RPG market's short death in the mid 90's

[JarlFrank]

I like Might & Magic and Wizardry, but I'm not big on the Dungeon Master formula.

The real time blobber combat always felt meh to me. It's got the franticness of real time so you gotta click click click fast, but there's not much tactical depth to it. In the end it usually boils down to step dance tactics which is kinda like circlestrafing in Quake except more awkward because it's step-based instead of seamless. I do enjoy puzzle-heavy dungeon crawls, but every single DM clone out there would be better with turn based combat akin to M&M or phase based like Wiz.

Every single one of them.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I always thought this was a bit of a meme, mostly caused by the fact that there was a long break after Wiz7 and M&M5 (in case of wizardry, it was so long that when next instalment came out, crpgs were already "minsc is funneh and I want to fugg jaheira :DDD") and also partly by rts and fps becoming a really big PC thing at the same time.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I like Might & Magic and Wizardry, but I'm not big on the Dungeon Master formula.

The real time blobber combat always felt meh to me. It's got the franticness of real time so you gotta click click click fast, but there's not much tactical depth to it. In the end it usually boils down to step dance tactics which is kinda like circlestrafing in Quake except more awkward because it's step-based instead of seamless. I do enjoy puzzle-heavy dungeon crawls, but every single DM clone out there would be better with turn based combat akin to M&M or phase based like Wiz.

Every single one of them.

Combat in these games is just a distraction from real challenge in these games, which is the dungeon itself and its puzzles.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I always thought this was a bit of a meme, mostly caused by the fact that there was a long break after Wiz7 and M&M5 (in case of wizardry, it was so long that when next instalment came out, crpgs were already "minsc is funneh and I want to fugg jaheira :DDD") and also partly by rts and fps becoming a really big PC thing at the same time.

Jump to CDs caused some rather unorthodox games to be released between Betrayal at Krondor and Fallout/Baldur's Gate.
Like Stonekeeo, for example, which isn't the most approachable game ever.

 

[octavius]

I like Might & Magic and Wizardry, but I'm not big on the Dungeon Master formula.

The real time blobber combat always felt meh to me. It's got the franticness of real time so you gotta click click click fast, but there's not much tactical depth to it. In the end it usually boils down to step dance tactics which is kinda like circlestrafing in Quake except more awkward because it's step-based instead of seamless. I do enjoy puzzle-heavy dungeon crawls, but every single DM clone out there would be better with turn based combat akin to M&M or phase based like Wiz.

Every single one of them.

That's because none of them understood what made DM and CSB great.
Real time made sense in DM, due to the nature of the puzzles and the fact that wounds made you move slower. The game was also slow enough that there was never need for frantic clicking.
DM perfected the formula, but later developers were like car designers who saw a flashy car, and tried to build a flashier one without looking at the engine.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

1983 I'd be uh 8yo in Jan. So, 1988+ I'd fit all three reqs. Unless you were wealthy (or crazy) or "sharing" it'd be pretty hard to get every game of the different RPG micro-genres. And booners and arcade games along with GOD games, tactical management games and even puzzlers might compete with the RPG grind. The consoles would be about tge only way I'd see any of the foreign market esp Japanese games until the internet, emulation, and game shares sites like old HOTU.

There were times it felt like a dry spell but I was a subscriber to Dungeon & Dragon magazines do ads, articles, and reviews were my main window until PcGamer, and a few other zines were in my grasp.

SSI was my pimp along with Sir-rech, Lord British, and New World. I had an old overseer pimp though after Epyx...

(i should have edited that pic -proper sequence is square, circle, triangle)
Yes... ECA or old Electronic Arts. I couldn't get enough of their games and their crazy packaging.

To supplement I did buy from SOTMC (software of the month club), Polar Ware, and even aardvark software.

