Mail Bag

Another response to Andrew Smith's recent editorial simultaneously run on Unreal.Org and on PlanetQuake:

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 13:02:52 -0600
From: "Jayce"
Subject: Andrew Smith's PQ rant

Once upon a time, in a world far, far away, there was no internet. Game companies worked in faraway secret laboratories, and fans had only the monthly gaming mags and BBS scuttlebutt to keep them up on the latest news of soon-to-appear games. Sure, there was FidoNet and its ilk, but nothing like the incredible variety of information sources available on the Internet.

Back in those days, details about games that were on the drawing board were sketchy. There was little or no communication between the game companies and its fans. What communication did exist used a concept known as "snail mail", and generally the person on the other end of the communication was some PR operative for the game company. Then, things began to change.

The most sublime change was the advent and popularization of the Internet. Now one could go to a company's website, finger the game's authors, even email the game's authors! Quick! Informative! Then, if one still wasn't satisfied, one could post to newsgroups, chat in chat rooms, etc, etc! Information about upcoming games was now moving (literally) at the speed of light.

A harder to see phenomenon was the evolution of a new way of dealing with the fans at some game companies. The programmers, artists, and other members of the teams at some companies were now no longer figures in the ivory tower; they showed themselves as real people, who make .plan files in their email accounts, people you can identify as working on your game, people you can email and possibly expect to get a reply. Now you could possibly talk to or read the postings of the actual team members about the game you were waiting patiently (or not-so-patiently) for, instead of being fed the company line by the PR department of xxx Game Company, or reading an interview in some gaming magazine (if you got lucky enough to have 'your' game's authors interviewed.)

Around all this information overload evolved what became known as the "On-Line Gaming Community."

A community, I would argue, that is growing in power, not diminishing, as Mr. Smith seems to believe. The gamers now have more of a say than ever about how the games they love will take shape. Miscommunication and missed deadlines are a fact of life. They happened in the past, they are happening now, and they will continue to happen in the future. The possibilities of these things happening is now increased, due to the addition of thousands (millions?) of people to the equation. I can't recall a time (which Mr. Smith refers to indirectly) when we, as the gamers, had more control over how and when games turn out.

We, the online gaming community, are not 'losing our power'. To lose something, one has to have had it in the past. The past, in our case, was a non-interactive waiting game for the most part. Now we have an almost incalculable number of outlets for our questions, suggestions, and comments. That game companies cannot heed each and every one of these pieces of sage advice is not their fault. It is the way things are. Let us not whine about how we are losing control; instead let us be happy with the control we now DO have.

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 10:57:20 -0500
From: Thomas Winzig
Subject: MAILBAG: Re: When will the insanity stop

Unfortunately Sam Mayes seems to think that the employees at id Software are somehow VASTLY DIFFERENT than employees everywhere else. They are supposed to work non-stop as soon as they walk in the door. They cannot take a break, because we must have our CTF support and other great features. They cannot stop coding one minute, not to read email, not to get a snack, not to smoke a cigarette, not to read Blue's News, and not to write a paragraph in their .plan file.

Sam, get a clue. When was the last time you were so dedicated at your place of employment?

Programmers are humans, too! ::sniff sniff::

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