Message-ID: <3AC5D862.6EA76D8C@csi.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 08:15:14 -0500
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: Games being forgotten (was: Nelson and Forman (was Re: Inform -
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Magnus Olsson wrote:

> In article <3AC48EAB.D2022F8D@csi.com>,
> John Colagioia  <JColagioia@csi.com> wrote:
> >Magnus Olsson wrote:

[...]

> >> The Scott Adams games _are_ classics among at least a part of the IF
> >> community.
> >"...among at least a part..."
> >That's what I mean.  "Classic" and "excellent" are two different concepts.  By
> >"classic," I mean that the game is fairly well-known outside its field (i.e.,
> >this community).
> That's one definition of classic, but I was talking about classics
> *within* the field. Very few IF games indeed are classics by your
> definition. (Not that there's anything wrong with your definition;
> it's just that we were talking about different things).

Fair enough.  I usually like to think part of being classic, however, is being
known outside of the field.  Otherwise, one could bicker endlessly about the size
of the group (twenty people really love it?  Nope; not a classic.  Fifty?  Well,
OK...) and similar details.


> >The Scott Adams line were excellent, but they never really achieved any
> >"cultural status" to speak of.
> It's an interesting phenomenon that even within such a narrow community
> as the IF crowd, there are tendencies towards sub-cultures. It seems
> that for the subset of the IF community that played the Scott Adams
> games when they were new, they are indeed true classics, while others
> just fail to see their greatness (I belong to the second group).

I see them as I see, for example, Dante's work (not to put either one in the
other's category, but...).  I see that the games are fairly well structured, well
written, and so on.  But they just don't grab me for some reason.  I quickly
acknowledge that there's plenty that other people would like, though.


> Mind you, I'm not being tautological here: it's by no means a given
> that the people who grew up on the Scott Adams games should view them
> as the great classics, but apparently that's the case.

That could very well be.  And I wonder if that isn't part of the issue.  Classics
might only become such when the NEXT generation of readers/listeners/players come
along and it catches on.


