Articles

ADVENTURE  – THE GENRE
THAT DOES SELL

This month we have the
cumulative sales figures for any adventure game that has sold at least
1,000 copies in 2002. As always, these figures were compiled by PC
Data and do not include online sales or any sales outside of North
America; both of which comprise a large portion of adventure game
purchases.  To see them just click here.

What I find most interesting
is that while the magazines would have you believe that adventure
games do not sell, these figures clearly show that old adventure games
like Myst, King’s Quest VIII, Amerzone, etc.
continue to have a long shelf-life, while old action games like Doom,
Duke Nukem, et al have disappeared off the charts.  Why?  Because
they are games that are based on their now outdated graphics while
an adventure game, like a classic novel, will continue to appeal to
a player’s cerebral side years after its initial release. 

OOPS! 
I DID IT AGAIN!

We’re usually pretty good
at keeping secrets at Just Adventure.  There are games we are aware
of months before they are publicly announced, but developers have
– for obvious reasons – asked us to maintain silence.  So when we
were informed at the E3 that Syberia 2 was in production, the
light bulb did not flash above my head that this was confidential
information and I then proceeded to blab this scoop on the site. 
This in turn forced Microid’s hand and they were forced to admit that
the news was true, months before they intended to issue a public release. 
For causing all of this confusion, our apologies to Microids and we
even promise to not mention Fish Files 2!  Oops (just kidding
Cedric!).

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND…

Supposedly a sequel to
the wonderful Ico
has been canceled.  This is dreadful news as the low sales figures
(70,000 sold) reflect poorly on the tastes of the console community. 
The same old clichéd racing and sports games continue to boast of
sales in the hundreds of thousands, yet an innovative game that approaches
art, tanks.  But does the blame really rest on the shoulders of the
console gamers or is this just another instance of
poor marketing?  Ico – a game that would readily appeal to
any adventure gamer – was marketed only to the male teenage demographics
that read Gamepro and Electronic Gaming Monthly.  Console publishers,
unlike their pc counterparts, have yet to realize that different genres
can appeal to a wide variety of people and still insist on aiming
all of their marketing at the teenage male demographic.  It is for
this reason that the PC version of Shadow of Destiny will also
fail.  The only attempt Konami has made at advertising the game is
PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World and while both may be fine magazines,
neither one has a reputation for unbiased adventure game reviews in
the adventure community.  So what happens is those who are not adventure
gamers will be turned-off by the slanted reviews in the magazines
and those who are adventure gamers will have difficulty finding any
positive information on the game outside of the little news provided
to Just Adventure. 

OUR CUP RUNNETH OVER

By the end of August, we
should have added close to another 100 adventure game reviews to our
database.  Besides the regular addition of reviews of newer games,
we will also be adding over 30 reviews from Scorpia’s collection and
have recently unearthed over 40 “lost” reviews of Ray Ivey!  We will
also be spotlighting these reviews individually every Tuesday and
Thursday for the remainder of the year.  Plus, look for another huge
influx of walkthroughs as we continue our efforts to remain the best
darn adventure webzine in the history of civilization.

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

I thought it bad enough
when recently reading the instructions from a Nintendo Gamecube game
– Eternal Darkness – that listed the following warnings:  Seizures,
Repetitive Motion Injuries, Electric Shock, Motion Sickness, Laser
Device.  Jeez, I thought, these warnings are scarier than the game. 
But then I loaded a simple racing game called Test Drive onto
my Xbox only to be greeted by the following onscreen admonition (and
I paraphrase here as the actual quote is too lengthy to post verbatim): 

The cars in this game are
not real; they are video game images.  Do not attempt to duplicate
these driving tricks in your real car as you could be injured or killed.

Honestly, are video gamers
as stupid as all of these warnings would have us believe?  Maybe adventure
games should also take such cautions.  For example, how about this
for Gabriel Knight 3:  Warning!  Gluing cat hair on your driver’s
license in an attempt to alter you appearance is a federal offense. 
Or before playing Beyond Atlantis:  Warning!  Please do not
book a tour through any travel agency to visit the city of Atlantis
as it is a myth.  Except for Dreamcatcher employees who actually believe
Atlantis exists.

