Bruce Sterling
[email protected]
Literary Freeware -- Not For Commercial Use
Game conference speech: "The Wonderful Power of
Storytelling"
From the Computer Game Developers Conference, March 1991,
San Jose CA
Thank you very much for that introduction. I'd like
to thank the conference committee for their hospitality
and kindness -- all the cola you can drink -- and mind
you those were genuine twinkies too, none of those
newfangled "Twinkies Lite" we've been seeing too much of
lately.
So anyway my name is Bruce Sterling and I'm a science
fiction writer from Austin Texas, and I'm here to deliver
my speech now, which I like to call "The Wonderful Power
of Storytelling." I like to call it that, because I plan
to make brutal fun of that whole idea... In fact I plan
to flame on just any moment now, I plan to cut loose, I
plan to wound and scald tonight.... Because why not,
right? I mean, we're all adults, we're all professionals
here... I mean, professionals in totally different arts,
but you know, I can sense a certain simpatico vibe....
Actually I feel kind of like a mosasaur talking to
dolphins here.... We have a lot in common, we both swim,
we both have big sharp teeth, we both eat fish... But you
look like a broadminded crowd, so I'm sure you won't mind
that I'm basically, like, *reptilian*....
So anyway, you're probably wondering why I'm here
tonight, some hopeless dipshit literary author... and
when am I going to get started on the virtues and merits
of the prose medium and its goddamned wonderful
storytelling. I mean, what else can I talk about? What
the hell do I know about game design? I don't even know
that the most lucrative target machine today is an IBM PC
clone with a 16 bit 8088 running at 5 MHZ. If you start
talking about depth of play versus presentation, I'm just
gonna to stare at you with blank incomprehension....
I'll tell you straight out why I'm here tonight.
Why should I even try to hide the sordid truth from a
crowd this perspicacious.... You see, six months ago I
was in Austria at this Electronic Arts Festival, which was
a situation almost as unlikely as this one, and my wife
