Re: Can I make money by writing IF?


Thu, 30 Nov 1995 04:00:26 -0800

In article <49cs9f$934@life.ai.mit.edu>, dmb@ai.mit.edu wrote:

> In article <GDR11.95Nov26183448@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>,
> Gareth Rees <gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >The person to talk to is Graham Cluly, who produced a couple of
> >adventure games under the name "Humbug Software" and apparantly managed
> >to sell several thousand shareware registrations.
>
> I think it would be a huge mistake to assume that model is still valid
> today. We (Adventions) based a lot of our optimism about the market for IF
> on Graham's experiences, and found that with a comparable product in a more
> portable form and at a lower price, we couldn't get even a fraction of the
> interest he did.

Well, I bitched about this before, but it doesn't necessarily depend
on the game or the market: it may just be that the interpreter sucks
on many platforms. In the case of TADS, I seem to recall being limited
by a less-than-wonderful parser as well. Or it could be that the
pricing structure is out of whack; what'd you pay for your last paperback?

> There is no commercial market for all-text IF now. And the rapid
> evaporation of the text IF market doesn't seem so strange when you take
> into account the incredible growth of the web, and the public's infatuation
> with so-called "virtual reality". Regardless of whether people know what
> "hypermedia" really are, they sure do think they're cool.
>
> >When companies like Sierra can allocate a $4 million budget to games like
> >the recent "Phantasmagoria", with more than 50 people working full time on
> >the project, what hope do amateurs have?
>
> Financially, none. But I think that single-author forms will always have a
> place in the arts. "Art by committee" has a lot working against it.

Somehow, I don't think it has to be Financially None, as long as
Barnes & Noble is in business, there must be a way to make money
from interactive fiction, if not a *conventional* method.

Not that I have any experience in it, but have you really tried
everything possible?

-- 
Chris Thomas, ckt@best.com