Re: Direction of Linux games...

["Keith Lucas" <klucas@atlan-tech.com>]

>Did you *ever* see one of those make it into development?
>
>Ideas are cheap too.

There's a comment that floats around the movie writing industry (because they
have the same problem) about the fact that everyone has an idea, and everyone
wants to be involved right up to point where boxes of very horribly blank typing
paper arrive and need filling with words and then there's no-one in sight to
help.

(There's another one about how writing is easy: you just stare at empty pages of
paper until your forehead starts to bleed. You think software engineers are
bitter? You haven't talked to enough writers. They're BITTER.)

Computer games, like movies have an aura of get-rich-quick. Everyone wants to be
famous/go to parties/drive a Ferarri. Like the movie industry it does actually
involve a lot of work, and there's a big difference between the kind of people
who says stuff like "it's Alien meets Dallas" and the people who actually put
footage into a can.[1] Likewise everyone wants to have written a winner game,
but few people want to write one. The tense is rather important. The trick is
just to let it all wash over you, and smile inwardly, because you know that the
website with the outrageous claims that they'll better FFVIII is as near certain
as anything the only end product.[2]







[1] At this point, a disclaimer. I am not a film-maker. Despite my best
      efforts...

[2] I'm bitter about the amount of effort that goes into this stuff. "We're
      going to write an RPG, we've got the best story line ever click here to
      download (1278 bytes). We've sketched almost nine of the main characters.
      We've got a logo. Last updated 3/4/95". If they'd work together ever so
      slightly they might get somewhere.[3]

[3] Yes. I have finished computer games. No. You've never heard of them. Because
      I have not hubris enough to think the world needs to see the fruits of my
      learning curve.