Re: $500 <= chump change, was Re: Port I/O

[Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu>]

On 17 Nov 1996, Robert Dewar wrote:

  In response to Tom Moran's notion that high-schoolers and other
  "amateurs" could introduce any new game ideas into the market.

> I think you are creating a fantasy world here, and not the kind of
> fantasy world that we are interested in!

  Methinks you dismiss this notion with excessive haste, Robert. I still
  live here in Silicon Valley and lots of high-school, community
  college, and university students are experimenting with ideas
  for new games. 

> These days, sucessful video games cost well into 7 figures to develop
> (they can gross hundreds of millions if they are successful, so that's
> not out of line by any means), but the days when high school students
> could do interesting things in the game market is long gone!

  I disagree with this.  What first comes to mind is Tetris. A simple
  game, hugely successful, and continuing to be popular.  The 7 figures
  you mention is true of the elaborate games with sophisticated graphics,
  but some high-school student somewhere is going to invent some 
  clever game with the simplicity of Tetris that will be every bit
  as successful as the games from established game publishers.

  Moreover, with the growing use of Internet-based games, and other
  telecommunications services, games programmed in Java will become
  more important.  And those fancy graphics that cost millions, will
  be, for the near term, more of a nuisance than a blessing because of
  the slow transfer data rates still in use in the average household.

  The advent of telephone-based computing provides fertile ground for
  a completely new set of games that we cannot even imagine -- but some
  eighth-grader is already planning.

  Richard Riehle