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We all know Microsoft bought Activision _for_ the Infocom IP. It’s clearly the most valuable asset.
by ChicagoDave 3y ago
We all know Microsoft bought Activision _for_ the Infocom IP. It’s clearly the most valuable asset.
- toast0 3y agoRevenge of the Cresent Hawk's Revenge (I think Infocom was just the publisher, but they were in the startup voice sample)
- kromem 3y agoYou jest, but don't forget that to Microsoft leadership their battle in LLMs is likely seen as even more important than all of team Xbox. Getting nerds who grew up on Zork to effectively give free problem solving training data and pay a subscription price for the privilege by grounding RLHF data collection into a beloved franchise might not be that low on priorities over at Microsoft.
- ChicagoDave 3y agoSo the future sentient AI will have a strange love of trophy cases, brass lanterns, and jewel-encrusted eggs? I’m down for that.
- qup 3y ago> down You descend down a rickety staircase, into darkness. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
- 7thaccount 3y agoConsider whose fault that could be...not a match or a torch in your inventory!
- HenryBemis 3y agoHow about you cast an orb of light?
- Agrue8u 3y agoFrotz!
- jacquesm 3y agoThey did just that with GitHub so you may well be on the money.
- amelius 3y agoI had to look it up: > Infocom games are text adventures where users direct the action by entering short strings of words to give commands when prompted Sounds to me these games will soon be made irrelevant by upcoming LLM tech. Am I missing something?
- weeeeelp 3y agoNerd nostalgia, these games are from the 80s/90s and it's about making them freely available under a Creative Commons or similar license.
- DoughnutHole 3y agoIt was a joke.
- amelius 3y agoAha, as a non-gamer perhaps I should just stay out of this thread :)
- sandworm101 3y agoI refuse to believe that there are any non-gamers on HN.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>Sounds to me these games will soon be made irrelevant by upcoming LLM tech. On the contrary, this is exactly how they will sell LLM tech to the greybeads. Look at what Square enix tried to pull off this year with the Portpotia Serial Murder Case's "remake". Interactive Ficion in the 2020's is the niche of niches, but they've been trying for decades to produce what ChatGPT is seemingly making possible. If/when MS pursues why not use one of the OG IP's to sell such an experiment?