The rise of the iPhone and mobile platforms in general, along with developer-friendly app stores, has made the idea of commercializing interactive fiction possible again. In the age of Infocom, the crude graphics on top-end hardware meant the potential market for text-only games for personal computers was in the millions, and this was enough to fund a whole company of developers. Today, people aren’t likely to pay money to sit down at a PC to play a text adventure game, but enough of them might want to play such a game on their mobile device to fund teams of one or two independent developers.

via Heirs of Infocom: Where interactive fiction authors and games stand today | Ars Technica.