The issue/problem with the adventure game genre in 2010

[strangechicken]

As an experienced adventure gamer who grew up in the 90's in adventures golden era...

I have played many games... My entire collection can be foune here

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=42318.0

(Suggest something for me to play if you know any I don't have)...

I find the issue with adventure gaming in 2010... is simple... there is nothing new being made commercially... a little smatter of Run Away and The Longest Journey topped with the Odd One hit wonder commercial game... but the major studios behind adventure that are doign the most advertising and pushing of the adventure game market are -at least I think- unfortunately just selling new versions of old franchises...

Even broken sword has seemingly ceased being made and are now just shoveling out remakes (Broken Sword: Directors Cut + Beneath a Steel Sky Rrmastered)... and telltale is one of the worst... I buy their products... sure some are quite enjoyable... but they seem like fan games... because they have such a nostalgic relationship with the games that the developed become fans of the game itself and thus are too scared to try anything progressive or inovative...

The tales of monkey island for example really didn't have anything new... Just another cliche Guybrush story... tho for my money lacked a lot of humor... Because they were too scared to do anything that may upset the Series' Fandom... these games like King's Quest, Broken Sword, Monkey Island etc, etc. were classics FOR A REASON... they were something new and interesting, something we didn't have before.... So why is the adventure game Genre "dead"... I believe its simply because no one is making anything truly new or interesting... I daresay Roberta was a genius she took it from text to graphic adventure game with parsor to fully voice acted point and click...

I really respect what Bill Tiller is doing with August Moon Also.... A vampyre Story and Ghost Pirates were actually for my money rather enjoyable games..  tho many are quick to point out their flaws at least Bill had the guts to try and do something new... even tho a lot of people will by default make comparisons between Ghost Pirates and Monkey Island (Which is crazy... just because they both have pirate themes... Is XXX with Vin Diesel a James Bond film just because it has a destructive none-too-careful spy?)

So when will the adventure game company stop just rehashing old shit to make a quick buck.. when are they gonna try and take a risk instead of playing safe and selling nostalgia and start making NEW CLASSICS!?

[Gabriel_Down]

Don't you think that's a rather simplistic approach to a well known and discussed subject?

[ThreeOhFour]

Money's a good reason.

Would Telltale have been anywhere near as successful if they'd use an original IP rather than the Sam and Max/Strongbad/Monkey Island/Wallace & Gromit ones? Seems most unlikely.

Putting in new, exciting things to the genre often divides player's opinions a lot more strongly as well (look at Insecticide). It's easy to sit here and go "Boo nothing is new anymore " but at the end of the day, games that dare to be different often fail to sell serious numbers.

Also, the adventure game genre is hardly dead.

[Gabriel_Down]

The way I see it, it's a risk just releasing an adventure game nowdays. Breaking the norm while releasing an adventure is pretty much suicidal money-wise.

And after all nothing's the same like back then. Back in the 90's adventures games were impressive. Best looking games on the amiga/pc. Wanted to impress someone? Showed them Gabriel Knight. Nowdays the hardware has changed, much more is possible, adventures are no longer the treat they used to be.

Also the whole gaming community has changed. Much more massive, meaning more mainstream. Meaning not willing to play a game for solving puzzles and watch a story unfold in 20 hours. There is a market for adventures but it's much more limited than back then. The geeks have lost their kingdom! (sadly)

It's a different world. Damn back then even the kid cartoons were based on plot and puzzles and mystery. Everything now is way more fast and easy to digest.


hooray for using "back then" 1424 times in a post.

[strangechicken]

I have degree in Film and theatre... and it ties in...there is in theatre a small lil repitory theatre companies who do things that are interesting...

But as the masses (Hollywood).. they're releasing the same movies from the 1930's (Shutter Island is Essentually The Cabinet of Dr Calgari)... and the money thing is a big grey area.. they may lose money... but you have to lose money to make real money... thats entrepeneurial business.... Melodrama theatre (Melodic drama.. which combined humor and tragedy)... was a risk.. but they tried it... now theres elements in it in almost every single video game, tv show and movie today... so you have to take risks... or instance if someone sat down with a Wii type configuration... and thought hard enough.. they could make something interesting.. and thats another issue.... computer games in and of themselves don't make up for much sales... because they're too in acessable and a lot are rather bland...

The market has drastically changed... adventure games were in a time of peoople who were more of a sophisticated class... now everyone has an x box its much more lax...

