From: Sarinee Achavanuntakul [e-mail address
deleted]
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 1999 6:54 AM
To: randy@justadventure.com
Subject: A (somewhat long) comment on Mr. Yoder & Mr. Bill's takes on the
decline of traditional adventures
Dear Randy,
I've been an avid reader
of your site (great site, by the way), and a longtime adventure game fan (starting
back when I booted, what else, Zork on my dad's mainframe). While I agree
with many of Stuart Yoder's and Bill's comments recently posted on JA+, my opinion
on the subject is also quite different--below is my take:
Mr. Bill makes
a good point, a point which is held by I think the majority of gamers, when he
contends that there are less quality adventure games nowadays because it is "cheaper"
to make 3D action games. I think he says the right thing for the wrong reason,
because while it is true that a 3D action game is cheaper to make, merely having
"3D" in the game does not make a great game, as we can see from
the dismal sales of most 3D shooters on the market. It certainly doesn't matter
how cheap it is to produce games--if the publisher can't sell it, they lose money.
So higher profit margins for 3D games only account for half the reason.
Likewise, Mr. Yoder's assertion that it is we, the gamers, who cause the dearth
of adventure games is, again, only half the story.
So what do I think
the real reason is? I think the reason is the combination of the two, combined
with bad luck. Following is a string of events which I think form a vicious
circle for adventure games: (note that when I say "adventure" game
I mean traditional point-and-click or parser-based adventure games):
1)
Due to dismal financial performance (owing largely to releasing too many low-budget,
low-quality games that severely underestimate the gaming public's intelligence),
many adventure game companies (e.g. Sierra) were taken over by large companies
who do not have expertise in the field.
2) These companies, understandably,
are interested first of all to immediately cut costs to bring the ailing
companies they bought "back in the black." That is the quickest way
to generate returns on their investment (and justify the buy decision to their
shareholders). This entails layoffs, and production of low-cost, low-production-time
games in order to generate revenues quickly. Since quality adventure games
are not low-cost, low-production-time games, they unfortunately are excluded
from the production decision. Perhaps the growth in (teenage?) gamers who enjoy
action games (here's where Stuart's comments come in) also make 3D action games
seem like a "safe" (i.e. low risk) genre to cater to.
3) Recent
advances in 3D technology also makes producing a "spectacular" 3D action
game cheaper and easier than before. It also makes it easier for designers to
"mask" the game's deficiencies (and we're not even talking about plot
here--just gameplay) behind pretty graphics that are guaranteed to deceive a newbie
into thinking that this is a good game.
4) An explosive growth in home computer
users also mean that now the majority of users are "newbies" in adventure
games--people who've bought a computer only very recently. So when they walk into
a computer store and see dozens of 3D action games and few adventure games (a
situation resulting from the above reasons), they definitely will think that that's
all the choices they have. These people, unfortunately, have never played
Infocom games or even recent classics like Riddle of Master Lu, and so
they will never demand these "traditional" games from the publishers,
since they won't know what they are.
5) So, the publishers produce less
and less adventure games, which means that many creative, talented adventure game
designers are out of work--they may have great original ideas, but no publisher
is willing to buy them.
6) Then, what adventure games are left are those
designed by "inferior" designers--they also tend to be low-cost and
low-production-time games (since quality adventure games require both
cost and time). These adventures, of course, pale beside great games in other
genres like Half-Life, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and Thief
(which are the results of talented, creative game designers' ideas brought
to fruition with lots of cash). This reinforces the public's negative perception
that adventure games are automatically inferior to other games. Needless
to say, they will therefore tend to steer clear from the genre.
7) This
means that what "quality" adventures games produced tend to get ignored
on store shelves. Poor sales of even such classics as Sanitarium further
convinces game companies to stop producing adventure games, small companies get
squeezed out, and the vicious circle started all over again in 1).
Anyway,
I hope this contributes however marginally to this interesting discussion. Lastly,
I'd like to add that there is a small but growing community of Interactive Fiction
(aka text adventure) gamers who still enjoy to play (and write) Infocom-style
adventure games. The best of these games IMHO rival the best Infocom has ever
produced, with more robust and intelligent parser besides. You and your reviewers
should check it out. Come visit the newsgroup at rec.games.int-fiction,
or use the following excellent "start" pages for Interactive Fiction:
http://www.igs.net/~tril/if/
http://interactfiction.miningco.com/mbody.htm?terms=interactive+fiction&COB=home
See
for yourself that Infocom's legacy is very much alive and well :)
Yours,
Sarinee
Achavanuntakul
