Links

We've assembled a collection of resources which we find interesting. Use the menu at left to explore resources re games, online literature, role playing, interactive fiction, and the future of reading.

Once upon a time we'd also assembled a large-ish collection of SmartMonsters members' home pages. Remember home pages? Facebook has killed them off. We've kept a few that we think are noteworthy.

Please use the fora to suggest resources which you believe will interest the community. Thanks!

"Let's be frank with ourselves. We all know that most people, most of the audience out there, is complacent. They are more than up for another evening in the reclining chair in front of a sitcom that teaches the same lessons that the one on last week did. They are very willing to settle for easy entertainment.

We call this "pop music." We call it "mass market." And games are indeed reaching this mass market, and I suppose that to a degree I am fighting the tide in arguing that that is not the ultimate destiny for games any more than it is for any other art form. The art we remember is material that opened up new vistas: whether or not it was popular at the time is largely an accident of history. Shakespeare ws a popular playwright and then was neglected for a couple hundred years. Popularity is not a measure of long-term evolutionary success."
- Raph Koster A Theory of Fun For Game Design (info)