[BacardiJim]

My point is that market saturation of a particular style of AG is irrelevant. For years, we had only text adventures. They had 100% of the market. Didn't make for a decline in their popularity. Then we had the mixture of text and graphics. For several years, this presentation was dominated by a first-person perspective. Again, no decline. Then came the Sierra heyday and a shift to a saturation of 3rd-person perspective. No decline.


There has been, in fact, no decline in the popularity of adventure games (in actual numbers), regardless of what style of game is most prevalent at any given time. There has only been a decline in the share of the market as the number of homes with computers has increased, the market for PC games has shifted to include platform gamers, and there has been a decrease in the profit to be made from adventure games.

[Jackal]

Except never before has such a change in game style polarized adventure gamers. You know that full well. The previous genre shifts had no such effect.

There has been, in fact, no decline in the popularity of adventure games (in actual numbers), regardless of what style of game is most prevalent at any given time. There has only been a decline in the share of the market as the number of homes with computers has increased, the market for PC games has shifted to include platform gamers, and there has been a decrease in the profit to be made from adventure games.

I know. I already stated that. In case you missed it (italics added this time around)...

"As for the "Myst killed adventures" argument, there are definitely many reasons for AG's losing popularity (at least relative to other genres), but oversaturating the market with Myst clones is definitely one of the contributing factors."

Add in consoles, and you're really saying nothing I didn't. I just believe that "the genre" is partly responsible for sculpting its own predicament. It was short-sighted planning to overwhelmingly adopt the new style, to the exclusions of old favourites. Just a piece of the puzzle.

[BacardiJim]

Except never before has such a change in game style polarized adventure gamers. You know that full well. The previous genre shifts had no such effect.

I absolutely recognize that fact. And once again, the blame lays squarely on Nintendo's Donkey Kong-sized shoulders.

During the birth of adventure gaming until about 1985 or so, adventure games were aimed at a specific target group: middle- and upper-middle-class college-educated professional White Americans age 25-40. These were the people who could afford home computers. These were the "puzzle fanatics" at whom games were aimed. Action games were the province of video arcades, who aimed at the 13-25 age demographic and didn't give a damn about family income.

Nintendo came along and changed everything.

The platform offered a variety and technological advance previously unavailable in home "arcade" gaming. It gave the kids a way to play their arcade games at home, which parents supported wholeheartedly. ("Now I know where he is.") The cartridges allowed for in-school game exchanges. And the affordibility of the platform made it available for even lower-income families. Nintendo replaced Gilligan's Island as the latchkey babysitter. By 1990, one in four American homes had a Nintendo system, while only one in eight had a PC.

Around 1990, PC's started to catch up. Decreasing prices and the increased use of computers in the workplace led to a gradual increase in the number of homes which had a PC. Yet all this time, PC's were vastly outnumbered by game platform systems. Around 1995, there was a sudden upsurge in the number of home PC's. (Could be Windows--could be the price drop.) By the year 2000, over half of American homes had a game platform system, while PC's had caught up to one in three homes.

It is during this same period that the kids originally raised by Nintendo became "economically viable" adult market factors. Think about it. The kid who was 10 when he got Mario Brothers was in college and had a computer when Doom came out. And by the year 2000, every kid who was babysat by NES had a computer. Did they want slow-paced-make-ya-think adventure games?

Now we are dealing with the results of this economic and gaming shift. PC game publishers now actively go after not only the adults of that generation, but their kids, seeing a wide open marketplace for Platform-based gaming. Meanwhile, the gene pool keeps reproducing a fairly standard number of bright people who are drawn to the traditional "Lemme alone and lemme solve this puzzle" style of game.

It is the fact that the first (and, in some cases, second) platform-generation has now achieved a public voice and preference which is in direct opposition to those who gave birth to and wet-nursed the genre that has led to the current polarization.

I assert that 75% of all 1st- vs 3rd-person or story vs puzzle or "Myst sucks" vs "Myst rules" conflict comes down to this difference.

However..... I will admit that those on both sides of the coin are just as adamant, argumentative and full of self-righteousness as those one the other. Nobody is "right" in these debates. But I lay the Genesis of the debates themselves directly on a doorstep in Redmond, Washington.

[Jackal]

Hmm, well, I'd already agreed that console popularity was a factor, but I'm afraid I see no connection between console background and one's preference for a style of adventure gaming. I can see it perhaps in the p&c vs direct control, 2D vs 3D debates, as those issues are actually related. But not the Myst-style vs 3/P inventory issue, particularly when so many of the latter were common before PC's and consoles really took off or changed the purchasing demographics as you outlined. So no, that's just individual taste, like preferring sweet, sour, or salty. There's no "blame" needed. Which, of course, is exactly why there's no right or wrong between those who like one and dislike the other.

