Article on Adventure games

[avatar_58]

The Escapist had an article I didn't expect:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/57/10

I'm reading through it still so I won't comment yet. Usually they are *very* insightful so I'm curious on their take.

EDIT - Interesting, I did not know Ken Williams intended to buy id software. How on earth would that have changed gaming? What if instead of Doom he instructed John Romero, Carmack and the others to create something else? That almost brings chills to think of that alternate universe.

Also they claim id basically killed adventure gaming as after Doom (1994) basically a steep decline began. I only agree somewhat, because many post '94 adventure were spectacular - especially lucasarts later titles (Pretty much ending at Grim Fandango). However the mainstream is the culprit as more people wanted action games and less puzzles or mind games.

I also find it hits close to home - they claim the internet is the new adventure game. Interestingly enough I find myself wandering Wikipedia and Google reading odd articles (kind of how I even found the escapist or forums to begin with).

Anyway give the article a read, though it kind of trails off course at the end there talking about how the internet came to be popular.

[Wamplet]

Back then, a lot of the adventure games (At least Sierra's) required that you buy the hintbook to play them. :o

I think that had something to do with it.

[avatar_58]

Did it? They sold in millions. The later ones without hintbooks sold fewer and fewer copies, almost in correlation to difficulty. Look at Myst for instance, it was damn hard and yet sold a truckload.

[infinity]

Millions? If I'm not mistaken, 100k was about par for an adventure game hit. There were a few notable exceptions, such as the first Leisure Suit Larry (~600k), the Myst series (millions), and a few King's Quest installments. Of course, 100k was a very good number for PC games back then. Nonetheless, this was hardly blockbuster material.

The biggest problem was that the genre saw little growth as market expanded. Production costs increased greatly too, so publishers lost interest. There're some developers who blame the decline on stagnation (i.e. many adventure game designers were inflexible and unwilling to evolve their formulas, whereas strategy and action games quickly changed. Some of these designers are no longer active in the industry because they only want to make traditional adventures). However, I'm not sure if that was the only problem.

[avatar_58]

Actually I'm almost positive that wasn't the problem, considering point & click was a radical change, as was FMV. However the companies forced them to change - take a look at KQ8 or Grim Fandango.

KQ8 fell flat on its face because the suits decided it needed to be "like tomb raider" (from the words of a memo according to Roberta Williams and co). Grim Fandango, while considered a classic by fans, did not sell all that well due to the move to 3D and the clumsy controls. While its easy to claim it was the devs fault, clearly the audience did not want 'evolved' adventure games in the technical sense......they wanted new ideas and stories.

Its being proven today - people are willing to buy adventure games that mimmic the old point & click style. Why? If it ain't broke don't fix it comes to mind. I personally want some gameplay additions, but when games like Dreamfall and Indigo Prophecy come to mind.....I realize each game would have to make its own gimmicks or else it would get old just as quickly.

Point & Click interfaces are not the problem here, boring stories, lame puzzles and a general lack of funding from big name publishers are.