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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: [CD] including hints
Message-ID: <erkyrathDwt2uL.y0@netcom.com>
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Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 16:51:57 GMT
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Matthew Daly (daly@PPD.Kodak.COM) wrote:
> erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin) writes:
> >This sounds like a weird half-assed measure, but the advantages:
> >
> >* Reviewers would not be able to say we refused to give hints.
> >* We're not giving blatant spoilers.
> >* They can be in plain text files without giving blatant spoilers.
> >  (Although it may be better to have separate TADS/Inform game files.
> >  I'm not going to ask all the authors to recompile the things directly
> >  into their games.)
> >* It doesn't destroy the registration carrot for those shareware games 
> >  that offer hints for registrees.
> >* We can do them in time, ie, quickly. (I have a volunteer.)

> Don't forget that there is a mitigating factor, which is that you
> can push rec.games.int-fiction as being a newsgroup you can go to 
> for hints, or any of the various places on Compuserve/AOL/etc for
> I-F help.  Indeed, getting hints/walkthroughs posted to those
> places and/or putting knowledgable people around there to answer
> questions would increase word-of-mouth sales for the CD project.

Getting access to Usenet will *destroy* word-of-mouth sales for any 
particular customer. "You can get hints for these games, for free, on the 
Net! Well, actually you can get the games themselves for free too."

I'm not putting customers in that position. If they come across mention of
this thing on the Net, they should know that these games are freely
downloadable. We can point out that the CD is much more convenient, has
nifty articles, doesn't take an hour of download time, that we've selected
the best games for them, etc, etc. But we will at least *mention* the
existence of GMD.DE. 

The primary audience is people without Net access, or whose Net skills 
are too rudimentary to be able to download a game and interpreter and 
get them running.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
