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[D2M15]

heroine addicts

My heroine addiction forced me to buy DOAX and Rumble Roses.

 

[Drinky Crow]

I'm with OMM: adventure games fucking suck. Well, unless they're brutal ASCII-only hypertext narratives with deep parsers.

 

[Mashing]

You answered your own question...

But basically, Phantasmagoria was insanely expensive at the time and underperformed and then KQVIII was seen as a betrayal by the series' fans (who were already annoyed after KQVII) and that series died too.

So, Sierra sold out to Vivendi, and became a cold husk of itself.

In the 90s though, few companies could compete with them in my eyes. They were more important to me than Nintendo or Sega probably.

LucasArts used to be my favorite developer. I mean when you release awesome shit like Tie Fighter, Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, Maniac Mansion, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, X-Wing Alliance... you are the pretty damn good in my book. Now I hardly give two shits about them.

I want an adventure game revival goddamnit!

 

[svenuce]

CliffyB says you're all wrong!

"People are saying 'man, the adventure genre is dead'. No it's not. Walking around the bases in Half-Life 2 and talking to people, that's the adventure genre. The puzzles in Resident Evil 4 are straight out of the adventure genre. Everything evolves into a hybrid and winds up being reabsorbed into this primordial soup of development."

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=288&Itemid=36&limit=1&limitstart=0

Also, on the Williams tip, she was bumping around the industry about two years ago still, trying to sell the concept of a new Gabriel Knight game. Evidently, she has, or thinks she has, the rights to that IP. I sat in on a presentation from her company pitching it to us. I forget the name of the company at the time. We passed by the way... because the adventure genre is dead. Oops, did I say that? I mean errmm... it's "evolved into hybrid game styles"... etc.

 

[Mashing]

I'm with OMM: adventure games fucking suck. Well, unless they're brutal ASCII-only hypertext narratives with deep parsers.

I don't agree that adventure games suck... but I do enjoy good text based games.

You must've been a fan of those text based door games on BBS'es right?

 

[Warm Machine]

Adventure games did evolve into a hybrid. Really, Resident Evil, Shen Mue, and the Silent Hills are pretty much adventure games in the old school fashion.

 

[hobbitx]

What kind of stories about Roberta are you guys talking about?

 

[callous]

Adventure games did evolve into a hybrid. Really, Resident Evil, Shen Mue, and the Silent Hills are pretty much adventure games in the old school fashion.

Parts of FF, IX in particular springs to mind, have had heavy nods to point & click adventure games, too.

 

[CO_Andy]

I heard Roberta spent tons of $ on her last few games. Did she kill Sierra?

 

[xsarien]

I heard Roberta spent tons of $ on her last few games. Did she kill Sierra?

Sierra, towards the end of their life as an independent company, was having a very hard time keeping up with where computer games were going. The market killed them, not the game budgets.

 

[Warm Machine]

Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight 2 were games that were sort of representative of the industry at the time. Myst, 7th Guest, Sherlock Holmes, D, Hell, etc were all CGI and/or FMV titles and Sierra was chasing that market. There wasn't anything wrong with their approach from a development side though I do know Phantasmagoria was pretty expensive and took them a long time to make.

Sierra had games come out long after Phantasmagoria so it wasn't just that. For the most part FMV based adventure games just were not selling nor were there many PCs that could run them decently enough...and the production values still looked a lot like late night soft core porno at best.

They would have fared better had they gone for the Alone in the Dark, BioForge, Resident Evil style of game then the FMV type but who was to know that was going to explode as it did. Everyone was still trying to chase Myst and its bazillions of copies sold.

 

[Duck of Death]

Anyone else here read the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"

Goes into nice detail of Sierra, its start, and its business and personalities. There is a good writeup on Softporn as well as the craziness involved with trying to get some of the coders there laid.

Also has a good section on EA where Trip Hawkins was promising prospective employees cocaine in snowdrift quantities.

Really fun book and a great read.

Thanks! I'll make sure to pick this up sometime. Trying to get your employees laid is solid bidness strategy, I'd say.

 

[CO_Andy]

Sierra, towards the end of their life as an independent company, was having a very hard time keeping up with where computer games were going. The market killed them, not the game budgets.

So Half-Life couldn't save them, huh?

 

[xsarien]

So Half-Life couldn't save them, huh?

That wasn't developed internally at Sierra, they just published it. Besides, Half Life finally came around in '98. Sierra was sold to Cendant in '96.

