The Shelf Space Problem
One problem afflicting both porting houses and original Mac game developers is that of "shelf space," which refers to the amount of space a retail store allocates to stocking Mac games. Due to its small market share, Macintosh software as a whole receives very little, if any, shelf space in most major computer retail stores. Within that space, retailers are usually reluctant to stock relatively inexpensive games which may or may not sell well, as opposed to high-cost, top-selling products such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. Because of this, most smaller Mac game companies release their products using a shareware business model, either exclusively or in addition to a more traditional retail "boxed" version. All porting houses and larger game companies have stuck to the traditional model, but the recent rise in the digital download model may lead to some companies eventually releasing games as paid downloads in a model similar to Valve Corporation's Steam service. MMORPGs are largely immune to the shelf space problem, and NCSoft's Lineage was one of the first games made available for Mac OS X, in 2002 Virtual Programming was one of the few porting companies to offer commercial games via digital download, although with the launch of Deliver2Mac and GamersGate in early 2006 other companies are beginning to move towards digital distribution. Aside from getting around the shelf space problem, shareware and digital download models also provide a larger percentage of profit to the company, as the wholesaler middleman is avoided and costs (and turnaround times) involved in media replication are eliminated. The latest player is TransGaming Technologies' GameTreeOnline.com which was launched March 2008 with a focus to offer the Mac gaming community digital downloads of major published Mac titles.
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
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“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)