On Mar 12, 4:32 pm, Sean Fahey <a2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Many of the most iconic games of the era were released on the Apple II first
before being ported to the C64 and Atari. I can think of only a few quality
8-bit titles (M.U.L.E. for example) that came out for other platforms and which
skipped the II that were missed.
How much does being first weigh against having orders of magnitude
more users as a potential install base, though? Early on, when game
"companies" often consisted of a single person, which platform was
first to market with a particular game could and did depend on which
platform that one person happened to be the most comfortable with.
And after the early '80s, simultaneous cross-platform development
seemed to be the m.o. rather than championing a particular platform
and porting later, especially for titles that were less graphics-
intensive (I base this conclusion on the "Reader Input Device" section
of CGW, which shows games released by platform and what subscribers
reported using/playing). With far more C64s in people's homes than
Apple IIs, even merely equal attention given to development and
release would still ultimately result in more people playing the C64
than the Apple II version of a given title.
The Apple's gaming demise ended the same way as nearly all the other platforms did for
2 major reasons - it was the end of an era:
The IBM PC clone market exploded in popularity and ate their lunch. The C64 gaming market
held on for a little while, just out of sheer mass but the PC became the defacto gaming
platform for home computers late in the 80's and through the 90's.
That's the thing, though: while all platforms were consumed by the PC,
some were consumed more quickly than others. The Apple II's standing
in computer gaming was already precarious by the late '80s - it was
sitting there awaiting ports, just like its competitors had earlier in
the decade. It had its chance to penetrate the home market, and it
did, but never on the level of the C64. I believe the Apple II had a
huge impact on computer gaming, but that it occurred before and/or on
the cusp of computer gaming's mainstream acceptance, which was
facilitated, through sheer sales volume, more by the C64 than by any
other computer. Until the PC asserted itself.
I don't feel there is a correlation with the lack of gaming sites for the Apple II and it's
popularity as a gaming machine. We've had a few over the years; virtualapple.org comes to
mind, and others have come and gone. I'm more inclined to believe it's for lack of interest
in running a gaming themed site more than anything to do with the Apple II's popularity.
Isn't there a critical mass that must be reached in order for a
polished and comprehensive site like lemon64.com to be willed into
existence and to persist, and, since such a site subsists almost
entirely on nostalgia and a desire for preservation, wouldn't that
critical mass be directly connected to the number of people who used
the machine in its heyday?