Inside: SereneScreen Fan Forum - View Single Post

feldon34 · 03-05-2003, 03:44 PM

I'm genuinely curious to hear what people think about the reshuffling and breaking up of the forum into sections. I know it means a bit more scrolling but it should help us as things expand. In the next few months, I think forum traffic and the number of posts are going to increase substantially and we feel it is our job to keep forum members informed.

I know there have been increasingly strong opinions from the early adopters about Prolific's involvement and the progress of development. This is a tough subject to cover without hurting anyone's feelings. Our contributions to the Aquarium in testing and suggestions have been greatly appreciated, but it is also necessary to step back and realize something.

Despite early adopters and radically strong support, the Amiga ultimately did not succeed. In contrast, Microsoft's cover-the-earth approach of getting their early, extremely buggy software onto every computer out there gained it success. Microsoft is a monolith which does things its own, often user-hostile way, yet it is the market leader. The music business and/or Hollywood are also proof of this. If a little is good, a lot must be better!

I'm writing an article on Prolific's philosophy in regards to SereneScreen, Jim, their own works, etc. I know there are some misconceptions which can hopefully be cleared up, namely whether Prolific is a publisher, a programming house, an artistic/design house, or what? (they are all 3) and how the success of the Aquarium and decline of the gaming market for non-multi-billion dollar developers has prompted Prolific to refocus their efforts. It is simply too financially risky to develop large-scale games anymore. If your game does not have a movie-size budget, it will probably be ignored by the market.

We are working on some things for the FlagPride and Goldfish forums and eventually these will get small sections on the Inside: SereneScreen site. The focus of this site is and hopefully always will be Jim's work. There are many folks here who have been fans of Jim Sachs' artwork and game development for 5, 10, 15 years now.

03-05-2003, 03:44 PM	#144
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	I'm genuinely curious to hear what people think about the reshuffling and breaking up of the forum into sections. I know it means a bit more scrolling but it should help us as things expand. In the next few months, I think forum traffic and the number of posts are going to increase substantially and we feel it is our job to keep forum members informed. I know there have been increasingly strong opinions from the early adopters about Prolific's involvement and the progress of development. This is a tough subject to cover without hurting anyone's feelings. Our contributions to the Aquarium in testing and suggestions have been greatly appreciated, but it is also necessary to step back and realize something. Despite early adopters and radically strong support, the Amiga ultimately did not succeed. In contrast, Microsoft's cover-the-earth approach of getting their early, extremely buggy software onto every computer out there gained it success. Microsoft is a monolith which does things its own, often user-hostile way, yet it is the market leader. The music business and/or Hollywood are also proof of this. If a little is good, a lot must be better! I'm writing an article on Prolific's philosophy in regards to SereneScreen, Jim, their own works, etc. I know there are some misconceptions which can hopefully be cleared up, namely whether Prolific is a publisher, a programming house, an artistic/design house, or what? (they are all 3) and how the success of the Aquarium and decline of the gaming market for non-multi-billion dollar developers has prompted Prolific to refocus their efforts. It is simply too financially risky to develop large-scale games anymore. If your game does not have a movie-size budget, it will probably be ignored by the market. We are working on some things for the FlagPride and Goldfish forums and eventually these will get small sections on the Inside: SereneScreen site. The focus of this site is and hopefully always will be Jim's work. There are many folks here who have been fans of Jim Sachs' artwork and game development for 5, 10, 15 years now. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman Last edited by feldon34; 03-13-2003 at 01:13 AM.