But you might get an undergraduate essay or even - if you’re very lucky - an honours dissertation!
Agreed. Everyone in that thread, including Poster, is being helpful (not the same as coddling, IMO; this isn’t some coffeehouse poetry club …)
Define “mature.”
This is factually false on its own terms anyway – see Jeremy Douglass’ dissertation if you’re curious.
The first is a thesis devoted to IF, very broadly defined. The second is a thesis devoted to a literary genre supposedly exemplified by four IF works by four authors. Neither is devoted solely to the work of a specific IF author.
You both failed to refute my statement, but Andy came closer. This puzzles me. Isn’t Emily supposed to be the intelligent one? Is it the eagerness to prove me wrong that dulls your mind, Em?
E. L. Doctorow describes the novel as a “large canvas capable of holding the most substantial themes.” Does this apply to any work of IF you know of? Can you think of any work of IF that deals with substantial themes in a mature way? Take Doctorow’s Ragtime. Do you see this kind of depth and breadth in IF?
weeeeeaaaaak
I actually do find a lot of truth in this. Text adventures (or “IF” if people want to pretend this fiction is somehow more interactive than other game fiction) are performed in the context of a relatively small community. Yes, that community does reach others outside of it. But there are no real pressures to be good, per se, except that which drives the artist. Hollywood, make of it what you will, does at the very least have pressure to try to succeed. Not necessarily to be “good,” I suppose. But there is a monetary basis – box office – as well as a prestige factor, such as the need for directors and actors to establish themselves. The book writing world has a similar pressure. Your chances of actually being on a shelf in a bookstore are fairly slim – and that’s even if you are published. Yes, self-publishing has changed your chances of getting things “out there” – but not necessarily increased the pressure to be good and since the self-publishing often has little or no cost, even bad reviews don’t really have to matter all that much. Just publish another one and hope for better next time.
The reviews on novels and films are many and often harsh. You are subjected to much critical review. Even before you get published, you’ll probably get rejected more often than not. That’s simply not the case at all in text adventures. Even game companies that have to pitch concept games have a very strict percentage of what they can and can’t accept so, as a game artist – in the broad sense – you do have pressures on you to “compete” – to be “good”, to be “better.” And, as with book and film, game reviews are many and harsh. Not only do you have the professional game resources that critique games but you have numerous players making reviews on Amazon, GameSpot, and many other forums.
Text adventures currently don’t have any of these pressures beyond the community they reach. (Outside of the community I think they’re seen more as novelties and, as such, any reviews are more in that context.) That lack of pressure can be very comforting to someone who does take storytelling seriously but who is a bit afraid or at least mildly apprehensive about having their work scrutinized by a wider community that will not only take it seriously, but that will also – to a certain very real extent – judge the medium as a whole by examples, of which yours will now be one.
I do see text adventures as a way to play it very safe. The barrier to entry is very low. You don’t have to have sound or graphic skills. You don’t even really have to have good game design skills necessarily. Based on a lot of text adventures I’ve played, you don’t even have to necessarily have a lot of storytelling skill. There are examples of text adventures that have good design and that have good storytelling. I know this so no one needs to jump down my throat telling me what I already know. But I’m simply saying that in the hobbyist world that is text adventures, none of that stuff necessarily has to be in place. And even if it’s not, and even if your game is pretty bad … well, really, so what? It doesn’t matter in any wider scheme except in terms of the onus you put on yourself to be an effective artist within text adventures.
Beyond that, unless you enter your game in a Comp, there’s a fairly good chance no one will even know you produced it anyway.
So to the OP:
Text adventures are a very experimental medium in many ways … but they are often performing experiments that the vast majority of readers and gamers don’t care about. So if part of being an arist for you is reaching a wide audience, and gathering criticism and feedback in a context that matters to you, then text adventures may simply not be the place to plant your flag. As someone else said, it’s a personal decision. If you find yourself constantly questioning “Should I be doing this or something else?”, that’s probably telling you that you should be doing something else.
I’ve actually read Van Leavenworth’s dissertation. It’s a close reading of “Nevermore”, “Anchorhead”, “Madam Spider’s Web”, and “Slouching towards Bedlam” – very much more a work of literary criticism than of new media studies. It concerns itself with a common theme in the four works: the threats to stable subject boundaries (as expressed in these works by the way player characters are depicted, by the way player control is restricted, and by the way player/PC relationship is maintained).
I’ve been on plenty of bookstore shelves in multiple languages, from hobby shops to mainstream, and none of that is “chance.”
Good for you. I’m sure someone here will be very impressed to hear that. But there are many others that have not had your situation. Sometimes that’s due to the quality of their work. Other times it’s due to the pressures of others who are just a little bit better. There are many authors that do get published but don’t see a book store. Others do see that. You happen to be one. Again, good for you.
Your data point, however, does not refute the argument even one bit. Nor does your mischaracterization of “chance” when I said “chances are.” I didn’t say it was just chance that got someone on a book shelf. What I said is exactly what I said: the chances are that many authors out there will not see their book on a bookshelf. If I had said that to Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Robin Cook, and others I would have been as incorrect for them as I was for you. As I’m sure many would agree, there are some “bad” books that do get on bookshelves. The “chances are” statement is a function of how many authors are actively trying, how many are succeeding, and what the reasons may be for that success or lack thereof.
