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I feel there has been a series drop of in quality adventure games since the down fall of Sierra’s Quest series, and it is a huge shame. Though I love some of the new first person shooters (Socom: Navy SEALs, the Red Storm games, Medal of Honor), I don’t feel any of the current games are as emersive or engaging as those old Sierra adventure games. Quality game play is often neglected in favor of the latest graphics, audio and gadgets.
Could you speculate on the reasons for this? Is there simply no market for games of this type anymore? If it is at all possible to create successful games of this genre I would be VERY interested in it.
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(re: Is there a market for quality adventure games?) You bring up the huge questions that we’re all asking, to which there are lots of answers and lots of speculation. I suspect if you read the messages around here, you will find your question already answered – in many different ways, of course. Ken might have something direct to say to your question, but I figured I’d chip in a word or two.
1) Cost of production has risen. That means you have to sell a lot of games to cover your costs. Most game-making companies will sell a lot more shooter games, so that’s where the market’s gone.
2) There is still interest – but not as much as the big companies need to justify the spending cost. There is still interest because of support for the adventure games of today, such as Syberia 2, and some other companies doing adventures (I keep hearing that Runaway is good, but never played it) – there are a lot of downloads of the King’s Quest remake games that AGDI is making – there is great anticipation for other Sierra fan games, such as the KQ9 and SQ7 projects – there is a lot of strong fan reaction to the Lucasarts cancellation of their Full Throttle 2 and Sam and Max 2 games – there are a good number of websites that show support for adventure games in different ways (justadventure, mixnmojo, underdogs, just to name a few) – and Sierra’s games are always on sale on eBay.
3) Is it possible to create successful games in this genre? I assume you mean commercially, on the market? Probably – but it probably needs to be a small company to start small, even smaller than companies such as Microid for example, just as Ken and Roberta did all those years ago. At some point, the AGDI folk plan to make new, commercial adventure games, in the absolute traditional style of adventure games, under a new banner – that’s the closest commercial endeavour I know of in the near future. -
(re: Is there a market for quality adventure games?)
I had read what others said about the market as far as large gaming companies… this was not what I was refering to. I meant in general; ie. if someone were to start their own company to create such games, would there be enough of a market (providing the products were good quality and advertised well, etc)
I have checked out what AGDI is working on and I am impressed, though this seems to simply be a hobby for them. I would be interested in working with a company such as AGDI should they in fact begin to design there own original games; I will keep my eyes peeled for future developments.
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(re: Is there a market for quality adventure games?) I know the folks at AGDI are putting their everything into their efforts. They are working 24-7 on their current project… and so sooner or later, they have to do their own new games commercially or they’ll be broke and homeless 🙂 So judging by their fan base, they must be convinced that they’ll be able to sell a commercial product and do it for a living. I’d tend to agree.
I think it’d be hard for any small group to start off and get into the gaming market with adventure games. With all the talented people and adventure fans out there though, you would have more than a reasonable amount of competition to join a group such as AGDI if they ever openly advertised positions for hire. So even though I said it’s hard for any small group to start off – what we need is just that – more small groups starting off. It seems you have some interest in this so you may want to consider yourself starting something. -
(re: re: Is there a market for quality adventure games?)
That is precisely why I posted this question: I am seriously considering my own gaming company once I have my MBA and some experience in the industry (I’m just graduating from college now). I’ve always loved adventure games, but obviously if they are not feasible it’s not worth it. I believe that it is possible, I was just curious what other gamers/ people in the industry thought.
I am interested to know more about AGDI… I read on their site that two of their main developers also have full time jobs WHILE working on these games (which they claim to spend around 70 hrs a week working on). If they do get into actually selling games I think that would be awesome. Obviously there would be a lot of competition for their jobs, just as there is everywhere else in the industry!
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