Did Graphics Kill the Adventure Genre? – Article — Part 2
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Did Graphics Kill the Adventure Genre?
Last week’s State of Adventure Gaming created a lot of controversy, discussion and dozens of email responses. It has already been read by over 100,000 visitors and has taken on a life of its own.
Two of our readers – Howard Sherman, CEO of Malinche Entertainment and Scorpia known for her adventure game reviews in Computer Gaming World – felt strongly enough to express their own opinions on Tim Schafer’s comment that graphics killed the adventure genre.
Scorpia has this to say about Tim Schafer’s recent comments:
I read with interest Tim Schaefer’s remark that graphics will be the end of adventure games. If that’s true, then the genre has been on its last legs for quite some time.
When many of today’s gamers think of the “golden age” of gaming, likely the first word that comes to mind is “text”, followed by “Infocom”. Certainly, Infocom was the leader, and had overall the best quality of games on the market. Then there was Scott Adams, king of “no frills” adventuring, along with a few other companies.
However, the majority of games in those early years, especially for the Apple, Atari, and Commodore-64, were graphical ones. Every product from Sierra – except Softporn – was a graphic game.
Smaller companies put out graphic adventures as well. Escape from Rungistan. Secret Agent. Blade of Blackpoole. Coveted Mirror. Transylvania. Mask Of The Sun. Serpent’s Star. Sherwood Forest. The Quest. Gruds in Space. Murder On The Zinderneuf. Sands Of Egypt. Crypt Of Medea. Sundog. Alpine Adventure. Demon’s Forge. Mummy’s Curse.
That list could go on for some time, but you get the idea. Graphic adventures have been with us since the dawn of home computing. Visuals were a big feature in many other genres, as well. Infocom may have overshadowed all others in people’s minds, but all-text was only a part of the gaming scene and a minority part at that.
Yet Tim’s remarks are not without a certain validity. Those early computers had a particular advantage: built-in graphic systems. There was only so much a developer could do; limitations were inherent in the design. On the other hand, programmers didn’t have to worry about something new coming along every few months. They worked with what they had and pushed it to the edge. Beyond that, there was nowhere to go.
What changed everything was the coming of the IBM-PC and the myriad clones that followed in its wake. Now computers had hard drives with far more space. They had more system RAM. And most important, they had *graphic cards*.
Once set free from built-in limits, graphic development exploded. Third-party manufacturers jumped in immediately with product. The incredibly ugly CGA rapidly gave way to VGA and SVGA and on to today’s high-end cards.
We are now caught in a cycle where demand for ever-better graphics pushes designers to the limits, and those limits are continually expanded by more advanced technology. In particular, the genres of shooters, racing, and sports create a very heavy demand for superior graphics.
This trickles down to markets where cutting-edge visuals are not that important, and puts a great burden on designers of, for instance, adventure games. Hard-core players are usually more concerned with gameplay, although, of course, pretty pictures are always nice to have.
Unfortunately, dedicated adventure gamers are a tiny market. With few exceptions, most companies aren’t going to bother about it, given the expense of game creation today. Even independent designers are stuck. Unless they try selling their products over the ‘net, they have to find a publisher, and that publisher is likely to demand those “pretty pictures”. More effort concentrated on graphics means less for the game itself, often leading to poor or mediocre products. That, naturally, leads to less enthusiasm for adventures.
So it would seem that perhaps Tim is right. Yet, I have my doubts. Every genre around today existed back in those early 80’s. You name it, it was there: Adventure. Action-adventure. RPG. Strategy. War. Arcade. Sports. Educational. Racing. Pure puzzle. Flight sim. Shooter. And even, yes, online multi-player. All have survived into the 21st century.
There was a time, not too long ago, when it did appear that adventure games might be on the way out. Then came the astonishing – not to mention, mind-boggling – success of Myst. Single-handed, this beautiful but mediocre game revived the adventure industry.
Of course, that was fueled by greed. Everyone wanted “the next Myst” and no one pulled it off. Nonetheless, it gave a boost to the genre, and while the momentum may be slowing down, the genre is far from dead.
Therefore, I think that tolling funeral bells for adventure games is premature. In the future, there may be less product, but my belief is: as long as a market exists, there will be a supply. It may come through broadband downloads of independent products and small releases from European software houses, but as long as enough people want them, there will be adventure games. Graphics or no graphics. ‘Nuff said.
(c) 2005 Scorpia, all rights reserved.
