Sabahattin,
I finally decided to read through the whole thing last night since
the blog post and the storm of comments in its wake seems to have
calmed down...
(Scroll down to the bottom of the Waxy.org blog post and you'll see
my comments -- short, sweet and non-controversial)
I've got my own thoughts on the subject and just this morning was
deciding whether to put them on my own blog, document them then lock
them away
in the Malinche vault or, thanks to you reminding me, post them here.
I'll post them here and keep them brief.
I knew about 80% of the Milliways story already. This article
filled the blanks in. Excellent!
One of the biggest blanks was the contract Infocom had with Douglas
Adams. I thought Infocom was just plain TIED to Douglas Adams which is
why, when Mr. Adams exercised the single greatest talent he ever had,
procrastination, I was under the false belief that Infocom was
powerless to
do anything more than just wait until the late great Douglas Adams
kicked in another creativity session between baths.
Since Infocom had the option, in writing, to proceed without Douglas
Adams, why didn't they?
Yes I know that Grandmaster Lebling (or was it Grandmaster Meretzky?)
said they really didn't want to do The HHG sequel without Douglas
Adams but,
shit, isn't a three or four year delay in production reason enough to
proceed without him?
Milliways was obviously very important to Infocom's success and,
later on, survival. I wasn't there in the room when all these
decisions were made but if
I were I would've done things veeeeeery diffierently.
First -- I would have assigned Grandmaster Meretzky to Implement
Milliways straight away. He worked with Douglas Adams before on HHG.
Grandmaster Meretzky was in the perfect position to know best how
Douglas thought, how best to work with him whenever possible, etc.
etc. The Milliways
project should never have been a hot potato. Berez/Dorn should've
given it right to Meretzky with these orders:
"Bring Milliways to market in 12-18 months. Anything else you are
working on will be parked on the back burner until Milliways is on
store shelves.
We all know that Douglas is the prince of Procrastination so give him
every opportunity to participate but do not let his lack of
participation slow down this project.
Our contract allows us to proceed with him or without him. Better
with him, of course, but we will settle for without him if we have
to. If he or the fans complain and/or
should Milliways crash and burn on arrival, we can always blame
Doug and his world-famous, well-earned reputation for blowing
deadlines."
In other words -- I would've given a very basic, very profound order
that would have changed everything: "Full speed ahead!"
Using this plan of attack would've solved three problems at once:
1) Infocom fans would've been treated to the sequel they craved and
waited for while providing Infocom ship-loads of cash.
1b) With this new proven model for success in Implementing such a
powerful franchise, the rivers of cash flowing in to Infocom by
releasing IF versions of the four remaining
Douglas Adams' titles contracted for. (According to the
contract between Infocom and Douglas Adams -- Infocom could've
published a total of SIX GAMES based on the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- ONCE AGAIN -- WITH OR
WITHOUT THE PARTICIPATION OF DOUGLAS ADAMS) It's not a stretch of the
imagination to say that
five additional Infocom-released HHG games could've turned the
tide against Cornerstone sinking the whole company making the
Activision/Mediagenic acquisition improbable.
Answer and discuss: If Infocom handled the Milliways incident
the way I outlined it here, is it possible Infocom would still be
around today...?
2) Douglas Adams may have received a sufficient jolt by seeing the
project go on without him that he may well have been motivated/
inspired to change his ways which would
have been of even greater benefit to his extended fan base than
"just" a few HHG sequels. Does anyone remember the unfinished Dirk
Gently novel? I, for one, was pretty pissed off
when I found it I'd never get the chance to read it....
3) It would've sent a clear message to Magnetic Scrolls and the
industry itself that Infocom is THE player in the interactive fiction
market and will NEVER play second fiddle
to anyone else. Period.
Of course it's all well and good for me to run Infocom from twenty
years in the future with none of the clashes of personality,
politics, varying opinions, environmental variables, etc.
Man, if only time travel were possible...
What seems pretty cut-and-dried to me from my enviable position of
twenty years of experience, two business degrees, etc. etc. was
probably much less clear twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago I was struggling to stay awake in my 11th grade
chemistry class, plotting and scheming to have sex with almost every
girl I knew and playing Infocom games during every free moment.
Howard Sherman
PS The Milliways Incident aside -- the article is a mother lode of
insights and impressions. It's kind of like a cross between an
Infocom reunion party and a history lesson. Every fan really must
read the article and the blog comments.
On Apr 27, 2008, at 11:10 PM, Sabahattin Gucukoglu wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This *intriguing* thread has been doing me no end of bad favours
> over the
> course of the last week or so for being so incredibly amazing. It's a
> description of and links to downloadable skeletons for an unreleased
> Hitchhiker's Guide Infocom game sequal, together with comments from
> the
> imps in play. The data comes from some sort of archival disk, on which
> corporate emails relating to the project are to be found and of
> which some
> samples have been published.
>
> Any reasonably long-time IF fan who knows or has at least heard of the
> legend that was Infocom Inc., as well as others like Magnetic
> Scrolls and
> Level 9 Computing, probably wants to investigate this. It's highly
> addictive!
>
> http://tinyurl.com/5su79h
>
> Cheers,
> Sabahattin
>
> --
> Sabahattin Gucukoglu <mail<at>sabahattin<dash>gucukoglu<dot>com>
> Address harvesters, snag this: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Phone: +44 20 88008915
> Mobile: +44 7986 053399
> http://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
>
>
>
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