I'll have to get back to you on this one in a bit, work is a little hectic at the mo :)

cthellis: Since when do people go after Microsoft for the Xbox games they offer or don't? Hell, in Xbox-land, people seem perfectly thrilled to give them money to let them play games online, as well as clamp down on the service with an iron grip.

Well it wasn't directed at games - but you're right, nobody goes after anybody for the games they don't produce.

I'm afraid I am one of the ones that is happy to give some cash for that system - Live is a great piece of work. IIRC the servers are hosted at MS and the service has an iron grip in order that they don't have to support a trillion different protocols (in the same way that with the XBox they have a known set of hardware to deal with). It's what kills them in the OS space - too many hardware and driver configurations causing instability, an area where Apple excel because they don't have to worry about it quite so much.

Regarding the Netflix argument, the comparison would be more like owning a Netflix DVD player that only plays DVDs from Netflix even though there are other DVDs and DVD players out there.

cthellis: It's a "monopoly" only in the same way that Nintendo holds a "monopoly" for Wii gaming.

Finally, an analogy amidst the prose that I can get my head round.

Regarding the censorship issue, in this particular case it seems more visible, less well defined, kneejerk and inconsistant compared to the other forms you list. Of course censorship is everywhere - I've even censored this post ;-)

cthellis: Age also doesn't matter, in the end.

It's extremely important for the marketing folk, and it really does matter. It can dictate content, the amount of certain types of content, the money availble to spend by certain age brackets and so on. It's not the be-all and end-all of the targetting aspect, but it's one of the most prominent.


Ok, I need to summarise before this gets any more mixed up. App store is not a monopoly, just part of a closed system that is artbitrarily policed based on a vague set of rules for the perceived greater good of their customers.

King Keepo: I'm afraid I am one of the ones that is happy to give some cash for that system - Live is a great piece of work. IIRC the servers are hosted at MS and the service has an iron grip in order that they don't have to support a trillion different protocols (in the same way that with the XBox they have a known set of hardware to deal with). It's what kills them in the OS space - too many hardware and driver configurations causing instability, an area where Apple excel because they don't have to worry about it quite so much.

Hence why "control" is not synonymous with "evil."

King Keepo: Regarding the Netflix argument, the comparison would be more like owning a Netflix DVD player that only plays DVDs from Netflix even though there are other DVDs and DVD players out there.

Like this? ;-) (Admittedly they did just add Amazon to the mix, but it was Netflix-only hardware for a while, and it's been well-received even in that light.)

King Keepo: Regarding the censorship issue, in this particular case it seems more visible, less well defined, kneejerk and inconsistant compared to the other forms you list. Of course censorship is everywhere - I've even censored this post ;-)

Hence why I said it's easy to criticize Apple for inconsistent application (Apple-ication?) and unclear policy. What does not follow is "ZOMG they didn't allow something?! BURRRRRN!" and "MONOPOLISTISTISTS!!!"

King Keepo: It's extremely important for the marketing folk, and it really does matter. It can dictate content, the amount of certain types of content, the money availble to spend by certain age brackets and so on. It's not the be-all and end-all of the targetting aspect, but it's one of the most prominent.

It doesn't "dictate content" so much as "helps to shape the community," and in the meanwhile Apple's marketing hasn't been focusing on "adult-y things" but rather "stuff for everyone."

Back to the Wii as an example, it's not like the explosive appeal to kids and women and casual gamers denies anything... you can still have your Manhunts and your Madworlds show up. But sales to tend to show that those games aren't well-received there. They don't bump against Nintendo policy regarding mature content, they just don't gel with the community breakdown.

At any rate, the iPod Touch and iPhone skew older mainly because of "money." They cost more (to start), and are generally regarded as less rugged products and more easily lost, which doesn't scream "kid toy!" to parents. But heck, even THAT is changing...

King Keepo: Ok, I need to summarise before this gets any more mixed up. App store is not a monopoly, just part of a closed system that is artbitrarily policed based on a vague set of rules for the perceived greater good of their customers.

Depends what you mean by "greater good." ;-) Ultimately a closed system with arbitrary policies and enforcement, but the value judgement still brings you right back to the Xbox Live example used earlier.

Ultimately I think Apple should just be cordoning content they don't like with "Mature" flags or what have you now that they have parental controls, and shift stuff into its own little corner. Don't advertise them or have them show up on "Top 50" lists and they'll exist, but they'll really only exist for the people who know they're there. I figure there's just really no point when you've given people an open web browser; they already have unlimited access to porn and other content. (Probably Apple's position as well; they assume they've already given you the tool to "do it for yourself" and therefore they don't have to tar the image of their service for others.)

At the same time, I don't think Microsoft should be forbidding all manner of communication to and from Live servers, shouldn't be doing their damndest to stand in the way of other companies hosting for themselves, shouldn't be making developers waste time supporting certain features that don't really matter for their game or are really stupid...

"Greater good" is ultimately greatly subjective. ;-)

cthellis: It doesn't "dictate content" so much as "helps to shape the community"

With a sentence like that are you sure you don't work in marketing? :)

cthellis: Depends what you mean by "greater good." ;-)

Ah, I chose my words carefully there - perceived greater good, as in the greater good that Appple (or MS with Live) feel is appropriate for us. This is based on the Government's definition of greater good and balanced by counter-culture who would rather have anything and everything available all the time regardless of content. Either way, it doesn't interrupt the discussion at all.

cthellis: you can still have your Manhunts and your Madworlds show up.

