Zork for XBOX in 4K coming to Game Pass.
I bet you could use some kind of generative AI to automatically render images of each scene from a text adventure.
or they could pay an artist to draw them
Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
91–100 of 163 posts
Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
20 years, same as patents. People aren't writing books because of the profits they might make 25 years from now.
I have to disagree somewhat. People write books for a lot of reasons, but one alluring thought in many an author's head certainly is: "Sure, it might not be commercially viable directly now, but over time…" Writing books can be a pretty risky proposition from a financial point of view. Copyright should at least span an authors lifetime in my opinion. Thinking that an author could profit not at all from a work if it g…
The proportion of books that make money 20 years after publication, after languishing in obscurity for that time, is a rounding error.
Like, how many such books can you actually name?
I think it’s a little different for music, where people sometimes sample fairly obscure old songs and turn them into hits. But then, a lot of those old songs shamelessly ripped off even older works…
Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#93Ken and Roberta Williams have hinted that they would be willing to revisit old Sierra Online games, provided that Microsoft would agree to lend them back those IPs.
Can’t wait for a remake of the VGA remake of the EGA original mother goose.
Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another annoying thing about the 1976 Copyright Act/Berne Convention is that copyright is automatic. You don't need to register with any organization, any "original work of authorship fixed in a tangible form" is copyright. This is the real problem with public github repos that don't have a license file, because they also likely lack a copyright imprint with a date. This is not related, but another problem with curre…
That's not the most annoying thing about the 1976 Copyright Act. The most annoying thing about the 1976 Copyright Act is that copyright is only nominally automatic. To be clear, it casts a huge shadow over all creativity that would have otherwise been uncopyrighted. But on the other side, there's still a registration system . You need a registration in order to sue infringers, and you don't get statutory damages on i…
> But on the other side, there's still a registration system.
This a thing in the US? It isn't in my country, you just need to be able to prove you own the copyright, a stamped letter or certified document is good enough.
You cannot make blank statements about the US on a platform that has an international audience.
Copyright law is cross border and the US does respect other countries Copyright acts just like other countries respect the US
Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the future sentient AI will have a strange love of trophy cases, brass lanterns, and jewel-encrusted eggs? I’m down for that.
> down You descend down a rickety staircase, into darkness. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Consider whose fault that could be...not a match or a torch in your inventory!
Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#96Have been gaming since the mid 80's and text adventures were a main feature. Years later and I owned Lost Treasures 1 and 2 then the Masterpieces CD. I topped that with IUB.zip - pretty much everything Infocom. Jason Scott then produced Get Lamp - I have a coin - which brought so much of that era together. I view text adventures, be they Infocom, Level 9 or others, as an inspiration to others. A re-release could only…
Text adventures are awesome. I'm sad that I missed out on that era. What do you think about all the modern text adventure games built on stuff like Inform7?
Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#97Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#98Re: Microsoft consumes Activision; and a plea
#99We all know Microsoft bought Activision _for_ the Infocom IP. It’s clearly the most valuable asset.
You jest, but don't forget that to Microsoft leadership their battle in LLMs is likely seen as even more important than all of team Xbox. Getting nerds who grew up on Zork to effectively give free problem solving training data and pay a subscription price for the privilege by grounding RLHF data collection into a beloved franchise might not be that low on priorities over at Microsoft.
They did just that with GitHub so you may well be on the money.