[BacardiJim]

Yeah. I'm sure that the fact that there was only ever one single 1st-person adventure game ever on the NES platform (In fact, only one adventure game period), and only a very few 1st-person RPG's and virtually no 1st-person arcade games had nothing to do with a preference shift.

[Jackal]

Well, it hasn't seemed to hurt the FPS genre.

[BacardiJim]

Never mind. I give up. I knew what I had to say would be rejected. Said so in my earlier post.


Nintendo killed adventure games. This forum is a haven for Nintendo kids who are AG fans. Therefore the contention (as factual and logical as it may be) that Nintendo killed adventure games more than any single factor will be automatically rejected.

Waste of my typing.

[Jackal]

Strange. I agreed with you twice that it WAS a factor. I just don't agree with over-simplifying. And of course, I'm just one person. Who knows what anyone else thinks. I thought that was the purpose of the forum - to discuss different ideas.

[BacardiJim]

Originally Posted by Jackal

Strange. I agreed with you twice that it WAS a factor. I just don't agree with over-simplifying. And of course, I'm just one person. Who knows what anyone else thinks. I thought that was the purpose of the forum - to discuss different ideas.

And yet every time you "agreed," you had to find a way to work in how wrong I was. Look back over your posts. Every single one of them argues that I am partly right, and yet partly clueless.

*sigh*

Screw it.

[oerhört]

First of all, BacardiJim - discussion is what this forum is for.

As for the "Nintendo killed the adventure genre", I think you may be onto something. But the issue's got to be more complicated than that. A lot of today's console gamers were born after 1990, yet still they seem to prefer more arcadey sorts of games. I believe the reason may well be that "straight-to-the-action" games appeal more in general. Action game developers have also been better at utilizing new system power and coming up with better game/interface systems, and therefore, adventures throughout the 90's seemed more and more "dull" in comparison. Is this because of Nintendo?

Furthermore, I think it's fair to ask if the people who fell in love with Nintendo's ways (and later Sony's) would have been interested in adventures at all. My guess is, maybe 1/5 of them, and I believe most of that 1/5 do play adventures today.

Also, many popular console games have large portions of story and adventure elements. Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, the Zelda series - don't you believe these may well cater for much of the market for such games? Are these really "killing" the genre, or are they mixing and extending it?

[Wormsie]

Originally Posted by BacardiJim

And yet every time you "agreed," you had to find a way to work in how wrong I was. Look back over your posts. Every single one of them argues that I am partly right, and yet partly clueless.

I thoght it was more like "You're right, but also...".

I don't think it should matter than much. C'mon, people, these are just GAMES.

[Jackal]

So... I agreed with parts and disagreed with others. In the process, I'm also highlighting the areas that you disagree with me (since it works both ways), but I'm not getting uptight about it.

Frankly, I find it a good topic, and worth looking at all its complexities.

[AFGNCAAP]

As soon as the "Myst-Clone" definition problem was dealt with , I found your discussion captivating, BJ and Jackal, and I really wouldn't like it to become a row instead.

[Jackal]

No reason it should, AFGNCAAP. An exchange of ideas and perspectives is a healthy thing, and no one should feel threatened by having their views challenged.

[BacardiJim]

As for the "Nintendo killed the adventure genre", I think you may be onto something. But the issue's got to be more complicated than that. A lot of today's console gamers were born after 1990, yet still they seem to prefer more arcadey sorts of games.

Think about it. The 13-year old kids you are talking about are the sons and daughters of the first Nintendo generation. They have a console platform in their home at birth, being played by their (typically) father. Don't you think this helps mold that kid's gaming preferences?

Plus, of course, kids in general prefer a faster-paced game. It's only natural. They tend to have shorter attention spans and a higher drive for instant gratification than, say, the original 30-year-old adventure gamer. In the 80's, this wasn't an issue for PC AG players, as kids didn't have much access to computers, so there was little market for PC "actiony" games. But the Nintendo revolution and the huge growth in the number of homes with PC's changed all that.

Originally Posted by BacardiJim

And yet every time you "agreed," you had to find a way to work in how wrong I was. Look back over your posts. Every single one of them argues that I am partly right, and yet partly clueless.

*sigh*

Screw it.

