I owe a lot to adventure games. Strange as it sounds to "owe" something to entertainment, I probably would not have learned English in my formatory years if it weren't for my zeal to understand those many adventure games I got a hold on when I first installed a CD-rom drive (came bundled with Loom and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting detective). When I as a youngster (well, I'm still pretty young) stood in front of the monitor, armed with the strength of my mouse and my dictionary. Ever decided to have fun and explore brave new worlds.
The death of adventure games is a topic that has been done well... To death. And I doubt there's any sort of consensus on the case, or that there's anything new or even meaningful to add to the debate. But as everyone does, I do have my own theory on why adventure games failed to prevail.
But contrary to the usual whining, I would like to share with you what I feel is ultimately the best solution for adventure games to go back into the mainstream. Do mind that this is my personal opinion and feel free to contradict it at will.
I do believe the genre's decline is a sum of many parts. Games actually were getting derivative, and there was indeed a failure to jump onto the wagon of new technologies and gameplay advancements. I still think that even the social changes brought by a culture of instant gratification had their say on it. But at least for me, the ultimate answer to the decline of the genre is the stagnation of story elements.
If instant gratification games were the ultimate answer, we wouldn't have RPGS. Rpgs are even slower than adventure games, and have the same potential for becoming repetitive and dull via their combat systems, stereotypes, and tried-to-death game elements like item fetchquests. I would say it is clear that RPGs are the direct competence to adventure games.
You're probably wondering: "Weren't action/FPS games or action adventures the ones that caused the death of the adventure game market?". Well, yes and no. I believe there is a generation of gamers that were raised on console games (which were mostly action fare, remember RPGS good as they were, were still the underdogs) and got used to instant action. Not only that, but adventure games mostly (with notable but scarce exceptions) were PC gaming fare. Blaming the console-raised generation of gamers and the new genres is a quick exit to the debate. I believe adventure games passed the torch, or even evolved into the genre we all know as the RPG.
"But weren't RPGS all about grinding, battling and experiencing?" If you ask me, RPG games are adventure games with battles. We won't learn anything if we pit adventure games against other genres. We will only gain insight to the future of adventure games if we look at the direct competence. What do you have left when you take the battles away from an RPG? Well, we have an adventure game.
I've always believed adventure games were well, about having adventures. About simple and clean problem solving. But also about looking for problems to solve. RPGs are all about the problem solving, one after the other. To stop the demise of the world, you have to defeat an ultimate evil power. To attain your dream, you have to fight trough while learning and growing with your comrades. And so it goes with RPG games.
If we blame the market's excessive share of mindless shooters that prize headshots more than well, heads; We could fall for the fallacy that gamers do not want stories.
But that's a lie, all games are stories, even if they're not extensive or even good. Every time a player takes up the controller he's discovering a story, or creating one for himself with the aid of the videogame.
Man is a storytelling being, a creature divided between the world he acknowledges through his senses, and the one abstract world he creates with his senses. If gamers were not into story driven games anymore... We would not have stuff like Xenosaga and Final Fantasy. Ultimately, I believe RPGS went where adventure games seldom dared to wander. There is a reason those japanese games are so endearing, and that is because they DO develop their storylines and characters.
Rpgs have created truly endearing characters, and such interesting worlds. Want proof? Just look at the fandom of games like Final fantasy 7. Even if some of them are a bit scary or over the top, it still proves that the story has indeed survived the game's lifetime. Just as the classic adventure games are fondly remembered.
On a side note, RPGS have also resolved many dilemmas that plague adventure games. The dilema of replayability: solved with optional quests, dungeons, endings or even open-ended gameplay where the player creates his own story at will (Persona 3 or the sort). The power of decision is a very strong one, one that I believe springs from our own right to exert free will. I believe the reward in this kind of game is the same reward of choice in real life: Choice allows us to acknowledge our existence and our freedom every time we choose (and choose well, of course.)
For all my personal opinions, I believe that there is one that is an absolute and unchangeable truth: Creating the classics of tomorrow is the only goal that will ever matter in today's game design. When there are a lot of derivative games, you make a non derivative one. It is that simple.
The solution is to learn from the direct competence and analyze what makes RPG gamers tick. When we do that, we will have the answer to create an original and truly endearing adventure game.
And as G.K. Chesterton once said: An inconvenience is merely an adventure wrongly considered.
