Invalid characterset or character set not supported > APPLAUD.LISTEN TO JASON SCOTT.G.G. (longer and less focused)





> APPLAUD.LISTEN TO JASON SCOTT.G.G. (longer and less focused)
October 26, 2010

These notes are more the final pickings, trying to avoid what was in the DVD or what was already discussed.

After the talk, Jason Scott answered some questions which the documentary probably won't in detail. The most amusing to me was after I thanked him. At one place where he apparently had a decent crowd, but they turned against him. You see, he did not discuss D&D, which, of course, was not really in the scope of the film. So the person who'd invited him apparently wrote a "WHAT IS JASON SCOTT HIDING" email to the people in his local group, cc:'ing Jason Scott. No, really.

Most importantly, he mentioned that there would be a torrent of it, for those who just did not want physical DVDs. He mentioned it might be so impractical to have physical DVDs in five years anyway. His rough views on copyrights etc. are here. He also mentioned that people could upgrade to BluRay or whatever for cost if they just give a picture of themselves with the small coin that came with the DVD. (Each has a unique number.)

He noted he had to get physically in shape to explore the Mammoth Caves, which is where Mark Crowther's Adventure took place. This took a few months. He also noted that IF may have a big audience among players from 50 to 60 years who don't want the constant action. And I think a lot of retro gaming has that appeal--that you don't have to do anything, or shoot anything, or drive fast. When you're old, you want to slow down.

IF/text adventures also have low barriers to entrance--theoretically--but the community can be somewhat insular. (From my own experience, I think twice before asking questions about coding, and even though I understand where the more critical types are coming from--I'd just be glad anyone's trying!) The problem is that the best stuff for learning to write/program interactive fiction is what people do the most, and so it becomes "not another maze/etc" puzzle. And there are a lot of these. Enough so that new players don't know where to start. And it's tough to identify which games should be at the top of such a list.

However, he agreed some things were clearly bad. Old two word parsers leave little room for error. For instance, Scott Adams's games are a Nice Thing, but they seem to be pretty much exhausted--and any modern language does things a lot easier. And of course, writing what you know may help you get familiar with the language, but everyone's seen a "Look! My House/High School/Workplace!" game. These theoretical low barriers to entrance are there for any group of people who don't want the quality of what they do to go down the drain. HG has it, in a way. It--and retro gaming overall--also has the relatively stable core that IF has. It also is about as profitable for the writers involved, but people are there because they want to be.

He noted the big names were similar to entrepeneurs who were there during the dot-com boom. No, they didn't make and lose enough money, but they know it's an era in their lives that will never be recaptured. Also, only three women were featured in the film. A question came up about if it is more balanced now, and Scott said he thought it was. Like engineering or other computer disciplines, it's not 50/50 now, but women aren't unusual.

I don't know if this was talking to him or talking afterwards, but it seems that there's real ground in text adventures for a 2-person team: one programmer, one idea person. The Textfyre Times seems to have these cooperative efforts.

He also mentioned he wanted to finish his documentary on gamebooks, the pen-and-paper version of computer text adventures. In particular, he has talked with one guy who has about 4000. He felt the computer side would be more interesting to more people, though. The gamebook documentary won't happen unless he gets enough kickstarter donations, and even then, he has some other products he doesn't want to tip his hand with. I suspect they'll be interesting. Also, I was interested to find that Jason Scott had run textfiles.com, which I'd found useful for documents about old games.

Also, Infocom authors Marc Blank and (one of Michael Berlyn/Dave Lebling) were apparently hard to get. Apparently a few more said that they weren't really actively looking to talk about it, but they probably should, and if someone was persistent enough...

One interview, I forget which, had to break off and continue later because it was just too hot.

The whole documentary was originally 40hrs or so & so cutting that down was very hard, but it was better to have too much than too little.

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