If you have any adventure
game “warnings” that you feel could save a life, send them to [email protected]
and maybe we’ll include them in a future column.

12
MILLION SOLD AND NOT A SINGLE PERSON WAS KILLED – OH, THAT’S WHY THEY
DON’T LIKE IT

It used to be that the
video game magazines were the last place to expect a kind word regarding
the adventure genre. Yet in the July issue of PSM (Playstation Magazine),
reviewer Stephen Frost had the following to say about Scooby-Doo:
Night of 100 Frights:

 “Looking back at this
game, I’ve come to the conclusion that it should have been more of
a graphical adventure along the lines of Broken Sword.  That way,
the whole sense of discovering clues and solving an actual mystery
could be retained.”

Keep in mind that PSM is
aimed at teenage, male gamers so this comment by Stephen Frost was
not only surprising, but very welcome.  Now let’s look at some recent
comments from the supposedly mature PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World.

The July issue of CGW featured
a review of Alfred Hitchcock Presents:  The Final Cut by Charles
Ardai.  The game received a deservedly poor grade, what was not deserved
though was this:

Hitchcock
died in 1980; the adventure game genre died around 1998.  And although
there have been periodic attempts to revive both – Hitchcock in a
posthumous TV series, adventure games in periodic European imports
– Mary Shelley taught us how likely such experiments are to succeed.

What an asinine remark. 
I didn’t realize that Escape From Monkey Island, Riddle
of the Sphinx, The Crystal Key, the Nancy Drew series,
Myst 3 (AND MORE!) – all games that have sold more than 150,000
copies – were made in Europe.  Maybe Mr. Ardai needs a good map as
he seems to be living in the nineteenth century.

As for PC Gamer, nothing
they would write about adventure games would surprise me, but take
a look at this from the June PCG News Ticker:

Timely
programming:  The Sci Fi Channel is readying a four-hour miniseries
based on eight-year old PC smash phenomenon Myst.  Much like the game,
after 15 minutes you’ll get frustrated and turn it off.

Let me see if I understand
this, Myst has sold over 12 million copies in eight years,
yet PC Gamer can’t seem to find one, not one, reviewer who understands
the game.  Yet this same magazine recently drooled over the new Doom
at E3.  Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t the new Doom the
same as the previous Dooms in that you just kill everything
in site?  Yet PC Gamer loves to slam adventure games because all
the players get to do is solve puzzles, the same as in adventure games
from five years ago?  Isn’t this new Doom the same as the one
from five years ago?  Oh wait, the graphics are better so somehow
that makes the game better.

Rob Smith and Jeff Green,
the editors of PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World respectively, are
both great people and we correspond with them on a regular basis,
but when will they realize that there is room for all genres in the
world of PC gaming and not just the genres that their staff members
like?

BUT
IF WE STOCK THEM, THEN SOMEONE MAY BUY THEM AND IF SOMEONE BUYS THEM,
THEN WE MAY HAVE TO STOCK THEM

Recently the following
post appeared on Google at comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure:

I just discovered (or
re-discovered) one reason why adventure games are selling
so poorly.  I just tried to buy Watchmaker at Electronics Boutique
today, and was told that their single copy came in today and was also
sold today.  I asked about restocking time, and they indicated that
they had no intention of buying another copy — since “adventure
games don’t sell too well”.  Talk about circular reasoning…

It’s pretty bad when
the only serious retailer of computer games in the entire
city decides to understock adventure games — no wonder they don’t
sell too well.

This particular post encouraged
over two-dozen responses, all from consumers with similar problems
at their local Electronics Boutique.  We then contacted Howard Horowitz,
the president and C.E.O. of GotGame
Entertainment.  Mr. Horowitz in turn promised to contact Electronics
Boutique at their Pennsylvania headquarters and attempt to correct
this situation.  Well, lo and behold, it was not too long before posters
who were complaining about the lack of adventure games at their local
EB were instead posting the following:

I stopped in my local
Electronics Boutique at lunchtime today, and am now the proud owner
of Syberia, Jazz&Faust, Watchmaker, and Nautilus.  The sales droid
I talked to last time was obviously mistaken — they did bring in
more stock

Thank you Mr. Horowitz
for taking a stand to get more adventure games on store shelves and
if you have a chain store in your area that is refusing to stock adventure
games, please let us know and we will see what we can do to correct
the situation.

