[Lain]

Sorry didn't have time to read all the posts, but I read most of them and want to contribute my 2 cents to this important thread, even if it's expiring.

The gaming industry, like film, televison and all other sections of the entertainment industry is about one thing: MONEY. I will reiterate what everyone else has been saying, there is simply not enough money to be made from older-style inventory-based adventure games to make them profitable from a company's perspective. (We are an ADD, 3D graphics, shoot-em-up, generation of gamers today)

Of course, just like there are independent "fringe" films being made, there are adventure games being made constantly outside of the mainstream industry. While these games will NEVER (and I'd put money on that), NEVER have the kind of budget mainstream games have, they will still be produced there as long as our COMMUNITY of adventure gamers is there to support them.

Our graphics engines, our 3D modeling, our rendered cutscenes, will ALWAYS be a step behind the lastest developments in the industry. However, my greatest hope is that adventure game developers will revert to the things that made and still make adventure games great: story, characters, and inventory-based puzzles.

Frankly, I care less about eye-candy than about a great storyline, dynamic characters, and fun, clever puzzles. If I want a great looking game then I'll play HL2. I want something unqiue, avant-garde (eg Omikron, TLE), and clever. These can be made with low-budgets and still turn a profit.

All this being said, I'm greatly looking forward to Dreamfall. Not nessesarily because I have high hopes for it as a successful and time-enduring adventure game, but because it's one of the first "pure" adventure games that is beginning to compete on the level of all the mainstream action games. However, like I said before, if we try to compete entirely on this level, adventure games will fail miserably, mainly because gamers like me will either be playing old Sierra/LA games or HL2-type games.

[Christian IV]

Actually FunCom got a grant from the Norwegian Govt. to help with Dreamfall, but they have done a LOT on their own.

This is a very interesting thread, just checked in......after all is considered I am coming to come back to the basic questions of why we play games,
and what it is that tickles our hearts and the hearts of those who buy
or help create our games....for if we find that Gold at the end of the rainbow, no one will think twice about terms of success or funding...the creations of the heart that speak to the real needs of us all will sail on through all the shoals and narrows .....

Life is frankly a daily adventure, a risk, a danger, and full of gifts. All the adventure games we mention and think of have all of these. Some more
easily and beautifully accessible. Maybe the new high tech 3D, and engines
and high speed make new in game horizons closer, but still what will hold us and bring the millions who now do not play CGI to the keyboard and screen?
I feel that CGI is truly the newest literature, media, what have you, and
the wave is growing of users daily.....the quality spoken of so well in this thread is right here before us, if we can find it. I am feeling that this can be a way for many to achieve what some of the great successes in game creation have done, though each time it will be different. The marketing
mavens who set a dollar figure and goals of unit sales are the same devils who are trying to pull down book publishing and many other creative fields....
and the perseverance and craftyness and acumen to step past them is challenging but posible, i feel, after surveying and studying the history of games development now for some years.......

How?

A story. Told beautifully. Told with chances for the player to particpate.
To learn. To learn about themselves AND the story. To be able to identify, resonate with SOMETHING in the story. To come away better or happier, or
sadder but more alive, than when they began the game. And for the game to be gentle, or smooth or sweet for the fingers as well as the eyes, and the challenges to be new or inviting.......to ask us in, rather than to pull us in,
to bring us along, and convey meaning, rather than force results.....

The gaming communtiy and gamers are smart and creative people, and the game creators are even smarter and even more creative. but the fears of
what if, and no way, and how to seem to grow into titans ....and pulll us back. I feel there is a revolution happeing, but a quiet one, one of potential, and possiblity and we have passed through a narrow place that almost did
kill off adventure graphic gaming literature, but it didnt.....and now we have
a new horizon, a new chance....

I will go back and re real all the posts here tomorrow night, but wanted to
speak to hope for now. thanks for such a great thread.!

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by Lain

The gaming industry, like film, televison and all other sections of the entertainment industry is about one thing: MONEY.

I think this pretty much sums it up. The entertainment industry is concerned first and foremost with money - it's a business. That's why crummy Queen Latifa films keep getting made. People have low standards and short attention spans. They want to see something funny that won't require dusting their brains off, so they go see Bringing Down the House or some other crap, because it's easy to watch. People pay a lot of money for what they deem to be fun which in the gaming industry translates to violence, guns and explosions.

If not enough people care about a good story, then good stories won't get the funding they deserve, and it becomes increasingly rare that some low budget game will rise from the ashes of adventure gaming to grab hold of the mindless-mayhem-gamers to convince funders that this might be a worthy investment. So they keep pumping more and more money into what works and the industry grows and grows, and unfortunatly for adventure gamers, the system works (from a business point of view).