But the adventure game is realy suffering from a rehash of blandness... and the why "adventure games are too expencive" is for me kind of a scape goat for companies... you cannot look me in the eye and tell me straight faced that a project such as "Resident Evil 5", "Silent Hill Home Coming" or "Grand theft auto 4" was viably cheaper than say "The longest journey" or "Runaway".... no they would have cost a shit load more to make and a lot more time and effort...

So to me thats very much a scape goat for companies... who seem to have many scapegoats for the fact they simply don't have the balls to try...

In the words of the band survivor "Got the guts go the glory"... in about 1999 the adventure games were getting pretty sparce... I'm sure i'm not the only one who agrees that Kings Quest: Mask of Eternity was a bad idea with an even worse execution...  and up pops revolution with "Broken Sword" which sells like hot cakes... see what i'm saying....

Also i never personally never said the genre was dead.... is it was "dead"... which makes it a quotation for the masses who say it is... I just think its in a lul period... its making a slight come back now.. but its a shame all the content is just old stuff... and i played the first chapter of Tales of monkey island.. it was just missing the old flair that it used to had... it was guybrush threepwood in bubble wrap because he's too precious to be anything but nostalgic...

[strangechicken]

Also.. Its reasonable to add that places like IGN and such sites are so biased... I saw one give a review.. and it was like he had been slapped upside the head with a mallet... labotomised... fed half an ounce of rohypnal... than told to make a review.. this was a magazine who said "well the graphics are good..." in about 5 different ways... how does that make a game good or bad... I don't watch a shit movie because the costumes are nice.. nor do i not watch a good movie because the props department are sub-par.. I hardly call what they do Journalism... yet they call them selves video game journalist.. they have the academic depth of a sugar filled condom... in the end pointless... At least Yahtzee (tho you may have mixed oppinions on the man) on zero punctuation actually shows you the flaws instead of just going "yeah... its good... mini game are nice... games pretty.. did i mention mini-games are nice.. and that the developers are paying me off.. oh that might be useful."  So its also in the hands of dodgy "Journalists" tho i'd seriously like to see their credentials other than "I once ate 3 pizza's while on a silent hill marathon"...

[ThreeOhFour]

The market has drastically changed... adventure games were in a time of peoople who were more of a sophisticated class... now everyone has an x box its much more lax...

I think this could probably be re-written as "Adventure games were popular in a time when people weren't so easily distracted, games were newer and we were much more willing to overlook their shortcomings because we hadn't been shown that there's a friendlier way of doing things. Adventure games were popular in a time when 2D reigned supreme because 3D hadn't been realized to an extent where it could create vivid worlds to set a game in, thus the painted backdrop was the most effective way of creating beautiful locations. Adventure games were popular in a world without the internet, and things like multiplayer and easily accessible solutions to puzzles that spoil the "gameplay" portion of the genre."

It's true that people aren't always doing new things when they release a game, but the same has almost always been true to some extent. Look how many Doom clones and Command and Conquer clones were being made back in the 90s. Every now and then someone is brave enough to propose a game like Planescape: Torment to a publisher and that publisher is foolish enough to give them money and we get an amazing game, but it's rare that any of these sell huge numbers.They might be cult classics still in 10 years time, but they don't keep publishers in business.

I guess what I am saying is: Go and play Planescape: Torment.

[strangechicken]

I hate online multiplayer games... I play video games to get away from boring real people.. why would i want to play AGAINST even duller lifeless people... who "pwn noobs"... yet if they looked objectively.. they're just pressing x over and over again with a can of coke and bag of doritos.. not really that complex... World of war craft I played for about 2 days and got bored... the philosophy of it is too simple "click yourself silly".. it doesn't get much more complex than click ere/click there and the occasionally more sillful click further over there... its too easy.. now give those "pwners" King's Quest 3 and see how they fare eh!?... I know.. I finished it.. and i'm probably NEVER going to play it again as long as I live (thats probably a lie)... but it was one of the hardest games i've ever played...

[Wersus]

When you say things like "you have to lose money to make real money" it shows that you might have the wrong picture of the industry. Most studios that make adventure games nowadays aren't part of the major publishing machines that make those 100 mil games. The very existance of these companies depends on how many copies their next game sells (if they even have enough money to ever finish it) and if they choose such a  niche market like adventure games, it's hard to go too far away from the already small audience and try something crazy. Many of the people working in these companies have families to feed and so on.

You should remeber that today's game industry is just that: an industry. It makes money and feeds families. Sometimes great games come out as a by-product.



PS. strangechicken, could you not end every sentece with "...". It makes your text very slow to read.

