The death of adventures
 

I heard lately that lucasarts has stopped the production of Sam n'Max 2, and also Sierra abandoned its project for a new "Larry" game... I Believe that the adventures in general are dying as a genre, and will going to merge with other types of games... with RPG's mostly. Does anyone has to say something on this? :)

Adventures have been dead for years. Lately there has been a small comeback with titles like Siberia but their performance has been disappointing. No doubt one reason for the discontinuation of Sam and Max2 and others.
In my opinion Adventures have not really died. Other game types have emerged and taken the good of adventures, the puzzles, the mystery and discarded the bad, the tedium and hours and hours doing nothing but running around seeing what you've missed that will let you continue. I'm thinking of games like Baldurs Gate and Star Trek: Hidden Evil. Not Adventures in strictest sense but having many elements from them.

You are right... the most recent games are only for "hardcore" fans of adventure games... I don't believe that the average player of today will play Cyberia or anything like that. And even if he does play it, i don't believe that anyone will play it twice. I have played older adv. games ( Like monkey 1-2-3, and others also ) many times, and finished them 2-3 times each, simply because they are.... fun to play :) The little i've seen of the modern adventure games... is that they resemble more "artistic-like movies" that you try to solve their mysteries, than fan to play games.

Adventures are dead for the new games, but for the more older and more experienced gamers, adventures will always be special, and we will always keep playing our old classics. Making new adventure games is a real risk for developers these days, but luckily there are lots of people (companies) that make freeware adventure games, or remakes 'n stuff.

*caughMYSTcaughANDcaughURUcaugh*

Those games had enormous sales, that's true. ( although myst isn't that recent, i believe its a game of 1996 ). Thats why i don't believe that adventures are completely dead, but rather they are dying. Apart those 3-4 good games that have been produced in the last 10 years almost, in general there is very big decline in the adventure industry, and it is logical if we accept the fact that in general the average computer gamer has changed a lot from the average gamer of the late 80s.

hmmm, i don't think this is about the "death" of adventure games, but rather the downfall of the gendre.Today's adventure games are too rigid... there is no fun in playing them.The only thing that keeps you playing are the eventual puzzles.Too bad... :(

Myst and it's sequels are not strictly adventures but puzzle games. The difference being that adventures have logical (sometimes not so logic) puzzles like "use the rubber chicken with the pulley in the middle on rope to get across the ravine" and strict puzzle games have puzzles that are much more mathematics then logical like "line up all the red pons to form an asymmetrical square directly inverse to the white pons you can already see". I might be a little abstract in my explanation here but I hope you will understand. This just proves my point though, that adventures are not dead but have evolved into several different game types.

The fact is, that those games of the late 80s, early 90s, Like Monkey island had something in them, that makes them playable still today... It isn't playability, because since the first time you finish a adventure there is nothing more left to do... They are simply fun to play :)

That's very true a true adventure is all about humour. From Lucas arts monkey Island to Sierra's Quest for Glory. They all used humour as their main selling point. And Humour is often missing from most games today. They take themselves a little to seriously I think. Not all games of course but a lot of them.