Now I've always said that there must be a flaw in this and that if given something good, people will like it enough to support it. But then I find myself waiting in line for a Wes Anderson film behind a group of girls buying tickets for Fat Albert and I'm reminded that - oh yeah, people really do like crap! And that's why it gets made. Now this is not to say that popular games aren't good, it's just to say that there isn't much room for anything terribly original and thought-provoking out there because gaming is a business, and that just doesn't sell.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Christian IV

Actually FunCom got a grant from the Norwegian Govt. to help with Dreamfall, but they have done a LOT on their own.

I think that grant amounted to around $250,000 (USD). A modest amount considering that triple A games today cost millions to produce, yet it's incredible that a government has actually helped out. Not surprisingly they did it so to pimp Norway as a good country that makes good games.

[samIamsad]

I've really got to visit Scandinavia one day. Ahem.

Originally Posted by Flyboy

If not enough people care about a good story, then good stories won't get the funding they deserve.

Ah. So nobody buys today's "Point&Click,click,click on everything in hopes to find something that can be interacted with on these static, pretty pictures and, after that, make some cookies and solve ingeniously clever things such as slider and code word puzzles" (phew!) kind of games because, after all, wait a minute.

Nobody likes to be immersed into a cool world and a clever story anymore?


Yes, that makes perfect sense.

[Lain]

Originally Posted by samIamsad

Ah. So nobody buys today's "Point&Click,click,click on everything in hopes to find something that can be interacted with on these static, pretty pictures and, after that, make some cookies and solve ingeniously clever things such as slider and code word puzzles" (phew!) kind of games because, after all, wait a minute.

Nobody likes to be immersed into a cool world and a clever story anymore?

Nah, that's not what I meant at all, sorry if it was implied. I think it's the linear and static nature of current and old adventure games that turns modern gamers off. Sure, everyone likes a "cool world and a clever story", it's just not many gamers are going to choose that over gameplay if given the choice. Both adventure and action mediums can deliever this, it's just adventure tends to be more linear, more literary, and thus more conducive a meduim for storytelling.

Of course, this same linearity is what holds adventure games back the most, in terms of competing with other genres. As Jake posted earlier, in essence an AG is a story "dressed-up" as a game. All the interaction is static predetermination. I think the future of adventure gaming has three possibilities: evolve, assimilate, or die.

Sidebar ( ): This is NOT an assault against AGs at all. I still love AGs, but we are trying to project where AGs are heading and why they have lost popularity. I'm just trying to put together everything I've read in this thread into a coherent theory.

[Lain]

Originally Posted by Flyboy

The entertainment industry is concerned first and foremost with money - it's a business. That's why crummy Queen Latifa films keep getting made. People have low standards and short attention spans.

My sentiments exactly.

Originally Posted by Flyboy

But then I find myself waiting in line for a Wes Anderson film behind a group of girls buying tickets for Fat Albert and I'm reminded that - oh yeah, people really do like crap!

Yes, I would agree mainstream "tastes" gravitate towards the most inane, bland crap studios can produce. I am a big fan of Wes Anderson (amoung a billion others), haven't missed a single film, and I know there are others like me. Sure we are a minority, as are we in the AG community. However, as long as we exist there will always been an independent movement, both in film and games.

I think one of the MAJOR reasons the movement in gaming is moving this way is because games are becoming more accessable to the mainstream, and thus reflect "their" tastes. Before, in say the 80's and early 90's, "gamers" were a minority unto themselves. Now, gamers are becoming more and more socially accepted (no longer do only computer "nerds" own PCs), and the gaming industry is going to reflect that demand.

[Christian IV]

There are ways now to include "versioning" in the plot line of any creative work, either a printed one, film or a graphic CGI, and that would open up adventure genre tremendously. It is infancy stages in terms of development technically but has great promise. I also feel that though it may appear that the vast "PUBLIC' is of a certain kind of taste, there are I have found in my own reserarch many many people out there who arent heard from or taken into account, and I feel that things may shift quite a lot in the years to come, as they come on line, for many people of sophisticated and sensitive tastes who love tales, adventures and literature are or will I believe come slowly into the reach of computers, IT and Computer generated graphic
games and other forms. I remain hopeful and an indi community is always a great asset as well. Great art has often depended on it for survival. And I do feel Adventure games are a art form indeed.

[Lain]

Originally Posted by Christian IV

There are ways now to include "versioning" in the plot line of any creative work, either a printed one, film or a graphic CGI, and that would open up adventure genre tremendously.

Please expand on what "versioning" is and how it would improve adventure games.

Also, I have always believed there will be an adventure-game "community" and independent game developers, just as there always will exist an art or "fringe" group of counter-culturalists. However, I do not see adventure gaming continuing as a major industry, or as an industry at all, without evolving in some way that transcends the linear narrative/exploration/puzzle.

