[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by Giligan

I do, yes. Perhaps "prejudiced" was the wrong word, inclined would be more fitting. I suspect that amateur adventure game players are more inclined to play a game in an engine they're familiar with, yes.

Why I came to this conclusion, is very simple. I have seen a lot of polished, great games in other engines that never achieved large popularity. It could be because the develper didn't adventise the game enough, yes. Still, for example, take a look at this site. There are by far, more adventure games in AGS written about than games of other engines. I realize that the writers will deny this. Call it anti-AGS prejudice if you wish, but as a whole, games have an increased chance of fame and popularity if they're made with AGS. On a site, like, say Adventure Developers, where a good deal of staff here hang out, you will see a good many non-AGS games being promoted, but they just don't seem to reach popularity levels of AGS games.

I'll grant you straight away that we write more often about AGS games than games made with other engines. Why is that? Because there are many times more AGS games to write about. Let's see... I just did a feature on six recent Underground games. All were made in AGS, and all were released between May 31 and now (not by any means all the AGS games released during that time, I hasten to add). How many games made with any of the other engines were released in the same time period? As far as I can tell: none. In fact, the most recent non-AGS Underground game I can find is What Makes You Tick, released back around May 6. And before that you have to go back to February. Given that reality, how are we not supposed to write more about AGS games?

Take, for example, two adventure games that came out in 2003. Out of Order and The Apprentice. Both were supposed to be excellent games. One was SLUDGE, one was AGS. Whereas, say, Out of Order isn't heard of anymore, you can't throw a dead cat without hitting an article praising The Apprentice, if you'll excuse the expression. I realise I'll invoke a lot of comments about how The Apprentice was much better than Out of Order and whatnot, and therefor worthy of more mention, but my point stands.

I wouldn't say Out of Order has been forgotten (it was featured on the Underground SOTD thread a while back, for example), and you hear less about Apprentice these days than you did a couple of years ago. But even if you're right, it's almost meaningless to compare two games (that aren't even particularly similar), because there are so many confounding factors. The Herculean guys made a sequel and a deluxe version of Apprentice, and a third game is in the works, while there has been nothing new to report about OOO since its release. In addition, Ian and Greg Schlaepfer have worked on a number of other games since then, while Tim Furnish has more or less vanished. Or you might compare the Herculean Effort Productions website with the Hungry Software one; I know which one I find more pleasant and easy to navigate (not to mention which one is more regularly updated).