Will LA Noire make adventures mainstream again, or was it just a failed experiment?
 

Hello everyone!
I'm playing L.A. Noire at the moment, and I love it. I know some of you hate it for the fact that it's too easy, but I think it's a great way to make an adventure game that is for a broader audience and with very high quality standards that come from working with Rockstar

Will this push the game industry to consider adventure games and thinking games in general, as opposed to mindless clickfest?

Or is this game going to be remembered as loved by the critics, but disappointing the audience?

Already at my local store the returns are piling up. Obviously people who expected to see GTA V, or aren't used to using their minds in gaming have rejected it.

On the other hand this game is open to more than just the average console gamer, it can be played by all ages and both sexes (unfortunately most of these people who might enjoy it don't own a console)

thoughts...

If LA Noire alters the perception of less combat-heavy games at all amongst triple-A publishers then that would be an important step forward. Whatever happens, it can't really be labeled a failure considering its critical and commercial success (first month sales are apparently very strong -- 800,000+ in America).

None of the above.

I think it's a positive thing, but it's not going to revolutionize anything. Heavy Rain and most Bioware games have done more to bring adventure game / story based / choice based elements into mainstream gaming than L.A. Noire has. And they made better games when doing it.

But it's always nice to see a game like this succeed.

I haven't played any of these recent AG-influenced games myself, but I feel I can still say something about their influence.

First of all, none of the choices fit in my opinion. I don't think it's really such a pure AG as we're usually talking in these forums. However, with the success of Heavy Rain and LA Noire (unlike the poster above, I wouldn't count Bioware in this category,they are a very different story entirely in my opinion) I believe there is a clear indication that a) there is a market for more than just pure action (in any form, be it shooters or sports or whatever) and b) there is commercial viability in them.

The effect, however, I cannot see being revolutionizing. There has however been a slight trend recently towards more "intellectual content" in games, and I believe these games will influence that. And perhaps there is a little bit of additional interest towards more traditional AGs too thanks to these games.

That, however is very narrow, and the real effect of these games (not a huge one, but effect nonetheless), I believe, is indeed in these type of hybrid AGs, we'll probably see more of them (not truckloads, but some) and also other games might take a little more influence and focus a little more on story, characters etc.

To sum up: nothing revolutionizing, but hopefully a little bit of more content here and there in all kinds of games..

Arguably, heavy rain already did this and the result is a game like LA noire (and i am aware la noire was in development longer). But yeah, with this games success will probably come more games like it.

Telltale's Jurassic Park is supposedly tailored after Heavy Rain (not sure if that's a good thing).

I think in general Telltale handling Jurassic Park as well as Back to the Future will have huge impact on the adventure games market, just as Heavy Rain and L.A.Noire.

The main theme I heard at E3 this year was how everyone was getting sick of shooters and pined for more story in their games.

But until the mass unwashed started buying more Heavy Rain or La Noire and less Call of Duty I can't see a huge change.

There will be more emphasise on story in all games and we will probably get one or two of this style of big-ish budget game that blurs the genre boundaries, but ultimatly until the adventure game developers start getting bigger budgets we will still have the likes of Art of Murder etc low budget games.

Not to say that's a bad thing. Fantastic Stories and Characters don't need millions of dollars.

It's not likely to start any revolution back towards adventure games, but it may inspire some developers to be more inclined to take the risk, since there are two adventure games(regardless of not being classic point-n-click games) that have sold very well with the proper work and marketing.

I wouldn't even consider it an adventure game anyway. I spent most of it driving around, and shooting people. So this poll is stupid.

not a stupid poll, but know one brought up that most of you are probably thinking of the old school adventure games and not the evolved current generation of adventure games. If people can't say LA Noire is an adventure, then Portal 2 is on the same boat, plus many other quality adventure bordering games.

Well if driving around shooting things is the current generation of adventure games, I can't wait to see what the next generation will be. I'm thinking something like Mortal Kombat crossed with Carmageddon ;)

Huh?
 

