"Bruce Sterling - Digital Dolphins in the Dance of Biz" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Goals for the Conference: * to foster information exchange among
professionals in the computer game development industry, * to strengthen
the network of personal relationships in the computer game development
community, * to increase artistic and financial recognition for computer game
developers, and * to enhance the quality of entertainment software."
Instantly recognizable SFWA committeespeak -- people trying hard to
sound like serious professionals. Let's hear those goals again, in actual
English: * to hang out and gossip; * to meet old friends again; * to try to
figure out some way to make more money and fame from obstreperous
publishers, crooked distributors, and other powerful sons-of-bitches; and,
(last and conspicuously least) * to kind of try and do a better job artistically.
Pretty much the same priorities as any Nebula gig.
The attendees were younger, different demographics than the SFWA,
but then their pursuit is younger, too. They looked a little different: still
mostly white guys, still mostly male, still mostly myopic, but much more of
that weird computer-perso

n vibe: the fuzzy Herman Melville beards, the
middle-aged desk-spread that comes from punching deck sixty hours a
week, whilst swilling endless Mountain Dews and Jolt Colas, in open console-
cowboy contempt of mere human flesh and its metabolic need for exercise
and nutrition... There were a few more bent engineers, more techies gone
seriously dingo, than you'd see at any SFWA gig. And a faint but definite
flavor of Hollywood: here and there, a few genuinely charismatic operators,
hustlers, guys in sharp designer suits, and career gals who jog, and send
faxes, and have carphones.
As a group, they're busily recapitulating arguments that SF had
decades ago. The number one ideological struggle of CGDC '91 -- an actual
panel debate, the best-attended and the liveliest -- concerned "depth of play
versus presentation." Which is more important -- the fun of a game, its
inherent qualities of play -- or, the grooviness of its graphics and sound, its
production values? This debate is the local evolutionary equivalent of
"Sense of Wonder" versus "Literary Excellence" and is just about as likely to
be resolved.
And then there's the ever-popular struggle over terminology and
definition. ("What Is Science Fiction?") What is a "computer-game?" Not
just "videogames" certainly -- that's kid stuff ("sci-fi"). Even "Computer
Games" is starting to sound rather musty and declasse', especially as the
scope of our artistic effort is widening, so that games look less and less like
"games," and more and more like rock videos or digitized short films.
Maybe the industry would be better off if we forgot all about "games," and
suavely referred to our efforts as "computer entertainment" ("speculative
fiction").
And then there are the slogans and the artistic rules-of-thumb.
"Simple, Hot, and Deep." A game should be "simple": easy to learn, without
excess moving parts and irrelevant furbelows to burden the player's
comprehension. It should be "hot" -- things should happen, the pac

e should
not lag, it should avoid dead spots, and maintain interest of all players at all