Well, it's a shame that the main point has been obscured by arguing semantics.
That's why I was trying to point out that there was a different vocabulary at work here - each equally valid, depending on one's perspective. For Tim and many others, a "Myst clone" is obviously any game whose style and format was inspired by the success of Myst (doesn't matter that Myst wasn't the first; it was the most popular, and the name people associated with that style). That's a broad categorization that includes the Egypts, Sacred Amulet, Beyond Time, etc. Arguing whether these games should
properly be called Myst clones based on a more specific interpretation doesn't at all address the point of what influence they had on the genre.
Just for clarification, I personally did not even emphasize the poor quality of many of these games. Though many of these were vastly inferior to the Myst series, and even the better ones are rarely unanimously lauded, it's
saturation that's the key. The many people who don't like this format found their options shrinking drastically, and so started drifting away from the genre. They were (relatively) cheap to make, and had a guaranteed (though limited) market, so we got more and more of them, and publishers became less and less inclined to take risks or diversify. Yes, developers started adding more plot, and including more inventory and dialogue, but the format remained largely the same.
It's
still the same, even in better current efforts like Aura and Dark Fall 2. Fortunately, we're really starting to see different styles making an overdue return, so there's again a variety to choose from.
