Re: The contraversy of Mallenche, and its creator, Howard Sherman
Yep well, winjy Mr. sherman has his little strop. Hmmm, I wonder if that "hardened businessman" he talks about ever considered the fact that his prices for interactive fiction are stratospheric, especially considering other people who sell commercial if either tradditional parser based or otherwise (look at Andrew Plotkin's latest). Then again Sherman doesn't seem to believe other commercial if exists or that he himself does any wrong.
I wonder if Mr. Sherman's ego sat down in that mythical board room, ---- I'm guessing not sinse then it would need to be more of a board cathedral .
I don't like his little strop about blind players, not when he's using basic Zcode and the instructtions for that are fairly standard, indeed I might venture to ask if perhaps his website was less obscure, if he stopped these weerd butchered versio ns of if iinterpreters that run as stand alone programs for each of his games and just sold the files, and above all if the stupid man was a little more clear about instructions and less self obsessed with his website , sinse hell, if someone wants to know how to play the games they don't have to waide through a massively long and circular promotion! Honestly, his "how to play our games" page reads like: "you are just about to have the unique experience of playing interactive fiction which is wonderful and shiny and is written by me the wonderfullist and shinyist person in the world so sit back and bask in my glory because it's very easy and soon you will join the cult and worship me, so just continue reading and I'll tell you exactly how to appreciate my utter greatness as the fantastic worker of interactive fiction I am, which by the way is utterly marvelous and wonderful and you should play it because it will change your life etc etc"
< p>So, I'm not surprised that business isn't exactly booming, but I don't think it's anything to do with the reasons the almighty director Sherman states, I think it's malinche's own fault for all the negative reasons mentioned.On the plus side, I am glad the games haven't vanished for the sake of completeness, though my above comment about pricing for very traditional and to be brutally honest not exceptional quality interactive fiction still remains and is the reason I shan't be buying any of Malinche's titless whether he creates more or not.
I will be buying more choiceofgames for a couple of quid each though, and I might even buy the traditional parser if Hadian lands for a fiver from Andrew plotkin in the future, but then again both of those have easy going, streight forward instructions and websites, and neither one feels so self satisfied and slime covered it makes me feel slightly nausious to read.
_______________________________________________ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
