[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by AudioSoldier

It's indicative of the fact that this is an "amateur" scene by the virtue that no one can take criticism.

Since you've failed to criticize specific games, and few people involved in this discussion have actually created the games under discussion, your argument seems to have little basis in fact.

Furthermore, I'm not “angry” at fangames or those poor souls who make them either. I do come off overly harsh sometimes but I'm sick and tired of people with high hopes for games (amateur especially) that show no signs of being any good. My harshness is in response to the sickening optimism.

I think, on the contrary, that people only get excited by games that show some signs of being good. Usually this means good graphics, since that's one of the few things you can judge pretty well just from a screenshot, without playing the game.

Just go to the AGS Forums and check out the threads about "Your Most Anticipated Game for 2006/2005/2004".

It's indicative of the genre's poor state that people are overjoyed by the arrival of yet another Sam & Max and MI fan creation. For what? An hour of the same rehashed gaming convention, bundled together with a poor script and reams of clichés?

I agree that a promising (or even not-so-promising) fan game based on an established property tends to generate more interest than an original game of similar potential. I don't think that says anything about the state of the genre, though. It's a universal human trait. Do you think George Lucas's latest film would have been the biggest earner of last year if it wasn't a Star Wars movie? Why do you think Gregory Maguire just wrote a sequel to Wicked? Why does Ultimate Spider-Man, written by Brian Michael Bendis, sell many times as many copies as Powers, also written by Bendis? Why do so many bands reform after their solo careers have failed?

The attention lavished on yet another fan game based on a Sierra or LucasArts classic may be annoying, but it has nothing to do with the adventure game genre or the amateur game community. It just means that name-recognition goes a long way. People like to get more of what they liked the first time around.

Besides, I don't think your description of what we can hope to get from a fan-game captures their potential. KQ2VGA had a very good script, was reasonably fresh in its gameplay, and subverted more clichés than it relied on. It probably wasn't as good as the best Sierra games, but I think it was as good as the average Sierra game. When people look forward to a new fangame, I think they hope it will be as good as KQ2VGA.

I respect the originality in a smattering of fan creations, but they’re simply never good enough to warrant the attention of any but the most desperate. And I mean that in the nicest possible sense.

*sigh*
I wish you would stop talking as if your personal opinion was the objective truth.
I wish you would respond to the people who have listed amateur games we think are good enough to warrant attention with specific criticisms of those games.

Like, what's wrong with KQ2VGA, 5 Days a Stranger, or Two of a Kind, just to name three?

I have a big list of commercial adventure games (old and new) that I own but haven't played. For instance, I bought Return to Mysterious Island but never got around to installing it. I started Still Life, but lost interest in it after about half an hour. I got a hold of Sherlock Holmes: Case of the Serrated Scalpel, and will play it one day when I have time.

When I play amateur adventure games, it's not because I'm desperate. It's because I genuinely enjoy them. I choose to play them rather than play one of the many well-regarded commercial games I could play. Depending on what mood I'm in, I prefer a professional product or a home-made effort.