Mr. Bill Has Something to Say About Stuart's Open Letter

By Bill Horton

Adventurers must unite, not fight amongst ourselves.

It has often occurred to me that insulting your clientele can only result in the loss of business and, in this case, readers. You would do better to unite Just Adventure readers in the cause to save the adventure genre rather than create a rift between them. Who and what is causing the degeneration of the adventure genre is definitely a debatable issue, but it cannot be laid exclusively at the feet of adventure gamers themselves. Adventure gamers are the consumers and should have the right to buy and play what they like and not what someone else thinks they should be playing.

Some very knowledgeable people in the business of developing games today believe (and some experience of my own supports the idea) that certain publishers are making the decisions for all of us. Why? Because it is much cheaper to produce 3D first-person shooters with little if any story than it is to produce quality adventure games.

A good adventure game with a quality storyline requires a lot of time to do, especially those based on historical information that needs to be very carefully researched. For example, it has taken Karen and Jeff Tobler over three years to carefully recreate the digs at the site of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid and to weave an intricate story into and around the mysteries and prophecies of these great wonders. But to many publishers, the time spent in development is money lost. The push on games has been to appeal to the very young and, until very recently, the young male still in school (not college). You know what I mean: they want to have the PC market capture a piece of (and compete with) the video game market.

It is much more difficult to find a publisher for your game if it isn't making use of action, shooting, and 3D. Consider Headfirst Productions' long search for support from a publisher for their Simon the Sorcerer III project. Their move to 3D was apparently because publishers said they were no longer interested in 2D. They made the move to 3D after they had already completed maybe two-thirds of Simon the Sorcerer III in 2D. I am sure that one of the reasons for the lack of a publisher at present is because Headfirst wants to be faithful to all of us Simon fans, resisting the urges to add action and God only knows what else.

Activision has apparently put all adventure games, and even more importantly to me, additional Zork adventures, on hold indefinitely because adventure games weren't making money. Well, to me, Zork Grand Inquisitor is one of the best adventure games produced and should have sold big time. How come you didn't see ZGI in all the stores or mail order catalogues? I did see other games (like Heavy Gear) released by Activision during that same period in many stores, but not Zork Grand Inquisitor. The only store that I saw it in just after it was released was Babbages and Software, Etc. True, I didn't do a thorough search of all the software and department stores across the U.S., but most of you will probably agree that we all knew when Riven came out, most of us knew when Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango were released, but a large number of adventure gamers are still saying "Zork Grand Inquisitor? Is that an adventure game?" Yes, Virginia, marketing can and does determine what sells and doesn't sell. And simply by not promoting a product, marketing departments can ensure a game's (or the entire genre's) success or failure in the marketplace. Like I said, publishers and the corporate money behind them can make all the difference in what we get, but do we have to accept it? No! We don't!

Rather than fighting amongst ourselves and giving in to the idea that games should contain a mix of all the genres, we need to work together to find the best adventure games out there that meet our needs and spread the word, even if the publishers won't. I will not buy games that contain genres I don't like or those which do not have a riveting story to tell, and neither should you.