Anyone remember the story of discovering the Lost Forum for An Old Game?
July 11, 2020 1:34 PM   Subscribe

A company ships a product. Hidden deep in supporting material for the product is a link to a functioning forum. Company ships game, time passes, everyone kind of forgets about game but the forum keeps ticking along. Years later, someone involved with the initial game discovers that the forum has hosted a robust (rp'ing?) community for many years.

I know I've read various stories like this but I can't find any of them despite a lot of searching, and there's one specifically I'm almost positive I first came across on Metafilter. I feel like the software was a game. And maybe something associated with Hitchhiker's Guide? Something where the was a space airline..."Galaxy Starlines" or something? And the forum was something like a support forum for passengers on the ships, and maybe the users at least sometimes RP'd the operations of the Starline support team or something?

Anyway, the link to access the forum was incredibly obscure, and no one (?) from the company ever thought to check on it, but the forum software stayed up for whatever reason. Something happened, which caused someone associated with the original product to stumble across the forum and be wildly surprised by everything that had gone on there in the intervening years.

I feel like I have a lot of specific things in here but I've been trying a zillion search queries. I feel I may be combining multiple stories into one and that's why I can't find the original, so if this reminds you of something else but the details don't quite match (e.g. there is no spaceship line), please post anyway as it's highly likely I'm mistaken.

Thanks!
posted by jeb to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: This sounds like what happened with Starship Titanic - the forum took on a life of its own after the game was launched (and sadly mostly forgotten).

Some more info here.
posted by namewithoutwords at 1:43 PM on July 11, 2020 [10 favorites]


Still my all-time favorite moment on the site. Tragically the forum seems to have lapsed again after already being relocated not once but twice.

(Also, you might be mingling memories of that with this xkcd comic.)
posted by Rhaomi at 2:10 PM on July 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


This sounds somewhat like the Ted Chiang novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects."
posted by slidell at 3:37 PM on July 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Since you mention Hitchhiker's Guide, you might also be thinking of this cache of emails that Andy Baio uncovered regarding the development of a sequel to the original text-based game version of the book. Many of the developers mentioned in the emails or involved with the games showed up in that thread to comment.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 3:04 PM on July 12, 2020


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