The State of Misadventure Gaming
2001 April Fool’s Edition

By Ydnar Iksnaguls

PC
Data Sales Figures (As Supplied by PC Gamer)

All figures are copies
sold in thousands for the month of March 2001 and do not include online or overseas
purchases:

A Rose by Any Other Name

In a not totally unexpected move,
Dreamcatcher has announced that it will once again be changing the name of its
adventure titles for North American release. Pompeii, which had been renamed
Timescape for North American release, will now be known as Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Faust, which had been changed to Seven Games of the Soul,
will now be know as Pompeii. A Dreamcatcher spokesperson, who asked
to remain anonymous, said that the name changes were not made in order to trick
customers into purchasing extra copies of games they already owned.

The
Myst Splatters in Your Eyes

Citing dissatisfaction with the initial
500,000 pre-orders, an unnamed Presto spokesperson today announced that Myst
3 has been reprogrammed as a first-person-shooter. As quoted from the unofficial
press release, “In an attempt to appeal to bloodthirsty, mindless action
gamers who would not recognize a sense of humor if it crawled up their butts and
died, we have decided to appeal to the lowest common denominator and turn the
peaceful islands of Myst 3 into a bloodletting orgy of violence.”
Our prediction: if Myst 3 is a best-seller, then for the next ten years
magazine editors will be blaming the death of first-person-shooter games on the
profusion of Myst 3 clones that later flooded the market.

Don’t
Bogart That Geritol

No longer welcome in an industry that worships at
the unwashed feet of twenty-something action gamers, adventure game legends Roberta
Williams, Jane Jansen, Al Lowe, and Josh Mandel–now all in their forties (which
is closer to eighty in computer gaming years)–today held a press conference to
announce the formation of their new development company–Productions of Old Farts
(P.O.O.F.)–and promised to change the industry. They immediately announced their
first title in what is expected to be a ten-part series, Leisure Suit Larry
Goes on a Space Quest for Glory and Is Questioned by Police After He Becomes a
Queen in a King’s Quest for Love.

When
Doves Cry

In a totally unexpected announcement, it has been confirmed,
through anonymous sources, that the entire staff of Computer Gaming World–with
the sole exception of Jeff Green–has been let go and replaced by the staff of
Just Adventure. Veteran editor Jeff Green is rumored to be ecstatic to no longer
be the oldest person on the staff and in fact welcomes the opportunity to have
new Editor-in-Chief Randy Sluganski lead Computer Gaming World backwards
to the halcyon days of adventure gaming. We are still investigating reports that
former Editor-in-Chief George Martin has been asked to stay under the condition
he wear a dress and write all his columns under the byline “Scorpia.”

Monkey
Madness

LucasArts today announced that they will release a yearly sequel
to Monkey Island for the next twenty years and compared the success of
Monkey Island to their phenomenal Star Wars franchise–except that
tens of millions more people will see the Star Wars movies than will ever
play the Monkey Island games. In keeping with their policy of making their
adventure games user-unfriendly by requiring keyboard input, it has been announced
that the next installment of Monkey Island–Dammit Guybrush, I’m a Monkey,
I’m Not Your Wife–will be shipped on 456 floppy disks.

When
Pigs Fly

Just Adventure today announced that advertising revenue was
at an all-time high as major software companies seem to have suddenly discovered
the wisdom of advertising their adventure products to its niche audience rather
than to the action gamer populace of gaming magazines and IGN. An unnamed spokesperson
for LucasArts was heard to say, “We never realized how many more tens of
thousands of our product could be sold simply by advertising on Just Adventure.
If only we had utilized this webzine when Grim Fandango was released!”
An unnamed marketing spokesperson for Ubi-Soft was quoted as saying, “Advertising
on Just Adventure increased our bottom line and saved my job. Thank God for Randy
and his dedicated staff members at Just Adventure.”