Sterling goes on to advise creators that:
You may not need much characterization in computer entertainment.
Delineating character may not be the point of your work. That's no excuse
for making lame characters that are actively bad. You may not need a strong,
supple, thoroughly worked-out storyline. That doesn't mean that you can
get away with a stupid plot made of wire and chickenshit . . . You can
get a hell of a lot done in a popular medium just by knocking it off with
the bullshit. Popular media always reek of bullshit, they reek of carelessness
and self-taught clumsiness and charlatanry. To live outside the aesthetic
laws you must be honest. Know what you're doing; don't settle for the way
it looks just cause everybody's used to it. If you've got a palette of
2 million colors, then don't settle for designs that look like a cheap
four-color comic book. If you're gonna do graphic design, then learn what
good graphic design looks like; don't screw around in amateur fashion out
of sheer blithe ignorance . . . Working seriously, improving your taste
and perception and understanding, knowing what you are and where you came
from, not only improves your work in the present, but gives you a chance
of influencing the future and links you to the best work of the past.
(From "The Wonderful Power of Storytelling", speech given at
the Computer Game Developers' Conference, San Jose, California, 1991)