Quote:
Originally Posted by Sgran
[i]-I had surfed my way to a D&D site and came across this post by a TSR editor in the 80s. There are some very relevent questions that we should be asking ourselves as sports sim fans.
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Amidst all the parroty threads, this one isn't half bad at all.
We're definitely somewhere in the fourth stage I believe, although the thesis as outlined does overlook some of the things that happened along the way with regard to applying it to sports text sims (which I believe is what you were pondering). Vaporware, massively bugged products, a much more interactive relationship between publisher & consumer (not always to the benefit of either party) than when the theory was developed/the essay was written.
But while it's interesting as theory or even in a detached fashion, I ultimately find myself not understanding what the original author didn't quite get.
He went to some length to say he wasn't criticizing that "five percent" which was fine but his defense of them (TSR at the time) rang very hollow to me. Specifically the assertion that
"it's unjustified to somehow translate that into the designers/editors were incompetent or evil or greedy or backstabbing bastards, as they're actually none of those things."
How is that any more supportable beyond opinion than the belief that they were one or more of the negative traits? At that point it boils down a writer saying "my opinion is better than yours". Which, in reverse, is fine too but it isn't any more definitive than what he seemed (despite his protestations) to be criticizing.
Ultimately the notion that it was a fairly predictable pattern seems to be supported by most of what was written & if that's the case then there's really nothing at work here moreso than human nature. And I'm not sure that's something that anyone is going to change, fine to make observations about it I suppose but it doesn't strike me as something that should come as an epiphany to anyone paying attention either.