 

[DDayton]

I'm with OMM: adventure games f------ suck. Well, unless they're brutal ASCII-only hypertext narratives with deep parsers.

Wait... Drinky likes text adventures? This is a good sign. I heartily recommend www.if-archive.org to everyone. Not quite Zork or Escape from Dispozon (a lovely Antic Magazine Atari text adventure from 1989), but lots of interesting text adventures developed by individuals. I will admit that I liked Maniac Mansion, though.

Anyone else here read the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"

I love that book. Found it in my local library while in high school, and finally got my own copy a year ago -- there's a paperback reprinting on Amazon. For anyone who hasn't heard of it, it's an overview of the American game and computer business/scene/whatever, starting with the MIT Model Railroad club and ending up just a year or two before the release of the NES in the USA. It has a lot of interesting info on Sierra, Atari, and a variety of other old companies.

 

[Willie Dynamite]

Also, on the Williams tip, she was bumping around the industry about two years ago still, trying to sell the concept of a new Gabriel Knight game. Evidently, she has, or thinks she has, the rights to that IP. I sat in on a presentation from her company pitching it to us. I forget the name of the company at the time. We passed by the way... because the adventure genre is dead. Oops, did I say that? I mean errmm... it's "evolved into hybrid game styles"... etc.

Wouldn't that be Jane Jensen?

Also that might have been pretty shortsighted. Isn't Fahrenheit also a mystery/thriller type adventure game? It's sold very well afaik.

 

[Vashu]

With Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy doing so well, it gets a lot of positive responses from both the media and gamers alike, you'd think that these type of adventure games are on their way back.

Now if someone could get Al Lowe back, make sure he gets the rights to LSL, and let him create a game with the same gameplay mechanics (of course a little different here and there ) starring our favorite leisure suit wearer, I would buy it. I miss the days of Police Quest (before the entire Swat stuff), LSL, Gabriel Knight and countless others. I've played them through and through (some of them not till the end though ), and am ready for something new and refreshing.

 

[madara]

Wouldn't that be Jane Jensen?

Also that might have been pretty shortsighted. Isn't Fahrenheit also a mystery/thriller type adventure game? It's sold very well afaik.

Aye Willie, it sounds alot like Jane, Roberta is still traveling alot and such.

 

[svenuce]

Actually, you might be right. It might have been Jane. It's a few years ago now and I think it was a brain fart on my part. Apologies .

Also that might have been pretty shortsighted. Isn't Fahrenheit also a mystery/thriller type adventure game? It's sold very well afaik.

It's been reviewed very well. So far as I'm aware, those reviews aren't doing wonders for sales (I've not seen it on any of our retailers weekly top 5/10 lists), but we'll have to wait a few months to see the first NPD figures to know for sure. I hope it does do well, but also even if it does, it's one success out of how many unprofitable pure adventure games in the past five years?

 

[bummyhead]

I'm with OMM: adventure games fucking suck. Well, unless they're brutal ASCII-only hypertext narratives with deep parsers.

Adventure games where the best genre ever created. You actually had to think.

 

[bummyhead]

The adventure genre isnt dead. It simply isnt being fed, so its gone into hibernations. Gamers will buy what is marketted well. The companies that made adventure games didn't keep up with the marketting, they were used to the old school, where almost all game were sold to geeks by word of mouth. Adevtnrue also contiue to sell very well in Europe.

If the North American industry wasnt being run by a bunch of action crazed sports loving morons, adventure could be seeling just as well.

Someone said RPGs were dead. And then along came bioware.

Also, there is a reason that traditions japanese genres, like the platformer, fighter, action/adventure (zelda, etc), are still around. No one forgot how to market them.

Unfortuinately fopr adventure fans like myself, someone did forget to marjket adventure games. And that's why my beloved space quest, leisure suit larry, gabriel knight, etc are gone. There is a HUGE market for adventure games. game companies are just too stupid to realize it.

 

[Warm Machine]

Well, there is a publisher out there called The Adventure Company. I think they publish adventure games.

http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/

 

[Vashu]

And we have Tell Tale, now working on the Bones serie, and with the Sam & Max licence.

 

[Pakkidis]

I actually had a job interview at the adventure company, didn't take it as I was heading back to my last year at university plus the job was inbound calling on orders for there games. They don't exactly publish many great adventure games, many of the adventure games they publish suck.

Bring back Tim Schafer at Lucas Arts, or have Lucas Arts buy Doublefine, either way lets get Tim making adventure games again.

Roberta Williams is old news, she use to be good but her style of making adventure games went out a long time ago.