Thread: WHEN ?
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Old 08-20-2002, 04:54 PM   #25
Jim Sachs
Developer
 
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Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 9,768
A while ago someone mentioned that that found my attitude about the Aquarium contradictory. Not so at all. You will never find a person who is easier to understand than me. I simply want to have the most possible enjoyment while having the greatest positive effect on the world.

I realized at an early age that making movies was the best way I could accomplish this. When I turned 50 a few years ago, I realized I was running out of time, and the CompuTrainer project was not likely to bring in the kind of money necessary to do a film. So I decided to create a series of hyper-realistic desktop virtual-life programs, which anyone with the price of the average dinner-out could afford.

Yes, the Aquarium must raise money to allow me to make a film. An artist's artwork must finance the next project or he's dead.

I cannot follow the leap of logic necessary to believe that this would in any way imply that I would do anything for money. There are a great many things I would NOT do for money, and sacrificing my integrity or reputation is among them. I thought long and hard to come up with a way of earning a living which would bring joy to many and harm to none.

I found that the best way to keep the quality up in the Aquarium (or anything else I've ever worked on) is to keep tight control of the project. This usually means doing everything myself, but not necessarily. At this moment, Prolific's programmers are creating code for the program which will improve the user interface and various other enhancements.

Yes, I might sell a few more copies if I allowed the user to create their own objects. But this would not improve the Aquarium, it would ultimately hurt it and damage my credibility. Anyone with the skill to make a creature matching the qualitly of the rest of the tank would certainly have the ability to create their own program. It is obvious that within hours of the time I made the fish format public, people would create ridiculous/obscene creatures, distribute them on the Internet, and my Aquarium would become associated with such things. I will do everything I can to prevent that.
Jim Sachs
Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium
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