make you as
King Arthur, I give you the task of unifying Britain. Now,
unificiation is entirely different from conquest, that is, you have to
convince people of your authority, you have to convince them to follow
you, and that involves more than merely brute force."

Who knows how much of that actually soaked through to people playing
the game - but, from what I've seen, authorial intent always surfaces
sooner or later in well-designed games.