[BoyToy]

Originally Posted by Jake

No, the issue isn't marketing. As I said in the post that you quoted, the issue is that there are no adventures that appeal to this audience to market. Figuring out a way to market something to an audience that would otherwise not want that product (eg the current crop of adventure games which, with few exceptions, are geared at a totally different target audience) is actually just called trickery.

Making these games is the first issue. Figuring out how to sell them once they exist is the second one.

No.

You're basing your opinion on the idea, that there are no products existing that would be liked by 8-13 y/o boys. I'm saying: That's a wrong assumption.

I'm talking of marketing something to an audience that does like the product, but simply doesn't know it yet. That's not called trickery. I'd actually call it salvation.

Making these games is the first issue. Figuring out how to sell them once they exist is the second one.

The complete opposite is true - at the moment*)!

*) Note, that's an important confinment I make. Because the situation will not always be the same. And different times need different actions.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

You're basing your opinion on the idea, that there are no products existing that would be liked by 8-13 y/o boys. I'm saying: That's a wrong assumption.

Like what?

[BoyToy]

That depends on the individual boy. Like I said, I agree to the people who said, that there isn't the typical 8-13 y/o boy.

I don't see a reason why there shouldn't be 8-13 y/o boys out there, who'd be capable to play - and enjoy playing - games like "Return To Mysterious Island", "Syberia" or even "Myst IV". Also, I wouldn't discard "Nancy Drew" for boys. And what about "Lemony Snicket" (dunno, wethether you'd qualify that as an adventure though)?

To each their own, you know.

Though I admit, the potential players will be probably more be found on the upper end of the age-range than on the lower of that group.



EDIT: I mean, just remember what you liked to play yourself, when you were in that age! You said you played "Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis" at 12 together with your 10 y/o cousin. Would you say it was tailored for 8-13 year-olds?! I wouldn't say so.

[Steve Ince]

I believe this brings us back to points made earlier in the thread about fun and interaction density. While I'm sure that once boys in the age group are hooked on adventures the games you mention will appeal, I don't think they are the sorts of games that will hook them to begin with. We really do need the modern equivalent of Day of the Tentacle. Psychonauts is the level of quality needed (from what I've seen) but in adventure form.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

That depends on the individual boy. Like I said, I agree to the people who said, that there isn't the typical 8-13 y/o boy.

I don't see a reason why there shouldn't be 8-13 y/o boys out there, who'd be capable to play - and enjoy playing - games like "Return To Mysterious Island", "Syberia" or even "Myst IV". Also, I wouldn't discard "Nancy Drew" for boys. And what about "Lemony Snicket" (dunno, wethether you'd qualify that as an adventure though)?

To each their own, you know.

I don't see those games appealing to a lot of 8-13 y.o. boys, myself.

EDIT: I mean, just remember what you liked to play yourself, when you were in that age! You said you played "Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis" at 12 together with your 10 y/o cousin. Would you say it was tailored for 8-13 year-olds?! I wouldn't say so.

I don't know. I would say that it appealed to me more then than it probably would now. You got to fight nazis and ghosts, travel the world, explore ruins of ancient civilizations, tinker with huge machines, crack jokes and a bullwhip, and escape from life-threatening situations. I mean, if that's not tailored to pre-teen boys, what is?

I'm not aware of any recent (commercial) games that have the things that attracted me to adventure games back when I was 12. Certainly none that achieve the quality package of early 90s LucasArts adventures.

[BoyToy]

Originally Posted by Snarky

Certainly none that achieve the quality package of early 90s LucasArts adventures.

Maybe. But that's a different question, which has nothing to do with the age-group.

[BoyToy]

Originally Posted by Steve Ince

I believe this brings us back to points made earlier in the thread about fun and interaction density. While I'm sure that once boys in the age group are hooked on adventures the games you mention will appeal, I don't think they are the sorts of games that will hook them to begin with. We really do need the modern equivalent of Day of the Tentacle. Psychonauts is the level of quality needed (from what I've seen) but in adventure form.

I understand what you (and Snarky and Jake) are saying. And I am not saying that your proposals wouldn't improve the situation. It would sure have a positive effect.

But I can't stress enough, how much I think people differ in their tastes - even 8-13 y/o boys!

For example: I played DOTT when I was like 22 - and I enjoyed it (and MM @17). But the funny thing is, at the age of 10 or 13 I would have totally disliked those games - finding them 'childish' or something.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

Maybe. But that's a different question, which has nothing to do with the age-group.

Because 8-13 year olds don't care about quality? Kids may not have unfailing taste, but I could certainly distinguish between a great game like Fate of Atlantis and a knockoff like Flight of the Amazon Queen when it came out.

[Kolorabi]

Originally Posted by Snarky

Because 8-13 year olds don't care about quality? Kids may not have unfailing taste, but I could certainly distinguish between a great game like Fate of Atlantis and a knockoff like Flight of the Amazon Queen when it came out.

Flight of the Amazon Queen was not really a knockoff, it was more like a parody. It was about a mad german scientist (hiding in a lederhosen factory) making an army of dinosaur-women to take over the world.

I think it's a pretty good game, btw. I recently completed it again, with my brother and his girlfriend, and we all enjoyed it.

[BoyToy]

Steve, since you're from inside the industry, I can imagine that you'd like to know what you should do to make it appealing to those kids. (And if it may only be only for academic reasons.)

