The fate of adventure games

[blunder1983]

I've just moved out to Korea, and being paranoid I wouldn't have much to do in my spare time I downloaded loads of old adventure games, loads of AGS games and brought the last few months PC Gamer.

Now whenever I read PC Gamer and they mention adventure games they always talk about the golden era back in the 90's and the death of the genre. After playing a decent amount of AGS games in the last few weeks, quite frankly I couldn't disagree more.

Back in the gold years of adventure gaming we DID get a lot of great games, but we also got a lot of fairly average ones too. Nowadays we're lucky if we get 4-5 commercial releases in a year, BUT I'd say about 50% of those releases rank pretty high on the quality meter. I just finished Still Life and tho the ending blew it was a pretty awesome game. We got Farenheit coming out soon too. Last year we had Broken Sword 3 (mebbe 2003) and that rocked pretty damn hard.

And then you factor in the homegrown titles. I see adventure gaming not as a dying genre, but as a more evolved genre. EVERYONE wants to make their own game, regardless of what genre it is. This is reflected in the success of Nwn editors and the billions of mods for unreal hl etc etc. BUT only adventure games allow a regular joe (who admittedly must have some artistic talent as a rule) come along and create their own masterpiece. And I think masterpiece is a pretty accurate description of a lot of the games I've played from AGS. Ben Jordan, started off with a weak episode is now blisteringly good with eps 3 & 4. 5 days and 7 days both rock a LOT and of course my favourite game, Enclosure is damn fine too. Coming we have loads of others to look forward to, Indiana Jones and Broken Sword 1.5 being my two most eagarly awaited ones.

As AGS advances more and more people will be able to release their creativity into the gaming sector and popularity in the main stream will expand more and more. I see adventure games in a pretty strong position as we have the jump on FPS etc by a good 5 years until similar programmes are written for them, but even then they wont enjoy the accessibility, or story making potential AGS does.

So next time you hear someone say the genre is dead just smile, cause its places like this site that are not only keeping the scene alive but ensuring its life for many years to come.

Chris

[Hakujin]

Without getting too much into what I have to say in my novel (hopefully), I think Adventure games failed b/c of a confluence of things:

a) Market overload. About the time Lucasarts got into game making, everybody and their dog was making them. It was like the pre-crash home gaming boom that nearly tanked the industry in the early 80s. Even Sierra's games began to bog down in quality from 1990 onwards. With everyone jumping in the market, the cost of developing AGs so high and 90% of them sucking serious ass, it was inevitable.

b) rise of the Fisrt Person Shooter. Admit it. FPSes like Doom and Duke Nukem were amazing when they came out. Still are in their own right. They were completely fresh, attacked your system with an adrenaline high that was the exact opposite of what the increasingly poorly made AGs offered, and, most of all, very businessman friendly. Why drop hundred of thousands of dollars and countless hours into a reasonably well performing AG when you can invest half that and make 6 times the amount on an FPS?

c) media changes. I noticed Sierra's games really started to dive when they made the journey from VGA to high quality graphics and voice. Because not everyone was on CDs yet, they could only make their games so long on all those 3.25 disks. Those packages BULGED, man. Also, they were making sequels of sequels to fight the hoard of clones out there. It became about flash more than the game at that point. I mean, KQ3 and 4 look like pieces of shit compared to what's available now, but they're amazing because the only thing you really had was the story line and puzzles to pull it off.

I don't think the AG is dead, but it's gone underground. In some ways that's better. I think people may look back and say that the golden years of the AG started in places like this, thriving underground. But then again, I'm very pro DIY.

[Ponch]

Showing my age here, I know, but adventure games are like punk music.Ã,  The best music trends always occur underground and get the life sucked out of them once all the major labels start incorporating "The _____ Sound" (insert the region of choice here: Seattle, Detroit, West Coast, whatever) into all their new acts. Stip mine an authentic movement and prepackage it for easy consumption... at least until something newer comes along.

Right now some of the best things in gaming are happening in the DIY community. Hell, the better Half Life mods I played recently were more enjoyable that HL2 was! That thing had a fortune behind it and the best it managed IMO was to be a mediocre shadow of the original HL game.

LucasArts made some of the best games once upon a time (and not just adventure games, either) but look at them now. The only interesting Star Wars game on the horizon is the DIY Shadows of the Empire game! What does that say about LucasArts? What does that say about the indie game developers?

The gaming industry is trying desperately to "Hollwood-ize" itself and just like the movie biz, is turning out sequels to what already sold or remaking what was once good. The Honeymooners? House of Wax? These were fine the first time around but why remake them? Do we really need a xXx 2? Or The Fast and the Furious 3?Ã,  The gaming biz isn't interested in anything except that which has already succeeded. Think it will get any better any time soon?

Nah, the good ideas are coming out of the underground right now. This stuff goes in cycles and eventually the guys at the top will wise up and invest in ideas again. But for the moment, it's the little dudes and dudettes like us who can actually put good ideas out there for people to enjoy.

This may be the DIY gamer's golden age.

Ya never know.

- Ponch