Adventure games ARE mainstream. Prof Layton was THE MOST popular title on the 3DS when it launched. In fact over 10 million copies of Prof. Layton games have been sold. The Ace Attorney series has sold over 4 million copies and is one of Capcoms best selling series.

Lastly, May 2011 was one of the worst months for Video Games sales - the only bright spot - LA Noire sold over 800,000 copies.

I've been playing these games since the C128 in 1985. We had one main publisher (Infocom) and a total of approx 26 adventure titles published over the life of the platform. Today, I can find 26 adventure games for the Nintendo DS for sale in the average store.

I did hear that only 12,000 copies of Gray Matter were sold on the PC worldwide. Anyway, back to playing Hotel Dusk - which shipped 230,000 copies in Japan alone.

:D

What's the source of that info? To me it sounds less probable then if someone said it sold 7,000,000.

7,000 would be very hard to believe even if it was just the number of retail copies.

99% of the time the driving is completely optional. I spent the whole game getting my partner to drive and fast travelling to the next adventure bit.

Alos you can't pull the gun out unless the story demands it.

Compared to any normal open world game there is very little actualy shooting involved in the game.

Sales
 

The basis of the sales figure for Gray Matter is here:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/forum...ad.php?t=28847

http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/38506/gray-matter/

I'd have to now ask the question: will the LA Noire PC conversion make PC gaming mainstream again?

The link you provided tells 10,233 units sold for the PC within "the first" 10 weeks. I've put "the first" in quotes because the shown release date (23.02.2011) is wrong - the game was in shops around most European countries since November 2010 and the English version was available for online purchase for everyone from day one, so there had to be many more copies sold during the 4 months before this chart even starts.

It's difficult to tell how much of the market VGChartz is able to keep an eye on, but by comparison the number for Hotel Dusk sales outside of Japan, on the same website, within first 10 weeks is 52,000 units.

The difference is hardly staggering.

Hotel Dusk
 

I have 247,000 copies of Hotel Dusk sold - which is completely staggering:

http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales...dusk-room-215/

Yes, the Japanese love playing adventure games on their Nintendo DS systems - which benefits me greatly. I buy Japanese Nintendo DS adventure games.

Here's another that really shows a HUGE gap in america: Prof Layton and the Unbound Future:

190,000 sales in America alone and 2 million 275,000 thousand total. THAT is a staggering difference over the PC selling 12,000 copies of Gray Matter world wide.

So:

1) Adventure games are among the very best selling games sold today.

2) LA Noire is a best selling game - regardless of genre.

Hey, Mikekelly I'm not arguing against your comment about several adventure game titles selling very well. I'm very happy about that, and I'm glad you pointed it out.

I just feel it's a bit unfair to compare Gray Matter to the other games you mentioned the way you did.

For example, 200,000 of all the 250,000 worldwide sales of Hotel Dusk (in the first 10 weeks) came from Japan - that's something that completely sets apart the number of copies a game like Hotel Dusk can sell from the number of copies a non-Japanese adventure game like Gray Matter can sell.

As for Layton, I hope you realize what huge budgets and marketing machines are behind this franchise (and it's a whole series already that's been going on or a while, not just 1 title). At least one Layton full feature film already appeared in cinemas - imagine how much exposure it brings to the games!

Finally, like I mentioned before, the 12,000 of Gray Matter sales number doesn't seem to include the sales from the first 4 months after its release. Probably doesn't include the sales of the game's digital copies either (I hear those are quite difficult to track).

Obviously you never played the game, else you would realize that there isn't much shooting nor is driving manditory.

lol in order for a genre to survive, it must diversify. If you think adding "OPTIONS" to shoot or drive is stupid, then go ahead and kill adventure games. You know what, I'm going to go back to playing Zork and complain about how people today are so stupid because games like this died.

Relax, I haven't played it, I was responding to the guy who said he was driving around shooting for 98% of the time. I wouldn't have called that diversification, that's all.