Why did adventure games die?

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Adventure Games were the leading genre of PC gaming until around the late 1990s. Myst came out in 1993 and in 1995 became the highest selling PC game of all time until the year 2000; Before that, King's Quest V held that title from 1990 through 1995. Adventure games in the early - middle 1990s especially were huge; even as late as 1997, games like the Curse of Monkey Island were hits. My two questions are thus:

Why did Adventure games die then?

Why have they seen a revival the past few years?

 

[Morality Games]

Adventure Games were the leading genre of PC gaming until around the late 1990s. Myst came out in 1993 and in 1995 became the highest selling PC game of all time until the year 2000; Before that, King's Quest V held that title from 1990 through 1995. Adventure games in the early - middle 1990s especially were huge; even as late as 1997, games like the Curse of Monkey Island were hits. My two questions are thus:

Why did Adventure games die then?

Why have they seen a revival the past few years?

They got displaced by console focused role playing games, along with traditional cRPGs.

Enough people like them that they can be crowdfunded.

 

[Aeschylus]

They got displaced by console focused role playing games, along with traditional cRPGs.

Nah, they co-existed just fine for many years.

Adventure games fell out of favor because the industry changed to focus on games that could sell 1 million + copies, while adventure games tended to sell a couple hundred thousand at best (King's Quest). They lived on in a way in series that could replicate those numbers (Myst).
I don't know if I'd really say they're making a comeback, but the fact that niche development has become more viable recently with crowdfunding and cheaply or freely available engines means they can get by now selling the numbers they did in the 90s.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Adventure games died because:

-3D graphics card sparked a graphics revolution in the late 90s and early 2000s that adventure games, as a genre, had a hard time adapting to.
-Developing games in the 90s and early 2000s was really expensive and risky as it relied on physical distribution in a limited number of stores.
-The genre itself peaked in the early 90s, with a bunch of classic titles, but also a bunch of shit, which hurt the market. See also: 90s RTSs.
-The PC gaming market changed from older, affluent, educated, white people (which it tended to consist of in the 80s and early 90s), to younger males more interested in action games.
-As a consequence of all of these factors, AAA studios quit funding them in the late 90s, with only a few niche European studios still making them (with varied success).

Adventure games were revived because:

-The internet allowed for indie studios to develop games cheaply and distribute them to niche demographics (e.g. Steam).
-The increased availability of 3rd party engines (AGS, Unity, etc) meant developers could make games without having to create their own engine from scratch (something which many major adventure game studios did for every single flag ship game in the late 1990s, which became untenable).
-The increasing prevalence of tablets, laptops, and phones, out of technological necessity, placed less emphasis on cutting edge graphics. People are now fine with low-fi and 2D.
-AAA studios stopped focusing on PCs as the platform of graphical innovation, instead viewing it as just a secondary platform for console games. This meant that the PC gaming market was no longer driven by the bi-yearly upgrade cycle it used to. This didn't have a huge direct impact on adventure games, but definitely affected people's acceptance of low-fi graphics as there was less pressure to only buy super cutting edge games to justify the cost of your graphics card.
-People who played them as kids in the 80s and 90s got old and have more disposable income.
-Females are more likely to play video games than they once were (Codex might scoff at this, but is true. The adventure gaming genre has always leaned more female than other genres).

 

[Morality Games]

Nah, they co-existed just fine for many years.

Adventure games fell out of favor because the industry changed to focus on games that could sell 1 million + copies, while adventure games tended to sell a couple hundred thousand at best (King's Quest). They lived on in a way in series that could replicate those numbers (Myst).
I don't know if I'd really say they're making a comeback, but the fact that niche development has become more viable recently with crowdfunding and cheaply or freely available engines means they can get by now selling the numbers they did in the 90s.

That's not serious disagreement, it's just another side of the same coin.

 

[toro]

Adventures game died because the game industry changed direction at some point (fps, 3d and so on). Suddenly there was no creative forces behind them and as a direct consequence, only crap was released for several years.

 

[TripJack]

not enough instant gratification

 

[Metro]

Majority of games I bought when I was younger were Adventure games (Space Quest series, Monkey Island series, Indiana Jones Crusade + Fate of Atlantis). Now I don't really care for them. Guess I got popamole as the years went on. I need either turn based/strategic combat or visceral/action combat. Solving puzzles and choosing between dialogue doesn't hold my attention anymore. I suspect others are the same. With new technology new genres were spawned and gave people a wider choice.