[strangechicken]

yeah, i've been getting a lot of flack about the "..." I work as a professional comedian, so a lot of what i write actually meant to be said verbally, I sometimes forget to switch back when i'm doing written text. It's habit I guess, I use "..." as a form of inflection, also the ammount of academic reflective journals i've written probably influence the bad habbit.

[Ali]

I have to disagree with almost everything you've said, I'm afraid.

telltale is one of the worst... I buy their products... sure some are quite enjoyable... but they seem like fan games... because they have such a nostalgic relationship with the games that the developed become fans of the game itself and thus are too scared to try anything progressive or inovative...

While I'd love to see Telltale produce a game with original premise, their writing and game design rivals and exceeds many of the best adventures of the 90s (most Sierra games, for my money). As for recent originals, what about Machinarium, The Whispered World, The Lost Crown or Barrow Hill (or Time Gentlemen Please!)? Add those to your list, if you haven't played them!

But as the masses (Hollywood).. they're releasing the same movies from the 1930's (Shutter Island is Essentually The Cabinet of Dr Calgari)...

Just because the endings of those two films are similar doesn't make them the same. Otherwise we could say that all tragedies are essentially the same because everyone dies at the end. Shutter Island is a homage to Film Noir and it takes much from gothic literature, but I don't see anything objectionable there!

The market has drastically changed... adventure games were in a time of peoople who were more of a sophisticated class... now everyone has an x box its much more lax...

A more sophisticated class? When I was 11 and I huddled around an amiga with my friends to play Monkey Island I'm not sure we constituted a more sophisticated class than the far broader spectrum of gamers in 2010. Todays spectrum now includes all kinds of people (grown ups and some lady-types) many of whom might be interested in imaginative and inventive storytelling in games.

All in all the indie game scene is a lot healthier than the indie film scene. I think we must stop lamenting the death of adventure games.

[strangechicken]

Well for the record I can actually acurately say tragedies are all the same: Because I have a graduate diploma In Creative arts (Basically Multimedia, theatre, film etc)  majoring in theatre and the history and they were cookie cutout formulas, in fact Shakespeare so called greatest play "Hamlet" is a rip off of Thomas Kyd's Play "The spanish tragedy" down to the ghost who is being avenged and watches everything!  In fact there talk amongst scholars that there was a play called "Ur-hamlet" that shakespeare directly copied; we must remember there was no real copyright so they stole absolutely everything off each other, you gotta remeber there was no real plot twists, the theatre was a political structure.. so every tragedy IS in essense the same play, just pointing out something different politically at the time. There was a reason both the monarchy and church innitially viewed theatre as "dangerous."

My lecturer was a historian who had a PHD in Shakespeare and Renaisanse history andwas head of many academic boards, but thats off topic! I never said shutter island was bad, In fact I loved it, Di Caprio is probably up there with Christopher Lloyd with my favorite actors, but it still has striking similarities to Calgari's twist and plotline, Except calgari was probably a lot deeper because it was an "Expressionist" film, and Shutter Island, while a good poignant movie and nod to films of yesteryear, was more so main stream entertanment.


Obviously also.. while I admittedly don't have a full picture of the adventure niche genre companies.. but as someone with a university training of the entertainment industy and who has worked and various facets of the entertainment industry professionally (Mostly thru stage work, a few varied multi media jobs). I think it would be inaccurate to say i have the "wrong picture" I just don't have the insight into that specfic area of the industry, and thats accurarate but i do have a very good knowledge of the basics, but admittedly I am simply a purveyor of the fine of art of adventure gaming have been most of my life, I'm not the Be-all and end-all argument i'm just stating my view as i see it and I think thats a fair thing to do in a public forum.

I will not disagree that telltale outdoes Sierra, I will be completely honest, Sierra's writing was cliche and spewed out, if it were an action games dialogue, it would be in the same vain as "house of the dead." they weren't the strongest writers around, and i'm not saying that there isn't new good content, i'm just saying that its a sad thing that its so few and sparce, when in my era it wasn't h ard to find something fun to play, now we have to grovel and scavange for someone to release something for us...

Finally the indie film scene is not dead, its just what it is, Independant: thus not that heavily publicised, most major cities and EVEN rural cities have a number of indie film festivals, and some even get incuded in the major film festivals such as cannes, and the Indie scene IS booming, where did I ever say it wasn't? I have seen a lot of good product come out of AGS, and there is probably still a lot to come out of it, but for years before finding AGS I had nothing. My debate is more about commercial companies than the indie scene.