TCHOTCHKE – BLESS YOU

Our
Top
10 Adventure Tchotchkes article was so popular that it encouraged
dozens of responses from readers about their favorite adventure tchotchkes. 
Among some of the more interesting emails we received:

Charles Herold of the New
York Times:  For the last 007 game they
sent a locked metal suitcase with 007 on it (007 was the combination,
too).  And I actually received a horseshoe set in a nice wooden
box for some game or other, which may or may not be expensive but
is certainly the heaviest tchotchke I ever received.

Cindy Yans of Computer
Games Magazine:   I love that article… Nostalgia… You got quite
a few things that I never saw, but I have a bunch of things here as
well…. The Devil Inside Devil’s Food Cake Mix, Zork Grand Inquisitor
actual lantern, Normality Milk Carton, Koala Lumpur Fez, Baldur’s
Gate Premium Dark Ale, Uprising “thingie” that looks like
your Time Machine Hour Glass, Toonstruck framed and signed cel, a
zillion action figures and metal cast figures, It’s pretty amazing
how much junk you can accumulate in 7 years.

JA
Fan Lous Crispino:   Loved
your list of Tchotchkes!  Especially that Lava Lamp! Bet if they
sold that in stores it might actually do better than the game did!
(maybe they could sell the lamp, and give the game away as a Tchotchke!)

Don’t know if this qualifies
as a Tchotchke, but a few years back when “Angel Devoid”
was released, they had a contest on their web site for free copies
of the game, posters, etc. The grand prize was one of 10 Leather Motorcycle
Jackets with the Angel Devoid Logo embroidered on the back. 
I entered hoping for a free copy of the game, but I won one of the
leather jackets!   Another example of the promotional item
being better than the game! 

WHO’S
YER DADDY?

Well, I know I’m going
to get in a lot of trouble for showing you this, but I can’t resist. 
Pictured below is a hitherto unpublished screenshot from Her Interactive’s
upcoming August release of Nancy Drew: The Scarlet Hand.  If
you look real carefully, you’ll discover Nancy’s favorite adventure
webzine.  You go girl!

KICKSTANDS
AT HALF MAST

The adventure community
lost a dear friend recently when Roy Conrad, the gravelly voice of
Ben in LucasArts’ classic Full Throttle, passed away from lung
cancer.  Tim Schafer, developer of Full Throttle and the Monkey
Island series, posted a wonderful memorial
to Roy on his new development company’s – Doublefine – website. 

SIGHBERIA

Since the Canadian release
of Syberia almost 2 weeks ago, not a day has gone by in which
we have not received at least one email gushing over the quality of
Benoit Sokal/ Microids latest offering.   Even The Longest Journey
didn’t initially generate this kind of enthusiasm among adventure
gamers.  Dreamcatcher’s September release date for North America may
seem to be a long way off, but believe me, it will be worth the wait
(I’m just hoping they don’t change the title to Beyond Syberia
to Atlantis or Syberia: The Lost Tales of Atlantis).

RED HERRINGS

Look for an interview with
Mike Ryder, the new president of Sierra, soon.  We hope to get the
truth behind the rumors swirling around about new entries in the Space
Quest and Kings Quest series.

We’re
also working on obtaining interviews with Tim Curry (the voice of
Gabriel Knight and countless other adventure games) and Tim Schafer
who is currently developing Psychonauts.

We just found out about
a few top-secret adventure projects that are still in the talking
stage.  If they come to fruition, it will be great news for the adventure
community and may turn more than a few of us into online gamers!

Cryo gone!?  We hope to
have an article soon chronicling the history of Cryo and some of the
wonderful games they developed over the years.