Survey Results (was Re: Limitations of Inform and TADS?)


21 Nov 1995 12:50:11 -0800

As you may remember, Dave Bagget recently said something to the effect
of, "There's wide-spread philosophical opposition to IF games that
require lots of computing power." (I'm paraphrasing badly--my apologies
to Dave.) To see if this was true, I offered to do an informal survey of
r.a.if readers. I posted a survey, and received 9 responses.

The executive summary is that, while it's hardly a scientific survey,
nobody expressed any philosphical objection to IF games that require
heavy hardware. 4 people had suggestions for what would be appropriate
hardware requirements, but 3 of them made it clear that their suggestions
were just rough guidelines, and that it really depended on the game.

What follows are the questions I asked and the results:

What level of computer power, if any, is appropriate for an IF game?
*5 people indicated that it depended on the game, and no one level was
appropriate.

*3 people said indicated that it depended on the game, and that no one
level was appropriate, but nonetheless stated what sort of computer they
thought was a reasonable demand for most of today's IF games.
One of these three suggested "a machine no more than (say) 5
years
old. Or a PDA or equivalent."
One suggested "an average, affordable PC--something like
386/low-end
486."
One suggested a 286.

*1 person said that he only plays inform games, although "anybody, in my
opinion, can write IF games for any minimal system they choose.

________
The second question asked, "When is it OK for an IF game to require more
than X, where X is your answer to the first question?"

*7 people answered, "I can't generalize about the hardware requirements
of IF--it just depends on the game."

*2 people answered, "I've never seen an IF game that requires hardware
more sophisticated than X, but it could happen."

(note that only 8 people indicated responses to this question, but one
person gave two responses.)
___________
The last question asked people to complete the following sentence: "IF
games shouldn't require more than X because..."

Since most people had indicated that there was no hard and fast rule
about how much computing power an IF game should require, few answered
this question. Of the 3 who did answer:

*2 said, "IF games right now just aren't complicated enough to justify
it." (One of the two said that he doesn't believe there's a limit on what
an IF game should require--but if he did, this would be the reason he would.)

*1 said, "There are people out there who are still quite happy with C-64s
and don't want to go out and get anything higher. (I know a couple of
them.)"

_____________

Thanks to everybody who responded. As I said, it's hardly a scientific
survey--but it does seem to indicate that people have an open mind about
hardware requirements for IF.