Just a Job

A brief passage from Pat Cadigan Tea from an Empty Cup
(1998) offers a view of game environments and their attractions.

The guitar-player smiled. "What you want is simple. All you had to do was state it in the proper place at the proper moment. In the proper form, of course. That's just elementary programming."

"Programming," Konstantin said, giving a short, not terribly merry laugh. "I should have known. You're the locator utility and the help utility, aren't you?"

"Avatar of both, but yeah, that's about what it comes down to," he said agreeably.

"And I only had to ask."

"[...] The usual players don't want anything so simple. The usual players come down here to look for the secret subroutine to the Next Big Scene, or even the mythical Out Door. Then my job becomes something different. Then my job is to give them a little thrill here and there, play to their curiosities and their fondest wishes and desires, without actually promising anything impossible to deliver. "

"But still making them spend more billable hours."

"The more hours people spend in here doing complicated things, the more interesting the Sitty becomes for everyone."

"Why don't you just tell people that, then? [...]"

"It's not my job to explain the business plan. It's my job to answer questions. I can only answer what I know. [...] I'm a utility avatar, I wasn't created to determine whether my universe is finite or not."

RTFM re-expanded euphemistcally: Remember to Find Manual

Time, person, place. One wonders if programming and scripting will or have given rise to neocasuistry.

And so for day 207
09.07.2007