Back in 2000 Ryan wrote about Infocom and reminisced about how great text adventures were. We were both big fans of their work. That’s part of the reason I was thrilled to see that Andy Baio uncovered details about Infocom’s last days, focusing on the company’s never-released game Milliways, a sequel to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
When I first read the post there were roughly 20 comments but as of this Ping writing, there are nearly 200. Interestingly, the people mentioned in the original post have pretty much all surfaced and commented… it’s really fascinating stuff. There are also questions about the ethics and legality of posting 20+ year old emails from a company that clearly wasn’t concerned about intellectual property; it’s amusing, though, to see people criticizing Baio for not being a journalist. (He’s not a journalist.)
The whole thing will take a while to read but in general is recommended. It’s disappointing to see that Infocom had lots of problems, just like any other company.
Posted in Technology