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What exactly killed big budget point'n'click adventures between millenia?

D

DownGrader

Member
Yes, I know that this happened at least fifteen years ago, but, anyways - what happened in late 1990s to early 2000s? What exactly crashed the genre so hard that the only things we saw from big studios are either lackluster off-genre sequels or ports and remakes?

It's not like YouTube killed the genre (and it actually could, at least for traditional point'n'clicks) because by the time YouTube came out, the genre was dead already. Or was it the result of bad 2D to 3D transmission?
 
O

OnionPowder

Member
Grim Fandango winning Game of the Year from outlets and selling horribly is one of the reasons I've heard. Nobody wanted to publish them after that.
 
O

oni-link

Member
We could make engaging and immersive adventure type games that let you do more than pointing and clicking and they sold better
 
A

andymcc

Banned
SomedayTheFire said:
Probably wouldn't be considered "real games" like "walking sims" aren't.
Click to expand...

if they aren't real games, then what are RPGs? glorified spreadsheets?

oni-link said:
We could make engaging and immersive adventure type games that let you do more than pointing and clicking and they sold better
Click to expand...

i can think of many instances of games that are more mechanically complex but i'm not thinking of many that are better written than the hallmark P&C games.
 
S

SodiumBenzoate

Member
There are plenty of them on steam, just not big budget ones. I think the rapidly expanding definition of a AAA budget overtook the genre, that's all.
 
P

Pakkidis

Member
Consoles were gaining popularity and PnC games weren't exactly made for consoles at that time

Other genres specifically FPS games were starting to look very good and thus began gaining popularity

Multiplayer was also gaining massive popularity

Lots more competition from other genres.
 
N

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
People's expectations of what they wanted out of a game changed. It's why WRPG's are no longer like Baldur's Gate and instead are like Skyrim.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
andymcc said:
if they aren't real games, then what are RPGs? glorified spreadsheets?
Click to expand...

The type of dumb people who would say point and click adventure games aren't "games" would probably be the same dumb people who call RPGs "glorified spreadsheets," yes.
 
B

bananafactory

Banned
dottme said:
But I actually think this is the main reason. For the playstation generation, the point and click game are too slow so they got bored.
Click to expand...

So it's not that they are boring, it's that they didn't line up with the tastes of a new generation. Also, I am the Playstation generation and I love point/click games.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Krejlooc said:
What an awful post.
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of point and click adventures, but I think that poster probably represents the mindset of many consumers.

The genre just isn't widely interesting enough to catch enough consumers to justify huge budgets.

They work much better as directly targeted digital experiences that don't need to sell 5 million copies.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
Weren't they pretty high budget? The voice work and art was topnotch and I could imagine it was a ROI thing.
 
E

explodet

Member
I'm on mobile right now so I won't be able to find it easily, but I posted an answer to this question way back in the early days of NeoGAF.

In short, the advent of Myst-clones, bigger budgets for voice actors, and cheaper costs of Doom-clones all helped bring down the point and click adventure game in that era.
 
D

DownGrader

Member
MrNyarlathotep said:
Point and Clicks underwent something of a metamorphosis into hidden object games, and are absolutely fucking huge in the casual market.
Click to expand...

That's actually the second thing I want to discuss. Why did this happen (I mean, the popularity)? It's like they thrown out all the best parts of poin'n'clicks from point'n'clicks.
 
M

Mononoke

Banned
deoee said:
kickban please.

The Point and Click Genre did not adapt to consoles, that's part of why it disappeared.
Click to expand...

Eh. Yeah a big reason. But I also question whether the genre would sell as well once fully 3D games were out. Once 1st person games became the norm. As much as I love point n click, I think they were on borrowed time.

They were popular when that was the limits of what they could do. I'm not so sure it would have continued selling well once games evolved beyond text based games. Eventually it would have become very niche and not sold as well as the past. And money drives Dev.
 
D

DownGrader

Member
explodet said:
In short, the advent of Myst-clones, bigger budgets for voice actors, and cheaper costs of Doom-clones all helped bring down the point and click adventure game in that era.
Click to expand...

That actually can be the reason, but I do not remember that much an oversaturation of genre. And mammoths like Sierra and LucasArts held their positions well - right before the 2000s.
 
O

Opiate

Member
Cost ceiling. Let's say a genre has a realistic sales threshold of, oh, 1 million copies. This ceiling changes only modestly over time.

The cost of development is rising (has risen) geometrically. As such, 1 million copies was great in 1996, fine in 2000, borderline acceptable in 2004, and unacceptable by 2008.

So here's what happens: a genre will reach a threshold where games can't reasonably justify the expense of remaining "AAA." This creates a downward spiral, where games have to accept being AA, which often reduces their sales -- because some people are only interested in "AAA" games -- which puts further downward pressure on their production budget.

Point and Click adventures are hardly the only genre to suffer from this: JRPGs have, as have platformers, as another instance. The classic western CPRG has, too. There are often 1 or 2 exceptions to this (e.g. FF for JRPGs, Mario for platformers), but as a general rule, it holds up.

Eventually, once these genres fall far enough down the production chain, they can reemerge as "indie" titles where expectations for costs are lower.
 