[Christian IV]

I had heard from a number of leading game designer about their frustration of the lnear limitations of game design so far, and found that there is a potential for a way of including "trees" of decision making, more later

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by Lain

Sure, everyone likes a "cool world and a clever story", it's just not many gamers are going to choose that over gameplay if given the choice.

That goes without saying. Who wants to buy a game that plays like a dog? Plus, good, crisp and clever gameplay isn't completely pointless in order to make you feel immersed into a game and its world. That and a cool interface. Period. Hey, people are still trying to make fun games instead of anachronisms. Right?

What's so wrong with linearity? It's only bad if you end up wasting your time on trying to exhaust tedious and completely pointless dialogue trees, pickung up every silly object, banging your head against yet another super contrived beast of yet another recycled and ridiculous object "puzzle". Instead of, say, fighting the hell out of pirates on Monkey Island, eveasdropping on suspects in Laura Bow or breaking into a mad scientist's villa in Maniac Mansion. Not *that* much wrong with the (((basic))) concept of your (oh my god) twenty years old blockbuster game.

[Karmillo]

I was gonna post something but then I noticed this thread was 10 pages long with each post being as long as a small essay

and I'd probably be treading over old grounds anyway

[Lain]

Originally Posted by samIamsad

What's so wrong with linearity?

Nothing's wrong with it, in fact, I love that aspect of adventure games. But in looking at why adventure gaming seems to be a dying genre, one of the main reasons is the linearity limits the amount of interactivity a game allows.

Not everyone can sit down and play a game that resembles an interactive novel anymore, that you advance by solving puzzles. The majority of gamers out there demand a higher level of interactivity that the traditional and even modern adventure games do not yet allow. That being said, I am not a member of this majority, but I think it is undeniable that is where the vast majority of gamers stand.

And yes, 20 years is a long time in the history of gaming, given the rate at which it is evolving. The first adventure game was a text-based game in 1976. Only 30 years later look how far gaming has evolved. It's going to depend on how you choose to define "adventure" game, but I believe the days of linear storylines, inventory-based puzzles, and 2D rendered backgrounds are coming to an end.

I wouldn't say adventure gaming is dying, but it certainly is dwindling and trying to evolve. I think we've already seen some of this evolution from (Gabriel Knight, Monkey Island, The Last Express) to (Still Life, Syberia, The Longest Journey). I'm not going to rant, but I think it's so far a generally downhill slide, with gems of games becoming rarer and rarer. This is certainly also due to the fact that less demand = less money = less games = less good adventure games.

Sorry if my points are incoherent, I admittedly am not an expert on the game industry by any means. But I've been playing games long enough to notice certain tends.

[Christian IV]

I have been thinking around a thought for a couple of days now and lets see if it will come out somewhat coherently.....

I got a bit caught up in the fears around the dirge sounded some years ago by a few reviewers that the Adventure genre was dead, even the words seemed to gain authority by just them being said. Gradually I have regained my own balance around this, and feel that it does not good to speak negatively in such ways, for a genre of great value and beauty does not
have a "shelf life" or "expiration date" as thousands of years of written fiction and literature show.

Why do people enjoy entertainment? Life is often burdensome, and tedious and limiting for sometimes years at a time. We have limits to what we can experience and achieve in our daily existence and the extension and release of imagination and experiences savoured vicariously is a joyful thing, and lightens the heart, leavens the mind and brings a new wind of feeling, be it wonder or curisoty, what will come nextness, let me see what is behind this door.....or what will happen next....that I think has never gotten old for me, from long ago to now.....and this is a fertile field for expression and always will be. I cannot imagine a literature of any kind without such expressions, and I imagine that trend identificatoin is perhaps the sport of armchair pundits, and some critics, but I want to be solidly on the side of hope, and interest and belief that this wonderful area of gaming, and the genre that allows the combination of art, NOT photo realistic 3D alone, but artistry
and beauty and creativity and way out style, and innovation will prosper and flourish.

What comes first the chicken or the egg....does doom saying doom a genre, or does the fading of imagination on the part of the public or the designers create the crisis? I have always felt some sort of fear when I face a blank canvas for the first time, when I do a painting. What creative act does not feel like breaking through an invisible barrier....a new frontier, a far unknown horizon? Isn't this the sign that something real is happening? Our wonder
and concern would very well be the very healthy interest and concern of valid supporters of a very alive and living genre. Indeed as I have surveyed
the vast universe of games from the beginning to now, it is a HUGE world of immensly intricate dimensions....and includes many sub universes of differnt sub genres, styles, companies, lines, series, sequels, spin offs, and beyond. It is like a huge tree with its branches lost in the clouds high overhead and its roots deep in all of myth, fable, tales, and storeis of all kinds. We glimpse only a small portion of the unguessable whole.

