From:
[email protected] (Jeff Somers)
Newsgroups: rec.games.int-fiction,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure
Subject: An Infocom history
Date: 7 Feb 1995 23:44:28 GMT
Ran across an interesting article in a back issue of Computer Gaming
World. In the 10th anniversary issue of CGW they printed a history
of computer games, and a good hunk of the article dealt with Infocom.
Since threads about Infocom's history tend to pop up occaisonally on
rec.games.int-fiction and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure, I thought
I'd crosspost the Infocom sections of this article to these two
groups. The most interesting parts are towards the end, where
Activision's buyout of Infocom is discussed.
jeff s.
[email protected]
----
A History of Computer Games, by Johnny Wilson
Computer Gaming World, November 1991
(c) Golden Empire Publications, 1991
[Text about Adventure and its inspiration of Roberta Williams deleted.]
In addition, a group of M.I.T. hackers (including Marc Blanc[sic], Joel Berez
and others) began to create a text adventure called Zork which owed its
original inspiration to Adventure and went its mentor one better by creating a
parser that could understand complete sentences. Zork was not actually
available on a home computer until 1981 when the hackers' new company,
Infocom,
released the game for the Apple II.
[text deleted]
Although Zork did not arrive on the Apple II until 1981, its birth was more
properly part of the '70s. In the mid-1970s, Infocom's eventual braintrust
(Marc Blank, Joel Berez and Dave Lebling) met at M.I.T.'s Laboratory of
Computer Science. Inspired by the original Adventure, Blank and Lebling
designed a mainframe adventure game.
It wasn't just any adventure game, however. The goal of the game's
designers was to allow the computer to understand more typical English
sentences than the simplistic and often infuriating two-word parser of
previous adventure games. So, Marc Blank applied his artificial intelligence
work and created ZIL (Zork Interactive Language), a "parser" which allowed
the program to find associations between sentences and, hence, better
understand what the player wanted to do.
Students at M.I.T. responded so favorably to the mainframe version of Zork
that a professor at the institute, Al Vezza, encouraged the group to form a
corporation. On June 22, 1979, the professor and his star pupils (Berez,
Blank and Lebling) formed Infocom for the express purpose of developing Zork
for the personal computer market. Its success was followed by Starcross (a
science fiction adventure which came packaged in its own flying saucer) and
two Zork sequels (Zork II and Zork III).
At first, the company seemed very focused on producing quality interactive
fiction and designers like Stu Galley, Steve Meretzky and Brian Moriarty
were added to the cast. Games like Deadline, Planetfall, Suspended and
Witness followed (1983). Yet, Blank, Berez and Vezza had a hidden agenda
that was already beginning to foreshadow changes at the company. Their goal
was to move from games to productivity tools.
Actually, many people do not realize that the founders of Infocom were not
entirely interested in computer games. Most did not even like personal
computers. Instead, they were business-oriented and hoped to "make it big"
like their friends and classmates who founded Lotus Development. The idea of
producing a business-oriented database became an obsession, as did the later
move to luxury accommodations in Cambridge. Vezza was determined to out-Lotus
Lotus. What this obsession did to Infocom in the latter part of the '80s can
be read later in this article.
[text deleted]
Infocomplications
1986 also brought the red ink of Cornerstone, the only Infocom product without
a plot. Cornerstone was a database that rocked the corporate structure of
Infocom rather than bringing the desired stability. Instead, it brought
trouble.
Of course, it didn't look like trouble, at first. It looked (as it does in
many corporate acquisitions) like a "White Knight" riding to the rescue.
James Levy, (then) CEO of (then) Activision, was a true fan of Infocom games.
He perceived the corporate weakness brought about by Cornerstone as an
opportunity to acquire a software jewel and began putting the deal in motion
that was finalized on Feb. 19, 1986.
Activision purchased Infocom for $7.5 million (although much of the settlement
price was in Activision common stock and may have had a different value by the
final payment on June 13, 1986). This meant that Marc Blanc[sic] lost his bet
with Cornerstone co-author Brian "Spike" Berkowitz that Infocom stock would
top
$20.00 per share by '87 or Blanc[sic] would buy Spike dinner in Paris.
Infocom
sold for much less than $20 per share and the last CGW heard, the bet had
still not been paid off and Blanc[sic] was trying to change the venue to
Tokyo.
The acquisition was not received well at Infocom. The company newsletter,
once
known as the New Zork Times but soon to be known as The Status Line, joked
about
graphics in interactive fiction stories and better parsers in Little Computer
People (one of Activision's big hits of the era), but printed one phrase that,
in retrospect, offers a melancholic ring: "We'll still be the Infocom you
know
and love." At first, it looked like this might be true. From 1985's low of
three interactive fiction titles, 1986 saw five new titles.
The humor at Infocom never really stopped until the latter days. When the New
York Times complained about their newsletter's original name (New Zork Times),
they ran a contest to rename the publication and first prize was a
subscription
to the New York Times. Their in-house (great underground?) paper InfoDope
joked that Levy wanted them to do simulations, cynically suggesting titles
like Tugboat Simulator and Empire State Elevator Operator. Less-than-kind
remarks accused Activision superstar Steve Cartwright (designer of Alien and
Ghostbusters) of being able to turn out action games in an afternoon.
Yet harmless jokes about Levy turned to cynical anger at Levy's successor,
Bruce Davis. Insiders claim Activision's new CEO had been against the Infocom
buyout from the start and that he immediaitely raised the ante on some
anticipated losses that were to have been indemnified by Infocom shareholders
from $300,00 to $900,000 with no accounting. The shareholders filed a
preemptive suit and managed to stave off the "required" payment.
Morale began to deteriorate, with Infocom personnel feeling like Davis was
foisting off all the programs which should have been still-born in development
onto Infocom. They detested Infocomics, the Tom Snyder Productions attempt
to use the computer as an interactive comic book (the idea was to produce $12
products in a continuing series that would appeal to the comics crowd), never
believing in the concept but noting that all the development costs were being
charged against their budget. A brutal (underground) memo urged Infocommies
to join the "Bruce Youth" movement, casting the CEO in a classic bad guy role
as he requested Infocom personnel to "turn in" their fellow employees
whenever said Infocommies would murmur "a discouraging word."
Activision gradually dismantled Infocom. First, sales and manufacturing were
absorbed. This seemed logical, but by the time the great Infocomics
experiment failed in 1988, public relations and customer support were also
absorbed. In 1989, development was moved to the West Coast, but those who
built the Great Underground Empire elected not to move or were not invited
to do so. As Arthur, BattleTech, Journey and Shogun reached the market,
Infocom was no longer a distinctive publisher, it was only a label.
[no furthur Infocom tidbits in article]