I don’t “happen” to be one. It isn’t chance and it isn’t happenstance, either.
Which is on logical par with observations like “100% of those who eat grapes eventually die;” it’s factual without containing any relevant truths. I wasn’t the one mischaracterizing.
If five men get into airplanes and try to fly them, and only one is a pilot, it is not meaningful to say “chances are that most of those men won’t take off successfully.” Most of those men will not, and it has nothing to do with “chances.” The “chances” that a real pilot can get the plane off the ground bear no resemblance or relationship to the “chances” that the non-pilots will miraculously succeed, so lumping them together creates a nonsensical statement. The same goes for writing.
Anyway … making this not about you and instead going back to the original topic …
The original topic is some guy worrying about his family and friends’ attitudes. Your tangent is no more relevant than me correcting your tangent’s error.
The question of the thread is why “IF” is not taken seriously. I was offering one reason why, for many, it’s not with some, yes, tangential points. So … trying to keep this on track one more time:
Some don’t see text adventures as a serious medium because it’s not subject to the same pressures (competitive and otherwise) that other arenas are nor is it is subject to the same kind of widespread feedback nor is it necessarily an area where your name has a chance to become “known” outside of a small circle. Whether that’s “right” or “wrong” isn’t the issue; it’s a possible perception and an opinion.
You may disagree with that reason either as given or as presented by me. Whether you’ve been on a bookshelf or not is responding to only one small part of that, and I doubt it’s one that adds much to the discussion. There are many authors that don’t get out of the slush pile; there are some that do. Some screenwriters never see their screenplay get turned into film; others do. The very fact that not everyone can do these things, for whatever reason that might be, is one of the reasons that many people see the book publishing arena as “serious” just as they do the filmmaking arena. There are no such constraints on hobbyist text adventures (nor are there on other hobbyist game types). For some people, that matters. For others, it doesn’t. I don’t know where the original poster falls on that or if that aspect even matters.
I don’t know what “taken seriously” means since everyone seems to be using the phrase with different criteria. I gave one possible set of criteria that might be operative for some people. I don’t even know if you disagree with that since you only responded to one aspect and one that, yes, I agree, was tangential.
The relevance is that your nonsense observation counts either as fear-mongering or coddling, depending on who reads it, and both of those matter to someone writing. To the wannabe, it’s a coddling comfort, like telling a kid who can’t do math the (alleged) bit about Einstein being a poor math student. To someone who can actually write, it’s fear-mongering, because to them it describes a scenario that isn’t relevant to them … in a way that makes the process of writing professionally sound like a long shot when, to them, it isn’t a long shot. Because they can write.
But to focus on what seems to be your more central (or at least preferred) point:
You said that you, personally, see IF as playing it safe. Are those who fly kites “playing it safe” because they’re not out flying a hang-glider instead? Are model railroad enthusiasts “playing it safe” because they’re not out in dungarees laying steel rail and risking their hands and feet to serious injury? Are stamp collectors “playing it safe” because they’re collecting pictures of presidents instead of running for office? Sincerely: the whole notion that text adventures are “a way to play it very safe” seems to presume an awful lot about the “player” seeking the “safety.” It seems to presume a basis for comparison that strikes me as, well, imaginary on a level that … normally we see mainly from Pudlo.
If you want to know why I (for one) don’t take you seriously, this weird tic of yours goes a long way toward explaining it. Leaving aside the rest of your posts, it’s just stupid to come to a board about interactive fiction and make a fuss about how we ought to be saying “text adventures” instead. It’s like showing up to a discussion among a bunch of Democrats with a long explanation about how it should be called “the Democrat Party”; whatever the underlying issues, it’s obvious that you’re doing it just to be obnoxious.
Cool it down, sonny. Yes, we know, you don’t just “happen” to be one dark and edgy dude. You were chosen by a higher entity to change the course of history with your, your… [Jacek googles “S John Ross” and finds a dead musician, then he googles some more and finds] oh, your… role playing games.
But you’re not really a pilot, are you now? You’re a 40-year-old man who writes RPGs. Your choice of locomotion is a tricycle, not an airplane. We’re discussing interactive fiction here. You’re welcome to stay and listen, but don’t feel obliged to take part.
Yes, Pudlo, I’m a professional game writer, talking about writing games. I’ve also written professionally about computer games in one of my editorial positions. Try not to injure yourself unraveling the complexities.
So IF is not taken seriously because…you’re capable of belittling people on a message board?
Writing in particular is a huge, complex, and multilayered ecosystem. Seasoned experts on one level are laughable rookies on another. Below the level of publication or attempted publication, there are large communities like NaNoWriMo with low publication focus, and ones like FanFiction.net with no publication focus at all. You can become a prominent and well-regarded member of one of these communities without ever aspiring to get published.
With the rise of webcams and YouTube, this has become more and more the case for films as well. There are internet celebrities with their own fan followings who will never enter a movie into a festival.
All of this is to say that, in communities as large as writing, how much critical review you receive (and how well-regarded you are) is strictly a factor of how much you want to receive. IF, being a small community, lacks this luxury–you can either be subject to the same criticism everyone else receives or to none.
Well? There are plenty of writers with no storytelling skill. “It’s physically possible to be bad at the thing you’re doing” is a truism. And IF encompasses a wider skill set than many other media. For that matter I’ve yet to write an IF that didn’t incorporate graphics in some capacity.