gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (03/25/90)
In article <Ya2sBTy00Xo842VUYG@andrew.cmu.edu> cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger) writes: >disappointed that Origin has never tried to take advantage of the //gs. One thing to consider is that IBM PC compatibles account for around 50% of the "entertainment" software market, with Amiga around 7% and the IIGS near 0. Of course, as a IIGS owner you must be painfully aware of the lack of software product to buy, which certainly explains the low sales figures! With IBM PC compatibles being such a major force, it is no wonder that products are developed for them first. Then, when a decision has to be made whether to allocate limited programmer resources to producing ports to other systems that constitute a tiny fraction of the market or to use the resources to produce yet more high-volume (i.e. IBM PC) products, it is easy to see how the decision is likely to go. Actually, the Apple IIGS may have killed off the entire Apple II software market, as follows. Most IIGS owners probably spend what limited cash they have set aside for software on products that work in the 16-bit environment. On the other hand, software publishers, realizing that 8-bit Apple II software CAN be used on a IIGS, have not produced separate IIGS- specific (i.e. enhanced display and graphics) versions of their products. Thus their Apple II software lines are not selling to IIGS owners, and loss of a significant portion of over a million potential sales has made it appear that the Apple II market has dwindled. Infocom provides an example; they produced one IIGS product (which I could not find in retail stores, probably due to stores not stocking IIGS versions when 8-bit II versions are also available) and when it didn't sell well they decided to stick to only 8-bit versions for the Apple II family. Major software publishers won't accept Apple II- or IIGS-specific products from independent developers (which is where the vast majority of products originate), claiming that the Apple II market is too small to bother with when there is the IBM PC compatible market to cater to. They consider Apple II versions of products that also have IBM PC versions, and that's it.. My impression is that IIGS owners are simply not being served by the mass-market orientation of commercial software publishers, and this is unlikely to change unless Apple were to make a serious strong effort to turn it around (which I doubt they would do). The only thing I think we can do is to support those few producers of worthwhile IIGS products (ByteWorks, Brian Greenstone, etc.), especially NOT TO RIP OUR BUDDIES OFF by using unpaid-for software. I and a few other IIGS programmers plan to continue producing IIGS-based applications, not to get rich but because we have IIGSes and want to see decent software for it. Buy Xenocide; pay shareware fees; support your loyal IIGS developers!