A quick follow up (or at least related) thought from the gender post the other day....
One of the things that comes up when talking about gender inclusiveness in game design in the concept of 'dominating the technology'. Fighting and beating the technology the game is embedded in as opposed to playing and beating the game itself. This usually takes the form of figuring out hidden mechanics and such.
Then today I saw yet another 'Mac vs PC' argument, this time on a game site. I have noticed that tech males and male gamers seem especially venomous towards OSX over the years and wondered why this is.
So I started thinking about the OS as a type of game. The OS provides the rules and mechanics, individual apps and capabilities provide the actual gameplay. Think of the OS as the engine and games as the assets. If one goes by this analogy, OSX could be seen as 'too easy' by males. There are not many secrets to figure out, nothing complicated to fight, no real way to distinguish the hardcore from the softcore... you take your app, drag it across, and run. One does not fight with OSX, one uses it as a tool. There is nothing to figure out.
Windows on the other hand, is dripping with secret knowledge and requires constant exploration and fighting. Windows is 'challenging', there is always something to show off so people know that you have 'found tricks' in the OS that make the gameplay easier, similar to, say, the bunny-hop in HL. Playing games in windows is similar to figuring out what the limits of the physics engine or the meta behavior of the AIs in a FPS,.. sure you can just play the game, but to be 'good' you need to understand the underlying engine and play against it too.
I wonder if there is an actual pattern here, or if it is pure conjecture?
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