(Q - Palestrina: Just a quick question about what you were saying before, about the fact that Max had strayed a little from the lines, I think that once you said, he
moved away from the original lines, that was your word, I think, and in relation to that, what does that mean exactly?
that is to say while for example he was responding to the madits, and then he could have evolved his game a little during that time, or are you rather referring to Father Méhus by the original lines?)
MB: So, there are two levels, in these modifications, in this evolution of the game. There is the search for sponsors level. So indeed the story of Father Méhus is the first version, it is the moment when he had imagined a whole mini-scenario, this whole story, to induce, present the game and incidentally slip a few little clues into this text, but well it's not huge, but a few small clues, let's say. Then the confrontation with the sponsors and I experienced that. I mean, I experienced it live, that is to say, I saw very well the day when Régis Hauser spoke in front of me to the sponsor, who was my friend, spoke to him about the project, we spoke about the project. He presented his idea and then he told us, Well, I'm going to go back to the thing, that is to say that the file at the time he told us about it, the file had already been in a drawer for a long time, so he took it out of the drawer. Then we saw each other again afterwards. He started to talk about it a little more and between that moment and then the moment when he came back saying, where the sponsor said Well I'm interested and where Régis Hauser came back saying Well there you go, I I brought out the elements for you a little. Already there, he had carried out modification work. So there was and it wasn't the first time that they did it because it wasn't the first sponsor that he solicited. So that happened from the initial design to the launch of the game. There were small modifications like that.
Then, there was a big modification, still in this vein, between the moment when the egg was an egg and when it became an owl. So that led him to re-correct things again. And, in the end, there was yet another change when the sponsor withdrew and I said OK, I'm financing and then I told him well listen, from the moment I become sponsor, the goal is to create a text for… We were in a commercial approach, we must not forget that. The goal is to create a text to allow me to gain notoriety, sell my paintings, etc. Well, he did it extremely clumsily, in my opinion, the text he wrote was a little... well, a little sloppy, I'll put it like that, but that was the reason why we deleted Father Méhus. There was the owl and there was the fact that the sponsor became Michel Becker. But beyond that, when the game started, between the time the game started and then everything that happened after that, there was someone who found themselves in the position I'm in today, but without speaking, only writing, it was the Minitel. And where he was solicited, praised, congratulated, constantly questioned, also increasingly solicited by the media and where indeed, his own perception of what he had done, he himself changed. Where he said to himself, well, I made a good advertising product, that's what he was selling at the start and he ended up saying to himself, I made something quite brilliant.
And then we evolved, we evolved. His responses, the way in which he subsequently wished, wanted, to present his own game evolved. What he told me about it, what he told the sponsors and me about it, at the beginning, what he told me about it afterwards, everything we were able to talk about before the launch, became completely obsolete compared to what he ended up saying about his own game, talking about his puzzles, etc., that is to say that he was praised so much, so much was said, Ah Max, it's fabulous, he left so many possibilities surrounding the solutions, particularly by using visuals and the somewhat artistic and uncertain side of visuals. He surfed on it so much that it opened up a considerable field of possibilities.
And that's what I sum up by saying "It got him drunk", but it changed the words used, the way he responded, it made all that evolve and today, we are in the process of to try, in any case I am trying to take the opposite view of that and return to things that are much more realistic, consistent with the spirit of the game and above all consistent with the content of the game.< br />
MB: So, there are two levels, in these modifications, in this evolution of the game. There is the search for sponsors level. So indeed the story of Father Méhus is the first version, it is the moment when he had imagined a whole mini-scenario, this whole story, to induce, present the game and incidentally slip a few little clues into this text, but well it's not huge, but a few small clues, let's say. Then the confrontation with the sponsors and I experienced that. I mean, I experienced it live, that is to say, I saw very well the day when Régis Hauser spoke in front of me to the sponsor, who was my friend, spoke to him about the project, we spoke about the project. He presented his idea and then he told us, Well, I'm going to go back to the thing, that is to say that the file at the time he told us about it, the file had already been in a drawer for a long time, so he took it out of the drawer. Then we saw each other again afterwards. He started to talk about it a little more and between that moment and then the moment when he came back saying, where the sponsor said Well I'm interested and where Régis Hauser came back saying Well there you go, I I brought out the elements for you a little. Already there, he had carried out modification work. So there was and it wasn't the first time that they did it because it wasn't the first sponsor that he solicited. So that happened from the initial design to the launch of the game. There were small modifications like that.
Then, there was a big modification, still in this vein, between the moment when the egg was an egg and when it became an owl. So that led him to re-correct things again. And, in the end, there was yet another change when the sponsor withdrew and I said OK, I'm financing and then I told him well listen, from the moment I become sponsor, the goal is to create a text for… We were in a commercial approach, we must not forget that. The goal is to create a text to allow me to gain notoriety, sell my paintings, etc. Well, he did it extremely clumsily, in my opinion, the text he wrote was a little... well, a little sloppy, I'll put it like that, but that was the reason why we deleted Father Méhus. There was the owl and there was the fact that the sponsor became Michel Becker. But beyond that, when the game started, between the time the game started and then everything that happened after that, there was someone who found themselves in the position I'm in today, but without speaking, only writing, it was the Minitel. And where he was solicited, praised, congratulated, constantly questioned, also increasingly solicited by the media and where indeed, his own perception of what he had done, he himself changed. Where he said to himself, well, I made a good advertising product, that's what he was selling at the start and he ended up saying to himself, I made something quite brilliant.
And then we evolved, we evolved. His responses, the way in which he subsequently wished, wanted, to present his own game evolved. What he told me about it, what he told the sponsors and me about it, at the beginning, what he told me about it afterwards, everything we were able to talk about before the launch, became completely obsolete compared to what he ended up saying about his own game, talking about his puzzles, etc., that is to say that he was praised so much, so much was said, Ah Max, it's fabulous, he left so many possibilities surrounding the solutions, particularly by using visuals and the somewhat artistic and uncertain side of visuals. He surfed on it so much that it opened up a considerable field of possibilities.
And that's what I sum up by saying "It got him drunk", but it changed the words used, the way he responded, it made all that evolve and today, we are in the process of to try, in any case I am trying to take the opposite view of that and return to things that are much more realistic, consistent with the spirit of the game and above all consistent with the content of the game.< br />