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Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 08:47:45 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: What makes IF so popular...?
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Magnus Olsson wrote:

> In article <900B3FB1F61434E1.D1D1C478DB902CFD.2BE6CA82D37A4FED@lp.airnews.net>,
> Billy Harris  <wharris@mail.airmail.net> wrote:
> >Followed either by "Well, I used to like text adventures; how have they
> >improved since <really old game>?"  or by "Well, why do they call it
> >IF?"
> >My answer to the second, depending on my mood varries from "They've
> >improved so much they wanted a new name for better marketing" to
> >"They're a bunch of persnikity artists"
> For crying out loud: the term "Interactive Fiction" was invented
> by Infocom in the early eighties. It's hardly a new thing. Zork
> was called "Interactive Fiction" even back then.

Note, though, how widespread this misconception is.  I didn't notice it, to be
honest, until I started working with the InfoDoc people, which necessarily requires
reading the original manuals.

My point is that the name didn't really stick, obviously.  Otherwise, there
wouldn't be such a large group of people thinking that it was a recent innovation.
Perhaps (just perhaps--I don't have a personal opinion on the matter, honestly) the
name, then, is inappropriate.