G

gfxtwin

Member
I think there is just a natural preference to wanting total control over where you character moves instead of clicking somewhere and watching them walk there. The seed was probably planted in gamers' minds with the early nintendo games. And there were still some adventure games in that style for a few years after the 90's (Syberia, Resident Evil Code Veronica, etc were still popular) but the final nail in the coffin was probably hammered when the potential of 3D games was shown via Ocarina of Time and GTA3.

OnionPowder said:
Grim Fandango winning Game of the Year from outlets and selling horribly is one of the reasons I've heard. Nobody wanted to publish them after that.
Click to expand...

Was that a point and click? I thought it had Resident Evil-style controls?
 
marcincz

marcincz

Member
The beginning of 3d games, like Crash, Spyro and especially Tomb Raider. After that gamers don't want to go back to p&c games.
 
M

MrNyarlathotep

Banned
Shmuppers said:
I must be ignorant, can you give me some examples?
Click to expand...

HERE is a list of games user-tagged as such on Steam, but they've been selling strongly for years, with all sorts of famous franchises attached to them like Nancy Drew, CSI, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

It's the sort of thing that completely flies under the 'real gamers' radar, but like I say, is absolutely huge in the casual market, and the types of titles you see in racks in places that don't specifically sell videogames to videogamers.

EDIT:
adixon said:
That didn't happen around the time lucas and sierra were ending their adventure game development, though.
Click to expand...

No, it became unprofitable for publishers to sell to a niche audience -> an audience of people who enjoyed an experience they could no longer get from publishers went unsatisfied -> someone stepped in to cater to that audience -> sub-genre resurgence.
Welcome to the genre life cycle.

DownGrader said:
That's actually the second thing I want to discuss. Why did this happen (I mean, the popularity)? It's like they thrown out all the best parts of poin'n'clicks from point'n'clicks.
Click to expand...

Its arguable as to what the best part of point and clicks is.
Hidden Object games have decent enough graphics, they have a mystery storyline and they have problem solving.
 
shaowebb

shaowebb

Member
DeadNames said:
They're boring.
Click to expand...

You probably don't like books either.

I love the things. Book of Unwritten Tales, The Whispered World, The Deponia Trilogy are all great games filled with great dialogue, fun puzzles and just overall storytelling.

But you know...maybe it doesn't have enough explosions and multiplayer for some.
 
C

capitalCORN

Member
For one thing, they were no longer the banner wavers of graphical revolution anymore. Say what you will now, but series like King's Quest were the first to adapt things like VGA, SVGA, full soundtracks and speech, pre-rendered graphics, and all which pushed PC games in the early to mid 90's. Even past that point, they would compete with things like claymation, and cell animation not far removed from movie studios (see Curse of Monkey Island). What really killed them was their long affair with FMVs and a painful transition to polygons. Not to mention the average gamers gravitation to more action genres like FPS and RTS.
 
G

Gunslinger

Member
I wouldn't be surprised that same people saying old school P&C games are boring are the ones heralding telltale's walking dead, GoT, Borderlands and Wolf among us. Telltale games killed P&C games. That's right I said it. Their P&C games are 3% gameplay 97% cut scenes. No puzzles, no thinking required.Atleast they were making good sam and max and tales from monkey island until they freaking turned all their games into a cutscene QTE fest. Shame really.
 
I

ichtyander

Member
On top of what people have already mentioned, the PC gaming market was probably reasonably smaller during the P&C golden years, perhaps the genre was always niche, but PC gaming was also much more niche in general than arcade and console gaming, so when the advent of action packed 3D games came, the PC market became even bigger, leaving point & click games in their own, diminishing sphere of hardcore fans.
 
J

Jackl

Member
I think point and clicks mainly had a market throughout the 90s because traditional RPG/story games were either too restrictive to develop at the time. The tech just wasn't there for solid immersement.

As more interactive and indepth titles came out the audience got smaller and smaller. Until it largely couldn't be supported anymore.
 
M

muu

Member
I'd say it was the 2D -> 3D transition, and coming of online multiplayer. These games were about finding things from within detailed environments, and 3D just wasn't ready for that kind of detail at the time. Online gaming also flourished, and the whole focus of PC gamers -- who, during the adv game times I would see talking about DoTT, Monkey Island, etc got absorbed into competitive Quake, war/starcraft, etc.

"Single player games can wait," and while those games waited for us to finish fragging people the market shrunk. That's my take anyway.
 
H

Hex

Banned
People are ADD and have no patience.
They can barely stand to read through text or sit through cut scenes, so reading dialogue or clues or clicking around is quite a bit to ask unfortunately.
 
D

DownGrader

Member
MrNyarlathotep said:
HERE is a list of games user-tagged as such on Steam, but they've been selling strongly for years, with all sorts of famous franchises attached to them like Nancy Drew, CSI, Sherlock Holmes, etc.
Click to expand...

adixon said:
That didn't happen around the time lucas and sierra were ending their adventure game development, though.
Click to expand...

...and Nancy Drew casual fad happened in around 2000, as far as I remember. So, I think that can be the point.
 
E

explodet

Member
DownGrader said:
That actually can be the reason, but I do not remember that much an oversaturation of genre. And mammoths like Sierra and LucasArts held their positions well - right before the 2000s.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, as posted in this thread by others, there's no one reason this genre tanked. Costs, bad developers, you name it. Remember FMV GAMES???

shark sandwich said:
Old Man Murray made a pretty hilarious article about this subject, 15 years ago.
Click to expand...
Still on point, to this day. And I love the shit out of the Gabriel Knight series.
 
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