I liked Anvil of Dawn. I rather wished they made more solo blobbers back then. Naturally, I bought dungeon Hack because I liked EOB. I dudn't try DM until I found a copy and Chaos Strikes back at a dying computer shop. Amiga was sort of just drying up in that city. I was tired of taking my A500 in for repairs. I loved the word processor on it though.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

1. The oversaturation of the market.
Between 1983 and 1998, a grand total of 44 D&D titles came out. And that's just D&D.

"oversaturation of the market". a grand total of 44 d&d titles vs about 1200 shoot-em-ups. nigga please.

 

[Daemongar]

I hit all the marks. To help, I'd like to help folks understand the lay of the land in 1993. In 1993... I started my first post-college job as a PC Support Specialist. I worked on PC's and gamed and was pretty happy. I smoked cigarettes, had a PPP connection to telnet/pine/elm and the web (Mosaic), played AD&D 2nd Edition every weekend, I lived above a bowling alley, had a pretty active dating and sex life, and was driving an American muscle car with a V8. Trust me - life was pretty sweet for Daemongar as he was unaware of the horrors life had in store for him.

To start, in 1993 Doom was released. This was a huge game. Doom was downloaded by a gamer with a 2400/9600 baud modem to a system running Windows 3.1 or just plain DOS. There was also another game that came out in 93 that was huge. That was Myst. Myst required a CD-Rom and used up most of the 640 Mb of storage on that CD. Graphics, clicking, sounds: it had it all. Both utilized advancements in technology that CRPGs did not use - the downloadable sales model and the utilization of advanced tech like CD-Rom.

Goes without saying but neither was an RPG - both were huge and reached numbers of sales that CRPGs at the time would never hit. CRPGs were niche and at the time never hit that level. To frame in perspective: Myst sold 6 million copies. Doom sold 10 million copies. All Goldbox games together sold only 800,000 copies. This had an effect. Studios moved to develop Doom and Myst clones, as well as worked to find the next big seller. For reference, Dungeon Master, one of the greatest CRPGs of all times sold... 40,000 copies it's first year (I can't find total sales.) Compare this with Warcraft: Orc and Humans (1994). It was good but not exactly exceptional - it sold about 300,000 copies. A CRPG would kill for this level of sales.

This led to underdevelopment and CRPG stagnation. Some will say CRPGs were saved ironically by Diablo in 1997, but don't believe it - CRPGs were actually saved by Fallout. That's a long story, but I'll get into it some other time.

In addition, in 1995 Windows 95 came out. It was a big deal as it represented the movement from DOS to running games in a Windowed environment. That is to say, in Windows 3.1, you likely have to drop to DOS and run your game. Windows 95 allowed one to develop Windows 95 native games - I won't go into games making you select your video hardware and sound hardware, but if you ever run a game in DosBox, you may understand. 1995 CRPGs may have sagged as companies may not have known what to produce for the new Windows environment. Note: Daemongar worked 3rd shift in a data library when Windows 95 was released - we had a guy go out at Midnight to CompUSA to secure a copy of Windows 95 when it was released. It was a different time.

TL/DR: CRPGs were a niche market which suffered due to the strength of other genres.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

and now every genre has been RPGized to some degree

 

[pomenitul]

I'm a wee bit too young to fit the bill, but…

I belatedly started playing PC games in 1995, at which point I had no particular interest in RPGs. FPS (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom) is the genre that initially drew me in, along with titles like Civilization, Myst and – especially – Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which I loved so much it made me question my childish preference for consoles. I barely noticed RPGs when I would hang out at the local GameStop, and by 1996 I was dead set on one thing and one thing only: catching up with Warcraft II, which soon became my most played PC game of all time. Then in 1997 Diablo came along and put RPGs on the map for me, even though in retrospect I would hesitate to file it under that heading. That same year I started getting into Age of Empires, so by the time Baldur's Gate dropped a year later, I was thoroughly ripe for a RTS/RPG hybrid: it clicked with me immediately despite my utter lack of familiarity with D&D. For what it's worth, stuff like the Ultima series felt antiquated by that point and I didn't deign play it. Nor were the Gold Box titles familiar to me at all – I'd never heard of them, and neither had my friends, who incidentally found BG too boring and demanding anyway (the fact of the matter is that even during the so-called 'Renaissance' RPGs were a relatively niche enthusiasm, albeit more mainstream than in '95 and '96).

