Marketing, was Re: C


Fri, 8 Dec 95 13:07:00 -0500

IC= The first necessary step would have been/is to downplay the "game"
IC= aspects of IF, and broadly advertise the "literature" aspects. The
IC= second step (this is more applicable today, because of course Infocom
IC= already had national distribution) would have been/is to get these
IC= "interactive novels" or "hyperliterature" or whatever marketing term
IC= people agree on, into book stores,

Let me inject a little cynicism (again?)... and comment about HyperFiction
vs. I-F as we know it. It seems to me that HyperFiction really goes nicely
along the same stream of one reason graphical games took over... the reason
TV took over books (and radio?)... poeple like to see, and people (as a
generalisation) don't like to exert much effort (in general). HyperFiction
is a realtively passive activity. Sure, make a "choice" every once in a
while... this way or that.

Of course it would be interesting to see I-F, hypothetically, try to target
a new market as described... readers. Might be a step in the right direction
in this pipe dream of reviving Text Adventure on a mass scale...

So where are our marketers? We need rec.arts.int-fiction.marketing... (-:

Good grief, i just wrote this eminently stupid message and I could have used
the time to work on... ah... um... nevermind. (-;

---
   with love and squalor.                  <as544@torfree.net>