John: The D&D influence was one of those historical accidents that turns out to be enormously influential. If the programming community's collective imagination had been captured by James Bond movies or reruns of Bonanza at that particular period of time, then yes, I'd say the gaming culture would superficially look a lot different today. The metaphors for interaction would be martinis or six-shooters and lassos instead of swords and sorcery. But I think the underlying structure of gaming communities would be roughly the same. People were looking to explore new worlds and meet new people using computers. The exact character of the new worlds in a way didn't matter. The fact of the exploration itself was more important than the specific content of the worlds.