14 DAY TRIAL // I must admit that, ever since I got my hands on Space Quest (the first adventure game I have played) I knew I was going to love this genre forever. Tons of other wonderful titles followed, with LucasArts and Sierra battling for the number one spot in my heart.
You probably remember those times, too: the era of Maniac Mansion and Loom, Monkey Island and Sam & Max from LucasArts or the Leisure Suit Larry and King's Quest series or Gabriel Knight and Phantasmagoria (an innovative title for its time) from Sierra. Basically, these were the times when the point and click adventure genre was becoming a phenomenon, when floppy disks (remember those?) with .txt solutions were shared by friends, when you had to type things like "get pistol" (and not "get gun") in order to do something.
Then, together with the hardware improvements, more "next-gen" games started to surface, from even more companies: the incredible Bad Mojo, the breathtaking Broken Sword, the sadistic I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and eventually Grim Fandango, the games from this period ('95-'99) represented the end of an era... which only lasted two decades (sic!).
After that massive display of quality, we rarely got a true point and click adventure game: the developers either tried to align them to the 3D technology and failed miserably or they just wanted to simplify them (by inserting tons of mini-games) in order to get more attention from the public (such as the Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude failure). But sales and popularity among the gamers were decreasing. A Dreamfall here, a Syberia there, an experimental Fahrenheit, a brain-bending Still Life - just a few titles managed to create the needed hype to keep the genre alive. But it's on "energy saving" mode for quite a while.
The most important reason why this genre is dying (even though I am sure I'm not its only fan) is, unfortunately, piracy. Sales are dropping madly because of that, the genre can't be ported to consoles because of its format, developers no longer give it a try. Or if they do, they only invest a minimum sum of money, to keep their losses as low as possible. If great titles are indeed released (Jack Keane, for example), they will quickly fade off from the same reasons: piracy on the one hand and the lack of popularity of the genre on the other hand (lack of popularity which is generated by the same, aforementioned piracy - it's another red ring of death on Microsoft operated systems).
One way of solving this problem (if people still care about the point and click adventure genre) is by moving to digital download services, since such products are harder to crack and, at the same time, by offering episodic content. Probably the most successful titles of the recent times were Sam & Max: Episode One and Episode Two. Probably that's how the future should look like. Because, honestly, I don't even dare to think how sad and boring the future without the adventure genre would look like...
