This is a very nice little perspective, and well stated too. However, there
are more obvious and less complex explanations that should be considered
first. For example: communist plots. The dirty commies start up this
"infocom" organization as a propaganda scheme to infiltrate and weaken
the... oh wait.. russians aren't commies anymore. Well it could be the
chinese then! ya, that's it the chinese. Ah, na... someone stop me, i'm
thinking like a antiquated social relic! What am i saying?! It's the
aliens!! It's the aliens!! It's all part of the little grey guys with big
eyes experiments at mind control. That's so obvious, why didn't I think of
it before. They want to see if... uh... wait... somthing... (youch!)...
implant... damned implant... errrr.. rrr..
Right, as I was saying, in nearly all IF the player is (necessarily) the
central character. The world revolves around the player's actions. Whereas
in real life each individual is a tiny part of society...
Hold on. In novels the "world" revolves often around a central
character--meaning really that the world seen and analysed in relation to
one character, but they are more realistically portrayed (hopefully).
[please, this is a generalization of certain styles of writing, there are a
billion exceptions and other points of view, and details... i know!]
Ah but then lets get down to genre. Okay lets not.
Lets talk about Dungeons and Dragons. Okay, forget that then.
Um... lets talk about escapism and a sense of power and excitement and
reckless abandon... about the lawless chaotic seed of evil in each of us
struggling to vent itself in selfish greedy orgies of... nyah... you're
right, lets not talk about that either... it's so... so.. um...
It's the aliens damn it! They are controlling our minds!! They are
experimenting on us like so many fruit flies! Help! Help! Help!!!
--- ...with love and squalor. <as544@torfree.net>