(2023-06-04) Sloan Lit Up Like A Sparkler

Robin Sloan: Lit up like a sparkler. There’s a way in which the modern media environment — maybe all media envroments ever — pushes against “I don’t know”.

Here is a successful indie video game developer explaining their marketing strategy, which is built entirely around describing their game to Twitch and YouTube streamers in a way that will entice them to play it on camera.

Something is happening, with glacial implacability, across all media: an allover collapse in reviewing, particularly of work that’s independent and/or experimental, its creators not already famous. The circuits that once carried new work to new audiences are going dark. In their place: the breath of the gods! The algorithms! (algorithmic feed)

For anyone interested in books and reading online, it’s worth spending some time with Make Something Wonderful, the new compendium presented by the Steve Jobs Archive.

I say that not because I’m sure it’s an exemplary web book, but rather because it’s very clearly trying to be

in what ways does this succeed? In what ways does it fail?

This project is very close to the state of the art, both technically and aesthetically, which provides a terrific opportunity to assess that state.

Recently, I redownloaded 80 Days, the text-forward adventure game released to great acclaim (including my own) in 2014.... If you have never played 80 Days, it is available on nearly every platform. Particularly for people who are perhaps more readers than gamers, this is the demonstration of what the medium has to offer.

Avatar (The Last Airbender series) and 80 Days both returned to my life around the same time, and the feeling I got from both encounters was the same. It’s energizing to look more closely at your favorites, trying to understand a little bit better how they succeed. Both of these favorites are exemplary of the kind of work I want to produce.