You seem to think that the world has one purpose and one purpose only: to stroke your ego and tell you what a great person you are, a true genius with views that no-one can challenge.

"Next Betje will pop in to back me up and I'll actually die of shock!"
(BacardiJim at JA, today)

If that's what it takes to make you disappear into thin air, I'll pop in.

[Kirk]

Hello, all!

I have been out for a while, but I did some searching around and found this interesting discussion here in this side of AG forums.

Jack and Bacardi, you both have some insights and I find both of you to be polite and intuitive in your written commentary.

Bacardi, I am sorry you feel that the forums are plagued by "fanboy-like" fanaticism. I never got that feeling, but I don't have your vantage point. It is just too bad that you feel you are wasting your time typing. I felt that you and Jack opened a door to all the readers and I found it fascinating to read: definitely not a waste to me. Neither one had completely rejected the other's contentions. Your remarks were polite opinions. Thanks for accepting them as perspectives.

The Nintendo talk sparks my interest a bit. But, curiously, can Myst and the transformation of the Adventure genre to first-person, puzzle-laden quests be at all connected to Nintendo? How about Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom? In all honesty, when I was a young lad, I adored this game. Sad, yes. But true. I might even go so far as to say it opened my eyes to the PC world of adventure gaming. Thus, Nintendo, on a personal scale, got me hooked.

Consoles have a life all their own, appealing to gamers and audiences in a whole different way than PC (at least for me). I own just about every system, play just about every game and still love adventures the most. Damn you, Nintendo! Princess Tomato infected me and drove me to play all night for weeks struggling, sweating... doing anything I could to venture beyond that mean stalk of celery.

Oh, yes. The good old days of console gaming and strange, eight-color adventure games.



Kirk

[Jake]

Nintendo killed adventure games? When I was 12 my favorite two games were Super Mario Bros 3 and Monkey Island 2. Most people I know my age who played games regularly either owned a Sega or a Nintendo console, and played PC games as well, be it Wing Commander and that sort of thing, or LucasArts or Sierra adventures, or something like Willy Beamish, of which I don't approve . The fact that there are maybe 20-40something dads who own PS2's now and don't show their kids the glories of Space Quest is not "a cause for the death of adventure games" or whatever. That's more than stretching it.

Originally Posted by jim

Plus, of course, kids in general prefer a faster-paced game.

Don't be so old and generalizing.* Were you a kid once? I know I was, and I loved adventure games. Most all of my friends played them too (even the ones who played sports and talked to girls ... wait, actually I played sports and talked to girls! hooray I've just experienced a major emotional breakthrough!), so in my experience, generally kids like "good games" that they hear about and are recommended to try from their friends and magazines, not just "faster-paced games." Action just happens to be an easier sell and game publishers are cheap and unimaginitive.

Holy crap he said "old" to Jim! Yes yes I did. Bullshit generalizations like that are not the kind of things one makes unless one is old and feels that one knows everything. It sounds like maybe Jim's forgotten some things, or never experienced them properly to begin with.

Edit: come to think of it, at 24 I'm probably too young to weigh in on this in any meaningful matter. I mean, I didn't have an Atari 2600, I had a 7800, I haven't got a family yet, and most of all, my gaming preferences throughout my childhood don't directly support Jim's bellowing. Fortunately this means I'll either be ignored, or a poor attempt will be made to negate my entire argument through violent nitpicking of my least-relevant point.


And for the record, I voted for Riven in the poll.

[Jackal]

Hey, what happened to the extra posts that are missing from earlier pages? Now it looks like I was talking to myself. Which, of course, I often do (particularly on street corners, gesturing wildly), but I wasn't looking to advertise the fact.

My 10 and 11 year old niece and nephew grew up as much with (adventures) Pajama Sam, Magic Schoolbus, Scooby Doo and Spy Fox as they did Banjo Kazooie. What a shame that there's such a dearth of games that will appeal to them as they continue to mature. Though I wasn't speaking entirely of the younger demographic, this fits into my overall point - the genre has really shot itself in the foot by focusing too much on one style of adventure. I do think adventures would have fallen behind action and console games in terms of popularity in any case, but I also believe the genre would be far healthier today if it had maintained a better balance of styles. I'm very encouraged to see more diversity of late.

Originally Posted by Kirk

Princess Tomato infected me

Suddenly, many of my questions about you are answered, Kirk.

Originally Posted by Jackal

Hey, what happened to the extra posts that are missing from earlier pages?

They're gone because I'm gone.