[crabapple]

It's not total sales over several years time that I'm interested in. Publishers don't look at sales over years. They want instant gratification. So Myst isn't really applicable here unless you want to say the year Myst came out (1993) was the last year an original adventure game could have rivalled a non-adventure in units sold. If there had never been a Myst game before, would Myst IV have sold as well as hit non-adventures? I doubt it.

Could Sam & Max 2 or Full Throttle 2 be expected to sell as well as hit non-adventures, had LucasArts finished them instead of closing down their game production? (Do they even make their own Star Wars games anymore or do they farm them all out to developers like Bioware?)

Grim Fandango was an original adventure game rather than the most recent game in a successful series, or the followup to a successful adventure game. It didn't sell as well as expected.

It looks to me like Full Throttle in 1995 was the last original adventure game LucasArts made that was successful enough to stand on its own merit - and to rival sales of non-adventure titles. So is 1995 the last year when an original adventure game could be expected to bring in as much money as a non-adventure? If you can think of another adventure game which is not a sequel, that came out after 1995 and which sold as well when it came out as hit non-adventures, I'd be interested in knowing. It doesn't have to be a LucasArts game.


edit: I see Broken Sword 1 came out in 1996. Was it a top seller?