The divide between the older and the newer RPG generation felt intuitively obvious to me back then (and still does to this day), whereas there are early 90s PC games from other genres that still felt relevant by the end of the decade. In any event, I dutifully played several key Ultima entries (4-6) as well as the Pool of Radiance Forgotten Realms series out of historical curiosity a few years ago to make up for my ignorance and while I'm glad I did for purely historical reasons, it was not a particularly enjoyable experience. The passage of time has not bridged the gap as far as I'm concerned, and so Baldur's Gate remains the first in my book. Late 90s CRPGs are to their predecessors as death and black metal are to thrash or as late '60s/early '70s classic rock is to rock 'n' roll. No amount of (genuine) respect for the venerable pioneers of old can erase the fact that their inheritors perfected the formula and took it to the next level. So yes, there is some truth to the received narrative in this regard.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I'm only interested in the take of people who fulfill all 3 criteria:
- were there
- were at least teen agers
- were RPG players.

Please mention if you fulfill all 3, when you post.

There's a few takes on why the RPG market almost died. Let's list them:

1. The oversaturation of the market.
Between 1983 and 1998, a grand total of 44 D&D titles came out. And that's just D&D.

My question to you: Did you really feel like there were too many RPGs and you couldn't play them all, hence skipping many of them knowingly?

2. The lower quality of the games that were being churned out.

My question to you: Did you feel at the time that a lot of the RPGs were just mass produced for a quick cash grab?

3. The market simply stopped growing.

I don't have a question here. Other genres were finding new audiences, DOOM made random office people install it at work, while RPGs had the same audience they always had. And since it's a growth market, the RPG market offered no growth and as such hit the wall, which was a disappointment for a lot of the investors. I don't think any of you were into investing at the time, so I don't think it can be constructively discussed, but feel free to share what you think.

What I'm interested in, is how much each reason contributed to the death according to the old timers.

I wasn't exclusively playing RPG back then but i remember playing HoMM II late 1996 when it was released and the M&M series from there (i played M&M II at a friend's before).
I also played DM, UFO and a few tasteful jrpg before like Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force I & II, Phantasy Star II & III, ...

From my point of view, people my age weren't as focused on new releases as the millennials, sure, we read magazines and followed new releases but there were a lot of previously released games and second hand stores which had much to offer and we didn't look at older games as antiquities but as great classics.

A lot of people were starting to get a computer during the 90s and even more in the late nineties but the market was different, nowadays, kids get computers and we know they can't help themselves, they have to get the brand new game released 1 hour ago.
Back then, sure, we wanted the great game just released (journos reviews meant something) but not every average game, we preferred the great classics to the newly released average games "flooding" the market.

So, to answer the question, no, nobody I knew even believed RPG were dying, just the opposite but the technology advanced fast and the gaming industry had to adapt while keeping the game mechanism good enough, few succeeded...

 

[k0syak]

Mid 90s were tough for the edgy CRPG enjoyer - abominable action-"rpgs" like Diablo, WTF Ultima 8, questionable M&M 6, Wizardry seemingly dead

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Some like Ultima 8 but when I heard it was like Crusader No Remorse/No Regret (well rather NR was like U8) I thought the game might be trash! While not trash, it was annoying as hell. The fucking jump mechanics. I know some jrpgs do this mix platforming better but it really is annoying. Landstalker pissed me off a lot.

Origin was on a steady decline after U7 (esp during SI). Hell, some might say during the U6 era trouble was brewing. How many companies collapsed or were absorbed by other companies. I remember so many smaller companies Like Bullfrog and Westwood. I woul never have guessed that today many of these companies would be gone.

Now days, it does seem RPG elements get engineered in other genres.

 

[Divine Blessing]

wow, a post from an alternate timeline.

even if OP would provide any empirical data besides an (already biased, as any subjective) quote and a relative, but not representative sample, stated "thesis" wouldnt require a gourmets expertise to be disqualified.

