http://www.justadventure.com/article/172/featured-article-ray's-e3-report-2012-player-choice-part-1-of-3

Seems that lots of innovations in store in the fairly near future.

I haven't read the article, but I don't think that the target demographic for mainstream developers is getting younger, or at least not by much.  If anything, I suspect that it's widening to include older players, going from targeting teenagers to teenagers through thirty-year-olds.

What you might be seeing is the increasing entry of gaming (and with it, its target audience) into the mainstream, and thus tending towards works that cater to a broad audience.  Just as action blockbusters do well at the cinema, action games do well.

(The cinema arguably has broader range, and better viability for non-action titles, but then gaming is a rather newer medium and thus may still be finding its footing.)

Indeed, on the counter-point I woul like to mention the new Tomb Raider game, which represents a franchise that has gone, I believe, from straightforward action-adventure featuring a famously big-breasted lead to what looks like a somewhat more mature depiction with a noticeably more average body-type.

Additionally, recent years have seen the release of games like Heavy Rain and LA Noir, neither of which seem to me to skew terribly young.

As to adventure games, it doesn't seem to me to be terribly surprising that they don't have a particularly large presence at a show like E3, given the above-described tendency towards the mainstream.

[edit] To continue:

If anything, it seems to me that adventure games are starting to once again find their audience; with games like LA Noir (which I think is at least part-adventure) and Heavy Rain already out, Resonance just launched and upcoming successfully "Kickstartered" ventures like Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road, Phoenix Online Studio's Cognition project and the new games from Double Fine and The Two Guys From Andromeda, I think that adventure gamers have some cause to be hopeful for the genre.

Originally Posted By Thaumaturge (28 JUN 2012 8:42am)

I haven't read the article, but I don't think that the target demographic for mainstream developers is getting younger, or at least not by much.  If anything, I suspect that it's widening to include older players, going from targeting teenagers to teenagers through thirty-year-olds.

 

What you might be seeing is the increasing entry of gaming (and with it, its target audience) into the mainstream, and thus tending towards works that cater to a broad audience.  Just as action blockbusters do well at the cinema, action games do well.

 

(The cinema arguably has broader range, and better viability for non-action titles, but then gaming is a rather newer medium and thus may still be finding its footing.)

 

Indeed, on the counter-point I woul like to mention the new Tomb Raider game, which represents a franchise that has gone, I believe, from straightforward action-adventure featuring a famously big-breasted lead to what looks like a somewhat more mature depiction with a noticeably more average body-type.

 

Additionally, recent years have seen the release of games like Heavy Rain and LA Noir, neither of which seem to me to skew terribly young.

 

As to adventure games, it doesn't seem to me to be terribly surprising that they don't have a particularly large presence at a show like E3, given the above-described tendency towards the mainstream.

 

[edit] To continue:

If anything, it seems to me that adventure games are starting to once again find their audience; with games like LA Noir (which I think is at least part-adventure) and Heavy Rain already out, Resonance just launched and upcoming successfully "Kickstartered" ventures like Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road, Phoenix Online Studio's Cognition project and the new games from Double Fine and The Two Guys From Andromeda, I think that adventure gamers have some cause to be hopeful for the genre.

You are probably right since you are *FAR* more :with" the modern computer game world than I am !

Well the average age of a gamer these days are 30's (compared to earlier when it was 20's, etc), so the actual age of gamers has gone up rather then down.

it's more of a "follow the leader" type of thing, CoD is a huge market and World of Warcraft, so that's two area's that big publishers like to invest in (even though it's futile, and people aregetting tired of it).

Someday it will cahnge, just like how it changed from adventure>shooters and so fourth.

OMG - I just noticed !@!!

I exaggerated - Mea Culpa - ER-*THREE* not FOUR  !!!  

Here you go:

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/713502/esas-gamer-study-average-player-37-42-percent-of-gamers-female/

http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp

Originally Posted By Stiler (29 JUN 2012 9:51am)

Here you go:

 

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/713502/esas-gamer-study-average-player-37-42-percent-of-gamers-female/

http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp

Thanks for the lnk.

