For anyone who's interested, here are the results of an adventure game survey conducted by Chronerion Entertainment from 09 June 2012 thru 08 September 2012.

Source: Christian Haumer, Chronerion Entertainment

Was this survey ever linked to from here?  First time i've heard or seen anything about it.

Same here, I don't think I've ever seen it before. 

same here..

270 people surveyed - really not all that many. They clustered around the same basic group of games it seemed.

hear hear! multiple storylines and PC's are still the favourite medium.

So AG developers don't waste time with handheld crappy games 

I'd never seen or heard about the survey either. I got an unsolicited email about it yesterday and decided to post something. To the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been mentioned on JA before.

Hi guys!

Thanks for your interest in the survey, I'm the guy who did it.

Background information: Last summer I started the online survey just for fun, out of my own interest. At the beginning I just wanted to gather opinions and feedback from my friends, but then it began to grow and grow. I didn't even think about making it a worldwide survey, so it was only available in German (I'm Austrian). I regret it now, but as soon the survey started, I wasn't able to change it anymore. So, the results of the survey are reflecting the opinions of the German/Austrian "hardcore"Adventure Game society, I guess.

After the survey ended, and I spent dozens of hours to evaluate the data, I thought it would be nice to make a infographic, translate the whole thing to English and to share it with the world. Yes, and here we are now.

Somewhere in the future (2014?), I want to do it again, but then worldwide and with more preparing time (I set up the current survey in just one or two hours on a boring sunday afternoon, hehe). Are you people here at JustAdventure interested to participate? Would be great!

Many thanks and have an adventurous day!

cheers,

Christian

Hi Christian

Yes, i would participate, but please contact a few game publishers who publish English games as well, before you do the survey, and make sure they will accept your results as valid, so that maybe, just maybe we will start to see a few nice adventures in English again?

Then all your trouble will hopefully not be in vain!

Thanks for your trouble, and thanks for sharing the results with us!

Yes, interesting results.

I, too, would have liked to have took part in it.

Please do post the next one here when you do it again.

Also I suggest posting it at http://www.mysterymanor.net/ .

I'm in..

Originally Posted By Traveller (20 DEC 2012 1:19am)

please contact a few game publishers who publish English games as well, before you do the survey, and make sure they will accept your results as valid, so that maybe, just maybe we will start to see a few nice adventures in English again?

Every once in a while I visit the JA forums and every time I'm struck by the negative comments on recent adventures. Like in the thread about how much you would be willing to pay, etcetera. And here. It's like most  JA forumites don't read reviews, don't even know what's available, don't see beyond JA.  

Adventures released in 2012 that got very positive reviews: Botanicula - The Cat Lady - The Walking Dead - Primordia - Resonance - Cognition Episode 1 - Deponia 1 + 2 - The Testament of Sherlock Holmes - The Dark Eye: Chains of Savina - Harvey's New Eyes, and many more. I'll add some of my own recent favorites: multimedia experience Dear Esther - Alt-Minds (still running) - wordy puzzle game The Fool and His Money - visual puzzle game Unmechanical - unique indie game The Sea Will Claim Everything. 

Adentures to look forward to in 2013: Dreamfall Chapters - Moebius - the new Tex game - Double Fine's adventure - Jane Jenson's Adventure X - The Last Crown - Asylum - Lilly Looking Through - Space Venture game - Syberia 3 - Deponia 3 -  - Broken Sword: the Serpent's Curse - more Cognition episodes - Hero U: Rogue to Redemption - and many more.

Originally Posted By Fien (25 DEC 2012 5:56am)

 

 

Every once in a while I visit the JA forums and every time I'm struck by the negative comments on recent adventures. Like in the thread about how much you would be willing to pay, etcetera. And here. It's like most  JA forumites don't read reviews, don't even know what's available, don't see beyond JA.  

I think the comment was referring to the big budget AAA titles of yesteryear. Among indies, the Adventure game genre is in a pretty good shape, and we have seen plenty of good games as of late (like the ones you mentioned), and I'm quite happy with those. It would be nice to see something with the overall production value of Curse of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango again, though that is not something that I feel is a must for the genre to still remain fun. 

Now if I wanted to be negative, I would mention space sims...

Originally Posted By Fien (25 DEC 2012 5:56am)

Every once in a while I visit the JA forums and every time I'm struck by the negative comments on recent adventures. Like in the thread about how much you would be willing to pay, etcetera. And here. It's like most  JA forumites don't read reviews, don't even know what's available, don't see beyond JA.  

......and what about the forum you always frequent?  Topics like "When do you usually Quit?" etc....  All forums discuss the negative side of games so why should JA be any different?  ...........and don't generalize about Forum Members especially since many have been playing AG's since the beginning.

Originally Posted By Fnord (25 DEC 2012 8:22am)

Originally Posted By Fien (25 DEC 2012 5:56am)

 

 

Every once in a while I visit the JA forums and every time I'm struck by the negative comments on recent adventures. Like in the thread about how much you would be willing to pay, etcetera. And here. It's like most  JA forumites don't read reviews, don't even know what's available, don't see beyond JA.  

 

I think the comment was referring to the big budget AAA titles of yesteryear.

You may be right. It's not how I read the comment though, and this particular poster has complained about the lack of good adventures more than once.  But it's not just one poster.  I often read similar comments like the recent exceptionally good games are very rare these days and if you could find a really good adventure game.

About yesteryear... the adventure industry has changed so much that it's hardly realistic to expect "big publishers" (Activision? LucasArts? HA!) to finance niche games for the unprofitable and dwindling PC market. 

Among indies, the Adventure game genre is in a pretty good shape, and we have seen plenty of good games as of late (like the ones you mentioned), and I'm quite happy with those. It would be nice to see something with the overall production value of Curse of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango again, though that is not something that I feel is a must for the genre to still remain fun.

The term "indie" is open to interpretation these days, what with digital downloads, Steam, GOG, and all. It used to be developers like Jonathan Boakes, who singlehandedly produced and financed their low-budget adventures and then got ripped off by the publisher they needed to sell their games.  Now it includes small selfpublishing companies like Wadjet Eye games, who also  publish other people's games, and big ones, like TellTale, with over one hundred employees.  

Originally Posted By Fien (27 DEC 2012 8:03am)

The term "indie" is open to interpretation these days, what with digital downloads, Steam, GOG, and all. It used to be developers like Jonathan Boakes, who singlehandedly produced and financed their low-budget adventures and then got ripped off by the publisher they needed to sell their games.  Now it includes small selfpublishing companies like Wadjet Eye games, who also  publish other people's games, and big ones, like TellTale, with over one hundred employees.  

Yea, Indie is not a strictly defined term. In the music industry it means (if my sources are right) roughly that the record company is privately owned, and does not have to answer to any shareholders, so I think a similar definition should be used for indie games (the game is either self-published or published by a privately owned company that does not have to answer to any shareholders).

In this era of digital distribution such companies does have a far better chance of getting its products sold, and I think this is part of the reason why adventure games have been able to survive.