/edit
although, alternate timelines introduce some delicate sci-fi potential:

what if there wouldnt have been FallOut, Diablo, Daggerfall, Baldurs Gate, Deus Ex etc.?
gaming culture and RPGs wouldnt be the same without quoted achievements, there wouldnt be WoW, there wouldnt be Fortnite, maybe there wouldnt even be the Zombie apocalypse?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

everything would have been candy crush.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

They still advertise that shit on TV. I try these ad games once in a while but they turn out to be a complete waste of time. Gameplay is generally shit.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I fulfill. In the 90's I remember acquiring games mainly from friends and from pirates.

In the years 1990-94 I owed an Amiga and a 286 PC (the PC was a gift to my father from his employer). I used the Amiga to play action games. The only RPG that I played on the Amiga were Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and Pool of Radiance (the latter cracked, but without the manual ). I used the PC, that had a small HD, to play RPGs (Eye of the beholder 1-2, Ultima 6, Might & Magic 1-3) and adventure games (a lot of Sierra and Lucasart point & click adventures).

Later, in 1994-1995, I remember using my girlfriend computer (a 486 I think) to play more demanding games, such as Doom, Ultima 8, Dark Suns 1-2, Ravenloft 1, Ultima Underworld 2 and System Shock. I remember having a great time with all of them.

Then there was a period, 1996-98, when I almost played no games, because I had other interests... This period overlaps with the postulated "short death" of RPG, so I wasn't particularly aware of that... or maybe my reduced interest was a reaction to the reduced availability of interesting games, I don't know.

Then, in 1999, I bought a powerful PC, with my first 3D graphics card. I still remember the first games I bought and played on it: Fallout 2 and Thief: the Dark Project. It was an epiphany. Then I bought Baldur's Gate 1, Homeworld, Deus Ex and System Shock 2. It was the best period of my gaming life.

 

[lukaszek]

Mid 90s were tough for the edgy CRPG enjoyer - abominable action-"rpgs" like Diablo, WTF Ultima 8, questionable M&M 6, Wizardry seemingly dead

you mean that they marked start of deep sadness. One had awesome time with mm6 and then had to wait 16 years for contender

Spoiler

mmx

 

[vonAchdorf]

Did you really feel like there were too many RPGs and you couldn't play them all, hence skipping many of them knowingly?

No. Part of the reason was that you had to buy games in boxes in stores far (ok not so far) away. Additionally I tended to stick with games I liked (Darklands, RoA, Daggerfall, Krondor, Gold Box, Lands of Lore, U7/8) and replayed them frequently.

Did you feel at the time that a lot of the RPGs were just mass produced for a quick cash grab?

No. I only bought games I liked.

 

[Mortmal]

1995: bunch of AD&D games, Exile, Anvil of Dawn

By 1995 the "AD&D games" were piles of shit like Deathkeep. Anvil of Dawn was a third rate Dungeon Master clone, and there would be no need in amateur productions like Exile if the professional industry was healthy and satisfied the demand of RPG players.

That's well summmed up and yes i was there too , that was the beginning of the end there was no saturation of the market , just nothing of quality . 1992 were last revolutionary rpgs Ulima underworld , U7 wizardry 7 . Then 1992 was also the end of gold box games .It all go downhill from that . Have to wait till 1996 for daggerfall, hardly a classic rpg either . 1997 was the start of mmos and death of singleplayer rpg , fallout is the exception that confirm the rule .

 

[rusty_shackleford]

1995: bunch of AD&D games, Exile, Anvil of Dawn

By 1995 the "AD&D games" were piles of shit like Deathkeep. Anvil of Dawn was a third rate Dungeon Master clone, and there would be no need in amateur productions like Exile if the professional industry was healthy and satisfied the demand of RPG players.

