I keep seeing people repeat the same stuff.
Adventure games aren't dead because:
A: people still care about them
B: Game X/y/or z was released recently, and therefor it is an example of adventure games living on.
C: adventure games/ideas/etc can't die
So far the only thing I agree with is what 'After a brisk nap" said - adventure games are forgotten.
But just because someone can list a couple games that have been released (hotel dusk, ace attorney, runaway, whatever) doesn't mean there is some thriving adventure game market out there.
In the 90's there were hundreds of these games released. Is someone here actually trying to convicne me that a genre which once consisted of 20-30 titles per year is still viable due to a measly 3 or 4 games?
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Well, what does it mean to be dead commercially?
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It means that studios no longer find it viable to release adventure titles for profit.
Most games released these days are by fans - for fans. Just because some company cranks out nancy drew games doesnt mean the entire industry isn't dead - it just means that one company is taking advantage of the obvious void and making a couple bucks off of it. Yet a company who releases a crappy cell phone game based on star wars can make double that.
Vivendi Universals recent handling of the sierra game compilations is a perfect example of just how significat adventure games are to the commerical video game market - ie: null. We got crappy boxes with pdf manuals, missing titles (ll7, original non-vga versions), buggy versions (kq7), and even stripped down versions (ll6 voices missing).
If the adventure game wasn't 'commercially dead' then we (the adventure game community) wouldnt have been treated to such a half-assed release.
Again - to repeat - just becasue a small developer puts a game together and sells it for $20 does NOT mean that adventure games are not commercially dead.
To say otherwise is ignoring:
A: release figures
B: reviews of a majority of recent games (see last post on this for further details)
C: complete disregard of old titles by BOTH Lucasarts AND Sierra.
A crapload of myst clones, fmv games, with a few fan gems thrown in for good measure do not add up to a thriving industry.
People around here can debate on what a 'dead genre' means until the cows come home. I believe there is still a great level of artistry in the genre - but commercially (ie: economically) there is hardly any money to be made. New businesses are not entering, and all the old established companies have left. Now, if thats not economically dead, then what is? And seriously - selling any game for $5-15 bucks is a bloody joke, thats just covering the cost of pretzels and twinkies consumed during the proggraming, it's definately not paying anyone's rent.