Now you're making me wonder what restrictions they do have on motion control and the games. Would you be allowed to have a control combo to lift someone's head and make a sawing motion to decapitate? It's not like there aren't games that feature decapitation already, but would the mechanism be deemed inappropriate (I'm guessing it would across all manufacturers). But I digress...

cthellis: Ultimately I think Apple should just be cordoning content they don't like with "Mature" flags

Or cordon it off in an area protected by parental controls and pick the best bits out for the App Store. As you point out though, it's negated by having a fully fledged browser that can access all the wonders and horrors the internet has to offer anyway.

cthellis: At the same time, I don't think Microsoft should be forbidding all manner of communication to and from Live servers

This I'm afraid I disagree with. They own the servers and I know from experience that letting anyone code what they want to a service like this just results in tears before bedtime. Unless tightly controlled someone will accidentally tear the whole system down in a heartbeat. And getting that same control distributed across other people's servers is also a technical nightmare.

The centralised nature of it also allows for stability, a similar game experience for all who access it and a familiar user experience for every player of every game attached to it. In many ways this is the reason that Live trumps the ever living hell out of Home, even if it is free. I find Home to be a scattered rag-tag effort in comparison, and while Sony will no doubt catch up, they have a lot to do get close to what Microsoft have managed.

EA seem to have broken that though, but only by leveraging their corporate mass to do so. Now I have to have an EA pass as well as a Microsoft one, which, if you play a lot of EA games is not so bad.

cthellis: "Greater good" is ultimately greatly subjective. ;-)

Absolutely :-)

King Keepo: With a sentence like that are you sure you don't work in marketing? :)

I frequently have to make up nice ways to say "your kids like to look at porn on your computer and pick up a lot of viruses," so... ;-)

King Keepo: Now you're making me wonder what restrictions they do have on motion control and the games. Would you be allowed to have a control combo to lift someone's head and make a sawing motion to decapitate? It's not like there aren't games that feature decapitation already, but would the mechanism be deemed inappropriate (I'm guessing it would across all manufacturers). But I digress...

I'm pretty sure Nintendo has no particular restrictions or forced use going on. So far as I can tell, you can exclude it to large degree (though if you don't use it for menu navigation you're kinda silly), and Manhunt takes make steps down the "hack/slash/stab/kill/strangle" direction, so we would have heard more if it were of issue.

King Keepo: Or cordon it off in an area protected by parental controls and pick the best bits out for the App Store. As you point out though, it's negated by having a fully fledged browser that can access all the wonders and horrors the internet has to offer anyway.

boytaur.net, baby!

Like I said, I think they get the best of both worlds, in their opinion. You're not REALLY restricted since your browser is fully functional (outside of Flash and Java), but it serves the "perceived greater good" by not having smut and stuff like that clogging up their App Store.

The news would occasionally titter at seeing kids use their PSP browsers to locate porn, but that provokes a much different reaction than, say, distributing "rape simulators" on your network.

Heck, people biatch up a storm about barely-perceptible lyrics in background music, so they'll cause a ruckus about anything slightly askew. It's bad press avoidance.

King Keepo: They own the servers and I know from experience that letting anyone code what they want to a service like this just results in tears before bedtime.

They own the servers that traffic passes through, but by and large Live doesn't actually HOST their own servers. That's why MS and EA were butting heads over early Madden versions, because EA wanted to run their own shiat their own way, but it was against MS policy to let them. (They ended up loosening some restrictions.)

The way they tend to run things makes it annoying-to-impossible for developers to line up their own forms of high score lists, pass communication between servers and clients and user accounts and web portals, to allow you to create servers to host clients from multiple different platforms...

In this case it's not "content" restriction but "communication" restriction, to a degree where it will interfere with developer creativity. It's fine to want to do things like, say, digitally sign your traffic to stop hackers and cheaters and the like, but it's annoying to put a ceiling on developer options.


Meanwhile, I'm not sure why you're comparing Home to anything... Home is a marketing effort and "amusing plaything," and has to go through a lot to prove itself. If you mean PSN in general, most people won't notice much of a difference, except that there's a lot less voice support. (Sony's going to have to patch that through PS3 firmware directly to get any kind of universal option going, really. Which is what they should have done to begin with; why bother requiring developers to do much coding specifically to begin with, when you can just have them patch into a system built right into each piece of hardware? They really needed to put more RAM into the system. ALWAYS go RAM-heavy. It drops in price quickly, and it gives way more future growth potential.)

Sure the matchup menus might look different, but menus look different between EVERY game. And yet they all pretty much function the same way between platforms: "Go into the multiplayer menu." ;-) (Few have learned to be seamlessly awesome in the way Criterion is with Burnout.) Sony needs to catch up in certain ways like "joining on your friends" and the Party System so friends can stick together, but that's not an aspect of closed architecture... It's one of Sony getting off their ass and delivering features like that BEFORE all the other distractions with a project like Home. (Notice that "getting a bunch of friends together and hopping into the same game" was part of Home's initial marketing to begin with, and hasn't yet been delivered well. Nor brought to the XMB, like it should have been first.)

King Keepo: EA seem to have broken that though, but only by leveraging their corporate mass to do so. Now I have to have an EA pass as well as a Microsoft one, which, if you play a lot of EA games is not so bad.

Separate logins is indeed annoying. (Thankfully Konami's dumb idea to do that as well seems to be going away.) TYING a Live account ID or a PSN ID to an inter-system one to do your own thing is fine, but requiring users to sign up for one that may-or-may-not have the same name as your Live/PSN ID is boneheaded. Companies need to figure out how to do things seamlessly.

cthellis: boytaur.net, baby!

My eyes! My pretty eyes! What have you done?

Well, it's been a pleasure chatting cthellis, but I'm going to have to sign off this thread due to work and flying. Great fun though, and I'll see you around.

King Keepo

Later, mon. I'm sure people will biatch about Apple again in the near future. ;-)