That's well summmed up and yes i was there too , that was the beginning of the end there was no saturation of the market , just nothing of quality . 1992 were last revolutionary rpgs Ulima underworld , U7 wizardry 7 . Then 1992 was also the end of gold box games .It all go downhill from that . Have to wait till 1996 for daggerfall, hardly a classic rpg either . 1997 was the start of mmos and death of singleplayer rpg , fallout is the exception that confirm the rule .

1993: BaK, dark sun, dark side of xeen, Ultima Underworld 2, ...
1994: Arena, bunch of AD&D blobbers

 

[k0syak]

Mid 90s were tough for the edgy CRPG enjoyer - abominable action-"rpgs" like Diablo, WTF Ultima 8, questionable M&M 6, Wizardry seemingly dead

you mean that they marked start of deep sadness. One had awesome time with mm6 and then had to wait 16 years for contender

Spoiler

mmx

M&M VI-VIII looked liked crap after Xeen and had real-time combat (HERESY), I softened enough to play them only around 2014

 

[anvi]

My question to you: Did you really feel like there were too many RPGs and you couldn't play them all, hence skipping many of them knowingly?
Did you feel at the time that a lot of the RPGs were just mass produced for a quick cash grab?

Gaming barely even existed in the 80s, early 90s it was starting to grow but we all wanted much more. Games were expensive and hard to find too. I had a few RPGs, wanted much more and better. They were maybe getting samey and stagnant but they were still evolving and I was happy. I wanted more and expected it to grow in all directions. More brown dungeon crawlers with parties and tactics, and also more pretty 'streamlined' RPGs for a different audience.

But apparently the industry saw it differently, they saw the olde RPGs as too niche to bother with and console friendly games as the blueprint for future games. I always understood this but I was always convinced that there were enough people out there to support both types of game. But for 30 years all I've seen are companies who do one extreme or the other. They either make some aggressively indie RPG which goes full aspie nerd, or they make a dumb action game with some minor RPG elements. I always figured the middle ground was the best place and companies just don't go there.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Gaming barely existed in the 80s? WTF are you talking about?

 

[PorkaMorka]

The genre almost died in the mid 1990s because it invested in BLOBBERS and blobbers abstract away the fun part of RPGs (pseudo-tactical combat).

The (post-EoTB) mid 1990s AD&D blobbers were and they were recognizable as decline at the time, with simplified and even action oriented gameplay (gross), coasting on better graphics and the inherent appeal of the AD&D settings.

At the time I didn't even think of them as the same genre as the Gold Box games or Dark Sun, I remember feeling like they had stopped making AD&D CRPGs altogether, between 1994's Wake of the Ravager and Baldur's Gate 1. I remember my friends gave up on the AD&D blobbers too but got brought back into CRPGs by Baldur's Gate 1, not so much due to the graphics, as due to the third person perspective that felt more like playing D&D on your computer.

While there were some well regarded hardcore blobbers released in the mid 1990s, I never even thought about playing them at the time and it seems like they scratched a very different itch than my beloved pseudo-tactical CRPGs.

For me much of the appeal of RPGs was always moving my little soldiers knights and wizards around on a map and making them fight and shoot stuff at each other, like playing "war" as a kid (or playing D&D).

In contrast, blobbers and JRPGs abstract away the tactical map and, if they are challenging, the challenge tends to come more from autistic number crunching and analysis of obscure poorly explained game mechanics... or maze levels.

The fun of the Gold Box games wasn't in number crunching or analyzing obscure mechanics and it wasn't in wandering around in the few tedious maze levels either.

So we had shovelware AD&D blobbers, math / mazes blobbers for a hardcore niche audience and action blobbers (ick). Action blobbers had some success obviously, but at some point you'd rather play a good action game than a bad action blobber.

When does the genre start to do well again? 1997, Fallout and 1998, Baldur's Gate, both of which were third person and pseudo-tactical. (I say pseudo-tactical, because the combat can be pretty mindless at times, but the game still presents the battles to you as if they were tactical, the designer kind of tries to fool the player into feeling like he won the victory through the moves he made, not just through numbers and dice rolls.)