But I think it is very hard (and to a certain degree even dangerous) to make a work of art to suit someone else's likings. In the end, the developer has to love what he's creating himself, too! If that's not the case, it can easily end up in something which could indeed be regarded as 'trickery'.

Though, I am not saying it wouldn't be possible to find the right combination of ideas and developers to wholeheartedly, lovingly, implement an adventure game that is intended for 8-13 y/os! I'm just saying you can't force it. To a certain degree things have to fall into place, to make something really great.
Cause a good adventure game is a work of art, after all!

</MyOpinion>

[EasilyConfused]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

I understand what you (and Snarky and Jake) are saying. And I am not saying that your proposals wouldn't improve the situation. It would sure have a positive effect.

But I can't stress enough, how much I think people differ in their tastes - even 8-13 y/o boys!

For example: I played DOTT when I was like 22 - and I enjoyed it (and MM @17). But the funny this is, at the age of 10 or 13 I would have totally disliked those games - finding them 'childish' or something.

Yes. Trep already addressed this question in previous posts. He was saying you need to take the individual needs and interests of the child into account. Becky's son obviously plays a variety of games. I had certain interests when I was a kid that I don't have now. (Actually, scratch that, I was pretty much exactly the same. Are you sure you wouldn't have liked DOTT back then? )

And it's not that a boy can't or won't like Nancy Drew. And of course we're talking in stereotypes--if that's what your post awhile back that caused the confusion was about, I see your point now.

But that doesn't mean that all that needs to happen for an 8-year old to start wanting to hang out at the AG forum (not that I would recommend that) is for Myst advertisements (sorry to pick on Myst) to appear in every elementary school classroom. It doesn't mean that AG marketers need to spend a ton of effort to push games into under-16s' faces when they have financial constraints as it is. I think you can reasonably say, as I said before that there are general differences in abilities between a ten-year old and a 25-year-old, and so on. And that AG designers, rather than marketers, might benefit from taking that into consideration when making games.

Back to another question I have, that maybe some people who are more technically proficient than I am can answer: how hard would it be to choose the main character's appearance? Has this been done AGs (as opposed to RPGs)? Of course--(duh!)--imagining myself in Steve's shoes answering the question I see that the very first problem this might create is difficulty in the dialogue when it comes to referring to gender.

[BoyToy]

Originally Posted by Snarky

Because 8-13 year olds don't care about quality?

No, you misunderstood me. *lol* Kids absolutely want quaility too, no doubt!

It simply isn't a topic of this discussion, because quality matters to any age-group and any gender! And I was under the impression whe were supposed to be discussing issues which are specific to the group of 8-13 y/o boys. (I got bashed pretty, when I was trying to broaden the scope... )

[BoyToy]

Originally Posted by EasilyConfused

[...] And that AG designers, rather than marketers, might benefit from taking that into consideration when making games.

Yeah, absolutely. But I am just saying this is currently not the priority issue. I would never say your point could be neglected.

how hard would it be to choose the main character's appearance?

You mean... in Myst (sorry to pick on Myst)?

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

No, you misunderstood me. *lol* Kids absolutely want quaility too, no doubt!

It simply isn't a topic of this discussion, because quality matters to any age-group and any gender! And I was under the impression whe were supposed to be discussing issues which are specific to the group of 8-13 y/o boys. (I got bashed pretty, when I was trying to broaden the scope... )

I think it does fall under this discussion, if you're arguing that adventure games that would appeal to 8-13 year olds currently exist. It's not enough for the games to have everything that made classic adventure games appeal to us as kids, if they're not any good.

And if the right games don't exist, then the first step has to be to make the games, not to market the existing ones to an audience that wouldn't like them anyway.

[BoyToy]

That's true - if you're implying that 'we' (14-100 y/o) currently bear with adventure games that aren't of sufficient quality, and that only because we got hooked back in a time when they had sufficient quality?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by BoyToy

That's true - if you're impying that 'we' (14-100 y/o) currently bear with adventure games that aren't of sufficient quality, and that only because we got hooked back in a time when they had sufficient quality?

Implying? Hell, I think it's true! We've had our share of discourse here in the past, people posting that we should be supporting and sustaining the genre by buying as many adventures as we can. Sheesh! How insulting is that to me, buying a game even though it's mediocre, unimaginative, and fundamentally the same since 1996? I'm talking in terms of the quality of the game here, the quality of the product. I can't possibly waste $30-40 of my own money just to 'support' a languishing genre, if I'm not gonna like the game.

[BoyToy]

I think you shouldn't do that (buying a game although you know it's lacking quality)!!!

It is counter-productive. It will harm the genre you love, because (if many people act like that) there won't be a commercial pressure for quality anymore.

It's like a lion raised in the zoo: It will lose it's ability to hunt its own food and will have to be fed forever!

[EasilyConfused]

Oh watch out, the thread is going to morph into an AG War thread!!! Argh!!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

< sees the shit coming towards the fan and puts on his Echani armor and eats an adrenaline stimulant, battle stimulant, and turns on Force Shield >

[EasilyConfused]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

< sees the shit coming towards the fan and puts on his Echani armor and eats an adrenaline stimulant, battle stimulant, and turns on Force Shield >

Spoiler:

Shields don't help fighting ragkhouls.

And what's more:

Spoiler:

KOTOR II is on sale (okay, only $5 off, but that's one more truffle for you, Trep) at Amazon.

Ahem. Back on Topic . . . continue.