Troubling Nintendo Portent for the Genre
What’s that expression about bad things coming in threes? Following the two dangers detailed in my previous blogs, that means there’s still one more ominous storm cloud hanging over the genre. Thank goodness for small mercies, as this last one is probably the least threatening of the three. On the other hand, it’s perhaps the most disappointing.
Today’s threat to the health of adventure games: Nintendo.
No no, you didn’t get sucked into a vortex that thrust you back in time a decade, when console games were widely cited as driving yet another nail into the genre’s coffin. (Not that I knew that at the time: I was too busy jumping on Goomba heads and collecting Tri-Force pieces to care back then.) As we all know, adventures survived that onslaught, and even rebounded to form the thriving little niche market as we’ve come to know it.
But now Nintendo is a threat again, albeit for entirely different reasons. The issue this time is specifically ports of PC adventures. Now, on the surface you’d think this notion is not only wrong, but in fact completely the opposite. After all, ports expose whole new audiences to adventure games, and that’s never a bad thing, right? Well… not so fast.
First of all, let’s sidestep momentarily and ponder what happened to the Wii and DS as the potential champions of the genre we once believed they could be. Remember this Wii article? The uncharted future was so promising then. But two years later, that future still hasn’t been charted. The only original adventures to reach the Wii in that time are Zack & Wiki (which some claim isn’t an adventure anyway), Harvey Birdman (itself a cheap Phoenix Wright rip-off), and Strong Bad (simultaneously released on PC). Not a very imposing lineup, and there are no potential bright lights on the immediate horizon other than So Blonde’s alternate console version and Another Code R.
The DS has fared a little better, but not much. The early success of Another Code/Trace Memory and the Ace Attorney series had us practically giddy with anticipation, and the Hype-o-Meter routinely featured a new handheld adventure or two. But while Professor Layton delighted puzzle lovers, Cing delivered again with Hotel Dusk and now has another new game in the works, and Capcom may or may not be able to squeeze a little more life out of its quirky courtroom series, lately we’ve been left to pick through underwhelming offerings from Touch/Mystery Detective to Unsolved Crimes to Jake Hunter. Even then, almost everything is from Japan. That’s not a problem – the Japanese often make great games, and they could be from the moon for all I care where a game originates – but the fact that no Western developers are embracing the opportunity is disturbing. There are some German companies with plans for DS versions along with PC or console counterparts, and that’s fine, but none designed exclusively (or even primarily) for the handheld system.
Clearly, then, neither platform has come close to realizing its abundant adventure game potential. And while we’d like to naïvely believe that there’s hope yet, the reality is that we’re now getting ports instead. Adventure Gamers will be increasing its coverage of ports for both systems, so this issue will soon come into greater focus, but we’re talking about the likes of:
[list]Agatha Christie (twice), CSI, Sam & Max, and Nancy Drew for Wii
Myst, Syberia, Ankh, CSI, Runaway, Secret Files, and Sherlock Holmes for DS[/list]
Good games for the most part, but ones we’ve already seen before, and they’re now outnumbering their original game counterparts. Is this a blip? A phase soon to pass? Maybe. But let’s face it, publishers aren’t renowned for sacrificing the bottom line for the benefit of creative expression. Porting games is undoubtedly cheaper and easier and carries far less risk than investing in new games. Hmmm!
It’s not just adventure ports that are a threat, though. There’s also the small matter of adventure game publishers diverting focus to console endeavours of other genres. The buyout of Lighthouse wasn’t the only time the company was in the news last year. They also proudly announced their license to begin making games for Nintendo systems. Not adventures – any games. The Adventure Company had done the same thing not long before that. Probably just a coincidence that those two publishers are the most noticeable examples of meagre upcoming adventure schedules, huh? Now City Interactive, one of the genre’s more prolific current publisher/developers, has just made a similar announcement.
The catch with these announcements is that they’re always spun as good and positive things for everyone: “More platforms means more games, more players, more money, more development, more growth, more more more! Yah, baby!” But often it’s not more at all. It’s simply different. What once was in a company’s left pocket is now in its right. What once was on the front burner might now be on the back. Sure, theoretically a company could hit it big in new markets and really expand, but that’s not about to happen with the kind of titles pushed by our “adventure” companies broadening their horizons. No knock on Monster Band or Puppy Trainer intended, but as a shareholder I wouldn’t be counting my millions just yet.
What we end up with, then, is the same number of dollars, the same number of resources, the same number of manageable projects before… except now they’re spread out. Where before there may have been the budget to publish six new adventures a year, now there’s budget for three new adventures and three ports. Or one new adventure, two adventure ports, one original non-adventure Wii and two non-adventure DS titles. The numbers are entirely random just to illustrate the point. Whatever the actual distribution, the attention formerly dedicated to new PC adventures is now spreading thin and spreading fast.
It should go without saying, but I have absolutely nothing against the DS or Wii. I have one of each and I’ve been a big fan of Nintendo since the very first NES system. I don’t care if adventures come out on PC or Wii or DS or any other platform. This isn’t about preference; it’s simply about numbers. More isn’t always more; more is sometimes less. In this case, more platforms can mean more product on shelves, but fewer actual games and still fewer original adventures.
The Nintendo influence may not seem like a big deal. And in isolation, it isn’t. But as with the two problems before it, the issue is that the adventure market is so (relatively) tiny, its corporate participation so limited, that it takes so very little to disrupt its ever-delicate balance. Can the genre withstand the influx of ports over new adventures? Sure, all things being equal. But these days things are anything but equal. On top of a crumbling economy AND North American developers potentially bailing out AND the casual market cutting in with serious competition AND with cheap ports replacing original adventures… pretty soon you have a problem.
I realize these last three blogs have painted a bleak picture for the genre, and again I want to emphasize that there’s always room for hope. Often when one door closes, another opens, and so long as there are enterprising developers with a passion for the genre, we’ll continue to get new adventures some way, some time, somehow. But this is the road before us. It’s not one filled with fertile fields but rocky obstacles. It’s a journey we still plan to take right along with you, but let’s at least move forward with eyes wide open.
Now, please excuse me, as I need to go play Safecracker on Wii for review.
This article originally appeared in Adventure Gamers' now-defunct blog.