Whle I respect the concerns voiced here, and there are many in this forum who are very knowledgable about the industry, and all the literature, I still
feel we are riding the back of a very living and lively tiger who has only just begun to run.

[mariusmal]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

I'm not so sure 3D action games and multiplayer technology are responsible. I mean, sure, the majority of the gaming public enjoys a multiplayer game like Counter-Strike or World of Warcraft. Myself included. But I also like to play games from other genres, like, uh... adventure games. I think a lot (or at least some) of 'mainstream' gamers would enjoy adventure games, if they got the chance to play one. There are many potential adventure gamers out there, and it's up to the publishers to get these games to them. So I say bad marketing is responsible.

--Erwin

i totally agree.. i play lots of kind of games and i converted some "gta only gamers" to play ag just by borrowing them some of my titles.

[Ninth]

What happened?
People want fun games, and adventure games aren't fun games.
Action games used to be fun but ugly, when AGs were not fun but pretty. Nowadays, action games are super realistic, multiplayer, etc..., so what more could a player ask for?

QED.

In any case, that's what I'm thinking right now.

[Lain]

Yeah, maybe this thread is just beating a dead horse. The volley of "armchair pundits" if you will.

I'm happy for this community, and adventure games whether or not they continue to get made. And mainly I'm here to play games that inspire me or bring back nostalgia.

I've never cared for trends or analyzing what "everyone else" is into. However, I think discussions like this are important every once in a while so we can reflect on from where we've come and push for where we want to be. Because if we don't have these conversations, no one will. And what would the state of the world be in then?

Take everything I say with a grain of salt, in case it's too sweet or sour.

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by Ninth

What happened?
People want fun games, and adventure games aren't fun games.
Action games used to be fun but ugly, when AGs were not fun but pretty. Nowadays, action games are super realistic, multiplayer, etc..., so what more could a player ask for?

QED.

In any case, that's what I'm thinking right now.

Because people who're interested enough in AGs to read AG websites probably won't mind the bad gameplay.

I'm still not sure how linearity fits in here. HL2 is essentially a game on rails, after all. It's all about what actually happens between point A and B. If that's just...... boring and tedious filler stuff, why bother?

I never got that "These games were never fun to play" thing. At least not from the games I used to play. Crap, wasn't Maniac Mansion or whatever like the most sophisticated game ever back then? It allowed interactivity that went far beyond jumping on the head of little mushroom men and blowing up spaceships. Only later to be topped by the likes of Ultima VII, but that's a completely different kind of game anyway (or, at least, it put the focus on completely different things). I recently played two demos of new games, and, while I'm somewhat interested in the plot, I'm not going to put up with the boring pap (judged from the demos...) in order to get to the meat of these. Then again, I'm not one of these people who're interested enough in AGs to read AG websites anyway (and hence don't mind the bad gameplay). Or am I?

Jackal's statement is kinda funny , and one can definitely see where it's coming from.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by samIamsad

I'm still not sure how linearity fits in here. HL2 is essentially a game on rails, after all. It's all about what actually happens between point A and B. If that's just...... boring and tedious filler stuff, why bother?

I never got that "These games were never fun to play" thing. At least not from the games I used to play. Crap, wasn't Maniac Mansion or whatever like the most sophisticated game ever back then? It allowed interactivity that went far beyond jumping on the head of little mushroom men and blowing up spaceships.

Yes, but I wouldn't use the word fun to describe them. Of course, that might be me introducing in the word "fun" a notion that it doesn't normally include.

And I agree with you about linearity: false debate.

I'm still convinced that it's just a case of fewer AGs being made in favor of better selling action games. At the time of Doom, there were still great AGs, but they were already less successful than even some lame Doom-like.
So action games are more successful => less money in AGs, and more for these action games => fewer quality adventure games => less people interested => less money for AGs, etc...
Vicious circle.

But since money isn't everything, there are still some great AGs. Less than there used to be, but still.

[samIamsad]

A vicious cycle indeed. Another thing: Where is that whole adventure vs action games thing coming from anyway? Because: What made LucasArts invest into a rich, deep character- and story-driven game such as Kotor? How come Bioware proved to be successfull with the Baldur's Gate series, despite the fact, that the concept was much more "hardcore" (200+ magic spells to get familiar with, guys) than your average, pretty much accessible for anybody (or so it seems?)... well, adventure game? Now of course, these were great games. Really great. On all accounts. And I mean great as in "great" or "Game of the year candidates". Still, you might get the point.

Or not.