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Originally Posted by Ninth
But there are still the odd successful AG, like Runaway. How do you explain Runaway's european success? I mean, it goes to show that no matter how good a game is, if it's properly marketed (and of course decent) it will work, and people will like it.
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The problem is that the successes are isolated incidents, and they're isolated for issues of quality. We're pretty much mired in a (genre) culture of mediocrity, and the few games that rise above that are not able to pull the genre with it. I agree that good marketing is essential, but until the
overall standard of quality is raised again, that marketing will always be working at a disadvantage. Each and every quality game that comes out is saying something to the effect of "This game isn't like all the other games that suck!" It may manage to sell itself decently, but it still doesn't change the gaming culture at all.
No one game will accomplish this, as it has to be genre-wide progress. That's why anyone hoping that Dreamfall or Indigo Prophecy will "revitalize" the genre is in for a disappointment. If the genre is going to succeed, it won't be the the one-off, high end successes that drive it, but the smaller games that come up behind them.
Also, of course there are all kinds of crap games in other genres. The difference being, those games don't need to sell the
genre they belong to, as they're already popular. Adventures have both hurdles to overcome.
