Agreed. Real, quality adventure games are simply not being made right now. Anyone who says the genre just evolved into something slightly different is trying to sell you… something VERY different. The genre may get jump started again sometime in the future when the average intelligence of the gaming community rises back to where it once was, but until then be very wary of anyone trying to sell an adventure, action-adventure, adventure-action, etc. game.
As for DRM (Digital Rights Managment) and Steam, this is absolutely terrible. I cannot play my legit copy of Half-Life 2 because I do not have an internet connection at home. I pre-ordered the game before they announced that an internet connection would be required for a single player game. I will NEVER EVER buy a game/movie/music that uses a DRM scheme ever again. The only way to stop this nonsense is to completely boycott any product that attempts to use such a scheme. DVDs, games, anything. How would you like it if you wanted to take a stroll down memory lane in ten years and show your kid Half-Life 2 only to find out that the company went out of business and the servers for product validation no longer exist? If I purchase software, I want to be able to use it on my terms, not someone elses.
As to what Nintendo says about the legality of backups. I would guarantee that if you sent NOA an email stating: “hey, yeah , I just wanted to let you guys know that I ripped one of your carts for backup purposes in case my cart is destroyed at some point in the future” and attached your name, address, phone number, social security number, and every other piece of unique information that should lead them straight to your door that they would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. You would never ever in a million years get a response. Do you know why? Because the legality of backups is completely questionable. In fact, everything to date would suggest that they are completely within our rights. (VHS VCR Battles) The last thing any media company wants is to go into a trial that might define some more rigid and recent consumer rights. What if the courts decided in our favor and even decided that efforts to prevent backups were infringing on the consumers’ rights? I can tell you that would absolutely devastate current piracy deterrants with game companies. Safedisc, the prominent copy protection scheme and pretty much the only thing stopping simple duplication, would likely be stopped and piracy would become much more prevalent.
-Jim