To which David Baggett <dmb@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu> replied:
>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.
I agree completely that IF is no longer (if it ever was) a financially-
viable business. For all of the reasons previously mentioned (rising
illiteracy, the proliferation of graphically-oriented quick fixes that pass
as entertainment these days, the Web, etc), IF remains confined to a narrow
niche market, and very likely will remain there. The financial gains for
an IF shareware author are abysmal, usually not even sufficient to cover
the costs of an inexpensive shareware platform/language such as TADS. The
labor that goes into one of these games is phenomenal, and, frankly, the
returns are just not there.
The only reason I can see for further IF being produced is a love of the
genre and a tremendous desire to produce a game of one's own. However, without
sufficient compensation (monetary and otherwise), this will soon die out too.
I wrote VERITAS for the love of producing my own piece of IF; with so little
feedback, and certainly no significant financial recompense, I have given up
on a sequel, and have decided to channel my efforts into something that
might be more worthwhile.
It's an unfortunate state of affairs, but nonetheless reality as I see
it.
Jim
jreese@leland.stanford.edu