This is a thought I have had since my early days in computer game 
design -- never really found a forum for it, so I thought I'd let this 
20 year old idea spew.

There is no such thing as interactive fiction.  Story-telling and 
simulation are inherently at odds.  It is the nature of story-telling 
that its devices (the devices of the Poetics) require strong and 
careful control of the nature and tempo of interactions between story 
elements: the character, her development, her conflicts and 
interactions with other characters,  the gradual increase in the 
intensity of those conflicts, leading to a climax and, significantly, a 
gentle denoument.  This is done by orchestrating a carefully balanced 
and timed presentation for the reader, sometimes rapidly the real-time 
to story-time ratio (40 pages to describe the first microsecond of a 
nuclear explosion in Sum of All Fears), sometimes dramatically 
contracting it (casual reference to the passing of years by reference 
to change of seasons in Lord of the Rings) -- because the idea is to 
dedicate the timing to these Poetics elements.  In contrast, a 
simulation operates in substantially real-time (or permits the user to 
modify the scale), provides enormous flexibility on the part of the 
user to determine events as they happen and permits the use, within the 
constraints of the game physics, to change the world as she will.

A reader loses patience and is frustrated with an ill-timed story, even 
if the other elements are otherwise compelling.  A user loses patience 
with an inflexible simulation, even if the other elements are otherwise 
compelling.  This tension is one of the key elements for analyzing and 
critiquing game experiences.

The game designer carefully balances these, and other, competing 
factors, and ultimately must make a determination how to engineer the 
game experience.  He cannot simply present an animated equivalent of a 
page-turner, the computer makes a lousy book and an even lousier source 
of real time movies.  He cannot provide a genuine simulated world -- 
the computer doesn't admit a complete simulation, and the lack of story 
elements will surely commit the game to the "graveyard" as instantly as 
the novelty of the graphic heat and sound wears off.

The best games actually compromise these issues -- acknowledging the 
limits of story-telling control and simulation flexibility, and using 
smoke and mirrors to make the game appear "bigger" and "more flexible" 
than it is.  These tricks, the sets, props and costumes of the game 
designer's quiver, are well-understood, and new ones are constantly 
created.  I can make you feel the game is bigger by subtly guiding you 
to follow the path, either with incentives or visual or sound cues.  I 
can beguile you by making your random choices more effective (e.g., if 
I detect you looking under a chair looking for a clue, why NOT put it 
there if it serves the story development?  You looked there because you 
thought it would be interesting to find something there, and the user 
will be pleased to see that "she was right," welcoming the 
manipulation).  In short, to tell a story well in a simulation, we must 
cheat.

Another approach is to change our notion of what is the experience.  
Are we the game designer a story-teller for the user, or am I an the 
user collaborating on the story-telling for another?  If the latter, we 
can abandon our passion for Poetics and share the blame for an 
ill-timed story.  The thrill of collaborative creation is 
exhiliarating, but a shoddy product can lead to a bad experience: this 
sharing also shares the blame for a bad story.  (Do you think you or 
the paying customer will be right on that point).

Or to recognize that the game is a combination of both aspects, and 
recognize the limitations and use smoke and mirrors to balance here.

  Is interactive fiction an oxymoron?   I think so, at least in a 
technical sense.  The BEST games we have seen seem to recognize these 
limitations, chose a particular form to balance those constraints, and 
then work with the limitations to good effect.  I think we have decent 
story-telling-like experiences, and can have better ones all the time.  
The first stage though, seems to be to recognize the limitations of the 
medium as presently understood, and work our art within those 
constraints.