The issue is even with a booming independant community you'd rarely get anyone without a predisposition to adventure gaming in some form, so all we can do here is preach to the converted, where commercial games, due to their marketing and commercial status has more ability to reach out and find new fans and help the community grow.

But as I said earlier in this post, this is just my oppinion, i'm not saying you have to agree or disagree, its just what it is: An oppinon, and again I believe it is fair to do that on a public forum

[Ali]

You're not the only one with a mickey mouse degree in Theatre & Film etc. *Ahem...*

The fact that Shakespeare borrowed material doesn't make all tragedies the same. Are you telling me Hamlet and King Lear are the same? Narratively, thematically, emotionally, politically? Come on, now!

I also doubt I overstated the problems independent film is facing. In the UK at least we're in for a cold winter. *Shakes fist at Coalition government*.

I just wanted to offer an alternate perspective. I hope you enjoy some of the newer games I suggested!

[strangechicken]

ah yeah! in Australia indie film is huge,  but than its really all the new content  because commercially *looks down* they only make on average 7 commerical films a year! So most everything else is an independant project, and whats mickey mouse about a degree in theatre and film, its actually based on a mixture of historical accuracy whic provides context, psychology to understand the human condition and relate to our audience, I am NOT trained as an actor, I wish to point that out as many seem to have ono clear differintiation, I am an academic, a dramaturg, writer, Historian etc: that is my study focus, and tho the plot changes, they're still following the same conventions set by Aristotle in the "Ars Poetica" (tho a few rules are distrupted here and there). So they are in essne the same play, different characters.

In the same instance that there is a thousand horror films abotu a lemented teenage high school girl who becomes an undead or supernatural killing machine and kills her tormentor in her high school (Carrie probably the prime example), in fact walk into any video rental store and go to the horror/thriller section, and you will find at least 10 films in the first 5 minutes with exactly that description, tragedy is in essense that!

and I respect your oppinion, but in some thing I believe we will just have to agree to disagree

[Ali]

I don't agree with the tragedy/unimaginative slasher movie parallel, but I will agree to disagree.

And by mickey mouse, I mean the kind of media-related degree I did. That is, one which will be little use in the unlikely event of global economic meltdown. No offence intended!

[strangechicken]

but I will agree to disagree

and that is what academia is all about, because every academic knows there IS no definitive truth, only different perspectives of the one event.

No offence intended!

Sorry bout that, but its not uncommon for people to try to discredit theatre as viably academic, the other day I had a nurse tell me my degree was ultimately pointless and just about wearing funny costumes and entertaining children. That's not what theatre, well the theatre I prefer to do is about; and in fact I could make the argument without theatre the medical degree would not exist as it is today,  because, the initial disection of bodies, where the renaissanse depictions of the human body were debunked (Much to to dispair of the catholic church) in ticket shows, hence where the term "Operating theatre" comes from, otherwise we'd still think the vagina was an internal penis, the body is made of 4 humors, and that women are irrational because hysteria festers in their womb (Hence hysterectomy).

[bicilotti]

I am an academic, a dramaturg, writer, Historian etc: that is my study focus, and tho the plot changes, they're still following the same conventions set by Aristotle in the "Ars Poetica"

You meant Horace, didn't you?

[strangechicken]

You meant Horace, didn't you?

Nope,  Because really all the concepts horace talked about where handed down by Aristotle; Horace was a student of Aristotle and Aristotle was in turn a student of plato, Horace did change a few things here and there but fundamentally it is the same foundation and roughly the same ideas and concepts (plays must be 5 acts, Etc.).

[bicilotti]

You meant Horace, didn't you?

Nope,  Because really all the concepts horace talked about where handed down by Aristotle; Horace was a student of Aristotle and Aristotle was in turn a student of plato, Horace did change a few things here and there but fundamentally it is the same foundation.

Then why a latin title for a work written in greek?

[strangechicken]

Then why a latin title for a work written in greek?

Just because he was a student of Aristotle doesn't mean he was greek does it? I could be a student of the work of Samuel Beckett and the man is long dead, the period of Horace was really about them digging up old material to understand how the world works in both a physical and metaphysical way, most notably the works of people like aristotle and pythagoras, horace was roman. It was one of those "whats old is new again"  and we can learn from it type eras. Kind of like the english renaisanse, the age of re-enlightenment. so horace took Ari's words, translated and reinterpreted them for roman poets and playwrights, but really it was all pretty much the work of aristotle, he is really the creative force behind "Ars Poetica" horace was fundementally just a translator hence why in academic circles they are called the NEO-classical rules, not simply the classical rules.  

I hope that cleared things up for you.