Antivirus Gamer Edition: Why only for gamers?

The latest version of Symantec Norton Anti-Virus comes in a Gamer Edition.

Yes that’s right an edition designed specifically for gamers?!?!

Is this just clever marketing or are there some technology differences here?

Norton AntiVirus Gamer Edition

So what makes it a Gamer Edition:

Gamer Mode

• No alerts + no notifications = no interruptions
• Optional settings to temporarily suspend updates, behavioural scanning and intrusion prevention
• Enabled automatically when your PC is in full screen mode
• Activate manually with a quick click on the Norton system tray icon

Lightning Fast*

• Rapid Pulse Updates every 5 to 15 minutes
• Installs in less than a minute
• Adds less than 1 second to boot time

Light as a Feather*

• Uses less than 6MB memory even without the Gamer Mode performance boost
• Needs less than 50MB hard disk space on installation
• Runs only 2 processes at a time
• Performance graphs display CPU and memory usage and how little Norton is using

Respects your needs

• Smart Scheduler holds resource intensive actions for when you are not using your PC
• Resource usage table shows you the what, when and how long for background actions taken by Norton AntiVirus
• Delivers consistently strong protection – that’s why Norton AntiVirus has won more consecutive Virus Bulletin 100 awards than any other AV software

So what is it that makes Gamers special why wouldn’t everyone want these capabilities? I’ve been of the opinion for some time that, in many ways, antivirus software is a medicine that is worse than the illness it’s trying to cure. And I’m not the only one to think so:

“It can be awful to have your Windows computer infected with malicious software, but it is almost as bad suffering the daily burdens imposed by the security software designed to protect you.

Too often, security programs significantly slow down the computer, causing lags in booting up the machine, launching programs and receiving email. Not only that, they can be incredibly annoying, popping up frequent messages or asking questions in techie lingo.”

Walt Mossberg – Wall Street Journal

The problems that are being resolved here are exactly the complaints that I hear from my corporate customers. People only have antivirus software because they have to, it’s not something they really want so every time they see it it’s a problem. If it gives them a pop-up it’s a problem. If it slows their machine down it’s a problem. If it takes longer for their machine to start it’s a problem.

But again, it’s another human psychology problem. I don’t what interruptions, but the interruptions do actually tell me something.

The video is fun though.