 

[Redlands]

Adventure games died because:

-3D graphics card sparked a graphics revolution in the late 90s and early 2000s that adventure games, as a genre, had a hard time adapting to.
-Developing games in the 90s and early 2000s was really expensive and risky as it relied on physical distribution in a limited number of stores.
-The genre itself peaked in the early 90s, with a bunch of classic titles, but also a bunch of shit, which hurt the market. See also: 90s RTSs.
-The PC gaming market changed from older, affluent, educated, white people (which it tended to consist of in the 80s and early 90s), to younger males more interested in action games. (With the release of Windows 95 and beyond, it became easier to use PCs, particularly for gaming. Additionally, PC technology was becoming more affordable than it had been, especially with the decreased number of non-IBM-compatible lines of computers at the time.)
-As a consequence of all of these factors, AAA studios quit funding them in the late 90s, with only a few niche European studios still making them (with varied success).

Also, let's not forget that the 90s was when Sierra got bought out, which eventually resulted in all the shit that happened afterwards. When one of the leading names in a genre dies like a beached whale - even though it's for totally separate reasons - most investors aren't going to want to fund that kind of thing. LucasArts followed soon after: a lot of their adventure projects got effectively cancelled, as they started farming out the licenses they had to other people to make.

 

[a Goat]

Tons of shit ideas.
FMV for starters. It was fine in few games but most of the time it was just horrible.

 

[hpstg]

The really excellent adventure games had good art direction and atmosphere, and that clouded the main problem which was the retarded, nonsensical "puzzles". Meanwhile other genres started delivering in the story/atmosphere that adventure games were known for, without the retardation of having to shape your ass hairs in a specific shape to fit the tavern lock so that you can get the ring of fate that allows you to speak to the bird that holds the secret.

 

[Boleskine]

Adventure games were the big budget games of the early to mid 90s. Once 3D tech took off, the money and energy went into other genres like action games. Adventure games were less profitable, and attempts to bring 3D to adventure games had mixed results. Plus, LucasArts stopped caring about adventure games after Grim Fandango & Escape from MI, while Sierra got destroyed by a corporate takeover. No giant budgets + no marketing = no incentive for anyone else to pour millions into games that aren't going to sell as well as 3D/action games. But the genre never died. That's just a stupid headline sites like Gamespot pushed. Thankfully our German and European brethren didn't give up on adventure games.

Why do people still ask "why did adventure games die?" This topic has been beaten to death over the years, and the answer is fairly straightforward.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Developers shamelessly pandered to the popamolecasualpointandcickfag proles by first adding graphics and then removing the text. Death of a genre.

R.I.P. Adventure games (1976 - 1989).

 

[taxalot]

Adventures games died because at some point you had to make a fake moustache with some dead cat's hair and stick it on your face with maple syrup just to pass for a guy who had no moustache to start with and fuck this gay shit.

 

[Astral Rag]

Thread reminded me of this article:

Spoiler

 

[SCO]

The really excellent adventure games had good art direction and atmosphere, and that clouded the main problem which was the retarded, nonsensical "puzzles". Meanwhile other genres started delivering in the story/atmosphere that adventure games were known for, without the retardation of having to shape your ass hairs in a specific shape to fit the tavern lock so that you can get the ring of fate that allows you to speak to the bird that holds the secret.

Ignored

 

[Infinitron]

Adventure Games were the leading genre of PC gaming until around the late 1990s. Myst came out in 1993 and in 1995 became the highest selling PC game of all time until the year 2000; Before that, King's Quest V held that title from 1990 through 1995. Adventure games in the early - middle 1990s especially were huge; even as late as 1997, games like the Curse of Monkey Island were hits. My two questions are thus:

Why did Adventure games die then?

Why have they seen a revival the past few years?

Since you're sticking around on this forum, you should probably read this: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9141

The answer to your question is appropriately under the King's Quest 8 screenshot

 

[hpstg]

Ignored

Gratz.

 

[Forest Dweller]

It's funny how everyone here likes to ignore the presence of action-adventures in threads like these.

 

[hpstg]

It's funny how everyone here likes to ignore the presence of action-adventures in threads like these.

Ignore them as a kind of continuation, or as one of the reasons of the demise of adventures?

 

[Forest Dweller]

As a continuation.

 

[evdk]

As a continuation.

It's not really ignoring, it's the traumatic reaction you'd have to the shambling zombie of your deceased parent rising from the grave and visiting the family Christmas dinner.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Juan_Carlo has got it pretty much spot on, but he forgot one vital item:

# Adventure games became stale and formulaic, relying upon the same clichés, tropes and puzzle designs that had come (and gone) for at least 15 years back.

It took a break of several years for someone else to try again, to learn from the mistakes of the past, to avoid the major pitfalls. So far so good, for a couple of studios at least.

 

[Baron]

Pixel hunting and try-everything-in-your-inventory puzzles.

 

[evdk]

Pixel hunting and try-everything-in-your-inventory puzzles.

Yep, I know it is uncool and w/e, but I much prefer the modern way of highlighting all hotspots on the screen by pressing a key.