If the figures are authentic and not slanted in any way (statistics ofteen are !) then I must say that I am **excceedingly** suprised - and it pretty well demolishes what I have postulated in previous posts !!

However, there are some interesting queries posed by some respondents to the stat-report, some fairly critical..

They mainly center around the ambiguous definition of video game - does it include, Tetris, bridge, chest, edutainment, etc.. etc. ??

There weren't many point-and-click games at E3, but I think I saw all of them.

When I'm at E3, I try my best to have a "generous" attitude toward what an adventure game can be, so I'm not utterly frustrated at what I see being presented.

That being said, I DO think adventure pops up where we least expect it.  Both Portal games feel like adventure games to me -- almost 100% puzzle solving and story -- but of course they aren't SOLD as adventure games.

.. and now I'm trying DESperately to figure out where the fourth E comes from. 

Originally Posted By Ray (2 JUL 2012 1:40pm)

.. and now I'm trying DESperately to figure out where the fourth E comes from. 

So am I

Did you see any "Classical" (i.e. "Old fashiomed" !) 3rd person **ADVENTURES** in the offing Ray that look particularly promising ??

The two from Daedalic are sure to get our attention.  Those are the only very traditional ones at the show that I saw.

Originally Posted By Ray (5 JUL 2012 1:47pm)

The two from Daedalic are sure to get our attention.  Those are the only very traditional ones at the show that I saw.

Your above unfortunately reinforces my fear that "conventional" Quest/Adventures are dying, if not already dead !

I personally find this extremely upsetting, but others may probably feel 'you've got to move with the times'.

This is not terrible for me since age & eyesight determine that I won't be able to continue too much longer !

But perhaps some reasonably aged members will be upset to have to attend the funeral of "pure" adventures ?

If so, perhaps they would voice their feelings here !

As the very well known (church I believe) saying goes :-

"Speak NOW or forever hold your peace-"!!!!

I strongly doubt that "traditional" adventure games are either dead or dying - indeed, they seem to me to be growing, given the number of promising titles coming up.

I don't think that I'd expect to see many at E3; adventure games are, I feel, not really "mainstream" games, and may never have been, and, as gaming becomes a mainstream passtime, E3 is likely to primarily showcase mainstream games, with other game types having lesser presences.

I have read, I believe, that there once was a time when adventure games were the dominant form for games; what I suspect, however, is that this was a time when gaming was not a mainstream activity, and thus should perhaps not be taken to indicate that adventure games were then mainstream.  Rather, I suspect that as gaming has moved into the mainstream, adventure games have simply not been widely taken up by that mainstream, leaving them ungrowing.  Since the mainstream is likely far larger than the niche that follows adventures, the appearance may be given that adventure gaming has "shrunk".

(I do think that some shrinking may have occurred, if perhaps not to the extent that is sometimes claimed: since adventure games were less sought-after by the growing market than other genres, publishers produced fewer of them.  Unfortunately, this may well have been before indie games gained the degree of prominence that they have today, leading to some loss of output of adventure games.)

Today I'm inclined to look for adventure games far less from traditional developers and publishers than from indies, I think; the games that I'm excited about are Resonance (it's recently out, I believe, but, ah, "budgetary constraints" prevent me from buying it just yet ^^; ), Moebius and "Mystery Game X" from Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road, Cognition, Bracken Tor and The Last Crown (whenever they come out

[edit]

In short, my argument amounts to my suspicion that you're looking in the wrong place for adventure games: I suggest looking more to indies than to traditional sources.

Thanks Thaumaturge,

Originally Posted By Thaumaturge (7 JUL 2012 11:08am)

I strongly doubt that "traditional" adventure games are either dead or dying - indeed, they seem to me to be growing, given the number of promising titles coming up.

