Textfyre and Infocom

[ChicagoDave]

I recently had conversations with Activision about licensing the
Infocom material.

http://chicagodave.wordpress.com

David C.

[Andrew Owen]

What's the difference between the Textfyre engine and a standard
z-machine? I'd like to know because I've been working for some time on a
sequel/prequel to some of the Infocom titles (with full permission /
nothing to do with Zork) and if there's a chance to bring it out as a
commercial title that would certainly be interesting. It's being
developed in Inform 7, but I suppose it could be ported to some other
system.

[James Jolley]

I am certainly interested in finding out what you eventually do with the
games. They sound interesting.

[steve....@gmail.com]

Sounds like they think you're full of baloney.

[Eric Forgeot]

ChicagoDave wrote:

so if you licence the Infocom games, will you release them as freeware ?

[Stuart Moore]

I don't particularly like or agree with you much, but I do have to agree
with you. And... do we have any verification any of this guy's stuff is,
in fact, genuine?

--
Stuart "Sslaxx" Moore
http://sslaxx.livejournal.com/

[Zylon]

"Stuart Moore" <N...@SPAM.HERE> wrote in message
news:fd2pkd$khj$1$8302...@news.demon.co.uk...
> steve....@gmail.com wrote:

> I don't particularly like or agree with you much, but I do have to agree
> with you. And... do we have any verification any of this guy's stuff is,
> in fact, genuine?

I don't think Activision's response shows what Steve is saying at all.
Activision is doing exactly what they should. Why should they jump into
something when they don't necessarily know if it will benefit them to any
degree? Or if it might compromise their license? I dealt with similar
discussions with Sierra when we were doing King's Quest remakes and updates
to the Quest for Glory series. There were a lot of hurdles to getting
licensing and the right to distribute certain aspects of the games. (We're
still dealing with this with the Space Quest series.)

Companies are loathe to part with anything that they have acquired even if
the market for those particular games is nex to nil. For example, how many
"collections" has Sierra come out with of their past stuff that have done
crappy in sales? Answer: quite a few. But when fan-based remakes or updates
or sequels come out, they are gobbled up ... and not just by gamers who
played the old games. So these companies live in this sort of perpetual
state of wondering if the licences they either give up or loosen up a bit
today will come back to haunt them in a genre resurgence.

I'll grant that I don't know much about text adventure games or their market
potential but I can't imagine the scenarios (from Activision's perspective)
are all that different than those I've found with Sierra and a few other
companies.

[ChicagoDave]

On Sep 22, 5:07 am, Stuart Moore <N...@SPAM.HERE> wrote:

> steve.bres...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Sounds like they think you're full of baloney.
>
> I don't particularly like or agree with you much, but I do have to agree
> with you. And... do we have any verification any of this guy's stuff is,
> in fact, genuine?

As with any entreprenurial venture, we start out as baloneyists. This
is the nature of any inventor or market creator. Some baloneyists have
ideas that are truly silly (http://www.patentlysilly.com/). Some
baloneyists get bad grades for their college papers and turn their
business ideas into a global shipping company. Some baloneyists start
sports cable TV stations and turn it into a global sports
entertainment network. Some baloneyists succeed. Some fail. Some fail
then succeed. Some never succeed. Some never fail.

I am indeed a baloneyist. I have succeeded at computer consulting and
made over a million dollars. I have failed at computer consulting and
lost over a hundred thousand dollars. I have succeeded in building
successful business systems. I have succeeded in building failed
business systems.

To date, Mr. Bresling is entirely correct about his views about me and
Textfyre. I have not, to date, shown anyone anything publicly (othere
than the people helping me build the company of course). There is no
Textfyre UI, there are no games, there is no website. It's entirely
possible that the people working on Textfyre think I'm crazy and
they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

I can offer no one, via Usenet, any assurances that I am in fact a
real person or a bot from ifMUD.

Even so, I am a baloneyist that's building a commercial IF publishing
company, have had contract talks with Activision, have helped create
at least one game and have people working on three in total. I am
incorporated. I have expenses. I have a business plan.

I plan to succeed. Which has everything and nothing to do with being a
baloneyist.

David C.