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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: The Future of IF
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Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:56:23 GMT
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Emily Short <emshort@mindspring.com> wrote:
>the hands of companies with marketing agendas, just like all those
>commercial game companies out there already.  They've done some good work
>as well as bad, admittedly, but my sense is that for marketing reasons
>there has been a bit of stagnation in what they're willing to try.  Better
>graphics engines, yes.  Entirely new style of game, not so much.  IF
>remains vibrantly experimental, partly because it doesn't *have* to sell.
>(NB that this is a barely-informed opinion which I gathered from the close
>reading of one (1) issue of Computer Gaming World and some computer game
>reviews on the web.  I personally have not purchased a commercial game
>since Where In Time Is Carmen San Diego?.  So maybe I'm really just very
>much the wrong person to ask.)

As an insider in the game-industry, I agree. Even a company known
for doing somewhat innovative things, like Ion Storm Austin doing
Deus Ex, soon ends up in the position where the two products they
are doing are both sequels (Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3). Then again, I
am definitely a curmudgeon; there are smart people in the game
industry who would say I'm selling it short--or rather than while
most of the game industry is guilty, it's not a structural problem
with the game industry that can't be improved from within.

>If it paid me at all, that is.  I seriously doubt that any commercial
>software company would hire me, given my total lack of formal CS
>background or industry experience, and I suspect that I might not like the
>experience of working for one, either.

On (a), hush you, as I've said before; but irrelevant because
(b) is no doubt true.

>I do this because I like the community and I like the artistic freedom.
>Recommercializing IF would destroy both those things.

Oops, I snipped the part where you talked about it breaking up the
community. First of all, the intellectual give-and-take collaboration
might well still happen between the authors, much as it has with
all those famous artist/author circles/schools through the ages.
Secondly, the existence of commercial IF would not prevent the
existence of "hobbyist" IF; and indeed, the hobbyist IF might well
stay experimental and still have the same community attending to it.

>And I disagree strongly with the opinion expressed or implied by
>a number of people on this subject, namely that an activity is
>not really worthwhile unless it makes money.

Of course I agree with this. Er, or disagree with this. Or rather,
I agree with disagreeing with this. Or, oh fuckit.

SeanB