 

I don't think that I'd expect to see many at E3; adventure games are, I feel, not really "mainstream" games, and may never have been, and, as gaming becomes a mainstream passtime, E3 is likely to primarily showcase mainstream games, with other game types having lesser presences.

 

I have read, I believe, that there once was a time when adventure games were the dominant form for games; what I suspect, however, is that this was a time when gaming was not a mainstream activity, and thus should perhaps not be taken to indicate that adventure games were then mainstream.  Rather, I suspect that as gaming has moved into the mainstream, adventure games have simply not been widely taken up by that mainstream, leaving them ungrowing.  Since the mainstream is likely far larger than the niche that follows adventures, the appearance may be given that adventure gaming has "shrunk"...

(

There's no doubt that computer gaming has changed with the decades and that those changes have resulted as a consequence of both increased capability of the hardware and changing tastes, one probably affecting the other. For instance, the late 90's and early years after 2000 gave rise to war based games such as Medal of Honor and Call of Duty which attracted the male masses because of the realistic simulation made possible by powerful CPUs and fast video boards.

However, by any measure, computer gaming was a mainstream activity in the 90s and adventure games were very much a part of that mainstream. As far as computer gaming in general goes, theDoom games 1 thru 2 were everywhere starting in 1993 and they were followed by the Quake series. The gaming forums on sites such as Compuserve were teaming with people ravenous to get the next Doom levels and talk about forming new clans that fought internet-based Quake 1 and 2 battles made possible by the new Windows 95. Meanwhile in the adventure gaming realm, Myst followed by Riven was everywhere and all the other adventure games that were released from 1992 towards the end of the 90s were first and foremost on the shelves of stores such as Egghead and the numerous other computer stores that were everywhere. And so on.

My overall point being that adventure games were a proud and important part of mainstream computer gaming that was not only a mainstream form of gaming in the 1990s, but a particularly dramatic example of such given the fact that no one had every experienced such gaming innovation and excitement compared to nowadays where there seems to be a lot of ho-hum about computer gaming in general and unfortunately, adventure gaming in particular.

But I do agree that I don't think adventure gaming is dead. It will continue to exist albeit in some sort of niche form. It is interesting to me that on a recent flight from Canada to the U.S. a fellow in the next seat was in the middle of Broken Sword on the iPad. I asked him if he has ever checked out the adventure game forums on the internet and he said he knew nothing about them. There may just be a silent adventure gaming minority out there.

Yes !

During the late 1980's and early 1890's there was no such thing as *MAINSTREAM* computer games since there was no other type in existence - they were the **ONLY  STREAM**

Maybe until 1993 when (as mentioned by SirDave) "Doom" revolutionized the field with the original 'First Person Shooter".

HISTORY - HISTORY... 19 years ago , and I remember it 'WELL'  !!!

Of course there WERE compiter games before late 1980  - TEXT ADVENTURES - e.g. "ZORK" as early as 1980 !!!

SirDave, I'll confess that I don't believe that I have numbers with which to back up my impression; it is based simply on what I have gathered regarding the recent history of computer gaming.

That said, I'm not convinced that activity on fora or in computer shops - especially as of a few decades ago - reflects trends in society at large.  Simply put, I'm inclined to suspect that those drawn to such places - again, especially as of a few decades ago - are more likely than average to be drawn to computer games, and thus produce a biased population.

You mention the rise of shooters in the late 90's and early 2000's, and I do suspect that it was such games that brought gaming into the mainstream - and that the audience that they brought included only a fairly minor percentage interested in adventure games, leading to relative stagnancy in adventure game uptake.  You may be right in setting the beginnings of mainstream uptake earlier, with games like Doom and Quake, but I if so then I suspect that they were the beginning of the trend, not its culmination.

I do admit that I may very well be incorrect - as I said, I don't have hard data to back up my position; the question then becomes that of whence the apparent "fall" of adventure games that seemed so often to be claimed.

