Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? For a while, the computer-game villainess can be found traipsing through the Soviet Union with a host of international detectives hot on her tail. But not for long.
Plans are in the works at Broderbund Software Inc. to have avid computer game players chase the leading spy of VILE--the Villainous International League of Evil--throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States, among other parts of the changing globe.
Keeping time with political change, Novato-based Broderbund plans to update the entertaining and educational software for "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" and "Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego?" as soon as the game's accompanying almanacs are amended next year.
"For a product like this, used so heavily in the school market, we want it to reflect what's happening in the world as quickly as we can," said Claire Curtain, Broderbund's product manager. But they don't want to reprogram before the political dust has settled, she said.
Worldwide political upheaval has kept those whose business it is to be worldly--in a geographical sense--on their toes since January, 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and renamed it the 19th province of Iraq.
Since then, the Baltic republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have become independent, the 12 other former Soviet republics followed, and about 46 cities have changed their names. Yugoslavia appears to be a work in progress. And this is on just two of the seven continents.
The changes have created headaches as well as moneymaking opportunities for computer engineers and cartographers, whose map making business last year generated $300 million in sales, according to the International Map Dealers Assn.
"This is a remarkably dynamic time for these industries," said Trish Caldwell Lingren, president of Caldwell Associates, a consultant for designer maps for the media. "And large map making companies will make money from this, no question."
Still, whenever Richard Burger, vice president of corporate communications for PC Globe Inc. of Tempe, Ariz., hears the word Commonwealth, he sighs and rolls his eyes.
"We're just in wild misery," he said. "Everything we hear about is the Commonwealth--it's maddening."
Every year, PC Globe updates its electronic atlas, the PC Globe 4.0, which is used primarily for educational purposes. It allows computer users to zoom into more than 190 countries. Although the company is accustomed to making changes, this year the number of changes has required extra work and more investment.