Len, I think that you miss my meaning when I refer to gaming being "mainstream": I don't mean "mainstream" within gaming, I mean "mainstream" overall  - that is, having a large uptake in the culture at large, as opposed to being taken up by a relative minority.

Originally Posted By Thaumaturge (7 JUL 2012 11:08am)

...adventure games are, I feel, not really "mainstream" games, and may never have been, and, as gaming becomes a mainstream passtime, E3 is likely to primarily showcase mainstream games, with other game types having lesser presences.

 

I have read, I believe, that there once was a time when adventure games were the dominant form for games; what I suspect, however, is that this was a time when gaming was not a mainstream activity, and thus should perhaps not be taken to indicate that adventure games were then mainstream...

 

And just above:

...That said, I'm not convinced that activity on fora or in computer shops - especially as of a few decades ago - reflects trends in society at large.  Simply put, I'm inclined to suspect that those drawn to such places - again, especially as of a few decades ago - are more likely than average to be drawn to computer games, and thus produce a biased population.

 

Okay, let's drill down to the point at issue (at least for me) which is that allegedly that when adventure games were a dominant form of gaming (which must mean the mid years of the 1990s), gaming itself was not a mainstream activity so adventure games couldn't have been a mainstream activity either. And apparently, in addition, the activity at computer stores wasn't an accurate refection of gaming as a mainstream activity.

I'm not following that at all. Gaming itself was not a mainstream activity compared to what? Sports? Reading books? Playing cards? Making plastic or wood car/airplane/boat models, Birdwatching? Astronomy? Astrology? Meditation?

If, on the other hand, you mean that gaming was not a mainstream activity when compared to other computer-based activities then I'm here to tell you, based on first-hand experience that starting around 1994 (if not a year or two earlier) computer games were the primary motivator driving the purchase of microcomputer (as PCs were known in that era) hardware. I know this particularly because I wrote and sold computer business software in the 1980s when the business applications for microcomputers were probably the major driving force while games, though popular particularly for the Tandy TRS-8, Apple II, and Commodore, were still rather primitive. The improvement in computer hardware, the introduction of 7th Guest in 1993 started to change all that and the Id and Myst games brought in sales numbers and dollar amounts never before seen in the microcomputer world.

I shut my business software company down. I wish I had spent the time writing a Doom or Myst game.

I'm not sure how anyone can say gaming wasn't "mainstream" in the 90's? Nintendo was a household name, you had mario branded lunchboxes, t-shirts, all kinds of things, even a movie! Not only of the crappy Mario movie but also The Wizard and others.

Profit wise, even in the 90's, gaming outsold the "Movie" industry in the US.

Sure, back in the early 90's (and even later) many people saw gaming as "toys" or something for "young people" but that does not mean it isn't "Mainstream." Just like today when you have Bieber Fever (ugh), super mainstream but geared toward young people and not really adults.

I have no doubt gaming, especially adventure gaming, was quite mainstream among computer users during the heyday of the adventure game, but those people were a definite minority of the population as a whole.Check out this link from the US Census:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/computer/files/Appendix-TableA.xls

Note that the heyday of the adventure game occurred when households with computers were a minority, and the decline of that popularity roughly follows the rise in computer ownership. In short, computers becoming popular means new games reflecting popular tastes, which unfortunately doesn't leave much room for adventure games.

VERY interesting retrospectives.

Having lived through the whole personal computer history HANDS ON from 1977 thro' today I find the opinions extremely interesting and thought provoking !!

I've changed "E4" to "E3" in the thread's topic.

Andromus conveys my point better than I did, it seems - and has numbers to back it up.

My one point of disagreement (presuming that I'm not misreading), is that I don't think that the growth in other genres leaves little space for adventure games in the audience; rather, I think that it leaves a similar amount of space, but smaller bby proportion due to lesser growth.

(I do think that there's less space on the rosters of big publishers, however; again, I suggest that indies - and, come to think of it, smaller niche publishers - are the primary places to look for new adventure games.)