Gamespy: Top 10 Dying Genres-Your views

[YoshiM]

Article can be read here: http://www.gamespy.com/top10/march03/genres/

An interesting read to say the least, however it's not an overly great article. For one it's hard to tell if the writer was encompassing everything (consoles, computers, arcade) or just a specific branch (though the person does touch on certain platforms depending on the genre). I agree on some, but not all.

Counting back from 10:

10. Space Shooter (SHMUP)
I agree, it is a dying genre as the common gaming populace do not get into simple joys that is a shmup. I think the shmup has evolved into a more complex pseudo simulator.

9. Puzzle
Dead? Dying? Don't think so. Sure we get rereleases of Tetris and such, but I think the puzzle genre is still alive and will continue to live.

8. Light Gun
It looks as though the author geared this towards consoles, but the arcade always has an abundance of gun games. It's always been somewhat of a novelty on consoles, but thanks to the political correctness of society and the ever increasing level of arcade technology (see Silent Scope) we probably won't see light gun games in the future.

7. Text Adventure
Independent developers aside, I agree that this is a dead genre. There are the devoted fans from years back when Zork was the rage, but common gamers don't want to read their games (that's just observation from the people I've talked to about text games).

6. Maze
It's still hanging around, but nowhere near as popular. Some people on /. mention that Quake could be seen as a "Maze Game". Uhh, no.

5. Virtual Reality
I can't see how this is a genre. It was an entity of its own, with its share of standard genres. But this concept is fairly dead or at least dormant for now.

4. Educational
Dying? Nope. There's a huge section of edutainment games for the PC at the local Wal-Mart. You really don't see these games on consoles much anymore, but to say it's dying is a load of crap.

3. Full Motion Video
Yep, that I agree on. Again more of a "concept" moreso than a genre (Sewer Shark is a rail shooter, that just happens to use FMV, for example). The FMV concept as the primary vehicle of entertainment is dead.

2. Beat-Em Up
I have not played many of the newer BEU's out there (I think Zombie Revenge on DC was the last game I played in that category). I think this entry is fairly on target. /. people, in defense of this genre, mention FIGHTING games like Street Fighter and Tekken. Foolish mortals.

1. Graphic Adventure
This I do have to agree on as well. There really hasn't been a decent graphic adventure for a while that I have seen.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Alex Kidd]

There was one good point made.

Puzzles, maze games and such... they don't make them anymore becuase they don't make use of the consoles power. Why buy Ultra Tetris or some rehash on the GC when it's basically gonna be the same as original tetris on the NES/GB?, that's a factor in why MANY genres are dying/being left behind.
They have to makes the games on the current system be of a multimedia perfomance a previous system was incapabale of, other wise buyer might question why they are buying a new system.
If "gameplay" was what sold games, we may have never moved beyond the 8-16bit consoles. But sadly, Gameplay ISN'T the deciding factor in a lot of sales...

Graphic Adventures however were NEVER big on "consoles". There were a few, but not many. PCs are what had the graphic adventures. But even so, we see less and less of them on PC, and when we do get them (on pc and console), we get Action/Adventure games like Zelda and such, running around, finding items and finding out how they interact, but just litter the land with monsters and hide the good items behind "bosses".

Plus I personally (another swipe at 3D) think those types of games were best when they resembled comic books (ala Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Willy Beamish) and you just can't do that in 3D... let's see a new cell-shaded Sam & Max game man!

Once again,an excpetion to 3D and 3D adventure games, Alone In The Dark series.

Alex Kidd

[IntvGene]

I think that this applies generally well to the US market. The Japanese market is quite different. Many of the anime games are very similar to graphic novels, and Capcom released one just last year... Shoot em Ups still do well in Japan and are very popular (Ikaruga, R-type, etc)... Spikeout Extreme is coming to the Xbox (dying for it) which will hopefully bring back the beat-em up (State of Emergency=Beat em Up?)... and the Puzzle genre always does well in Japan (Otostaz, XI, Puyo-Puyo, Puzzle Bobble, etc.). I think that the market is flooded with monotonous RPGs, Strategy and Sports games, and a little variety is a good thing.

Personally, I think that the US market gets too excited about graphics, and consumers can't handle a simpler game... or at least the video game companies think so.

[Griking]

I'm not sure if this poll was ment only for videogames or if computer games were considered as well. But as far as Graphic Adventures go I still think that there's a lot of life left in this genre. It's just that none of the big publishers seems to want to take a chance making one nowadays. In the last year or so there was The Longest Journey and Syberia for PCs which were both good games. I wouldn't be surprised if Sierra someday decided to resurrect some of their classic series' like Gabriel Knight, Space Quest, or King's Quest.

Don't forget that RPGs were once considered a dead genre before Black Island and Diablo resurrected it.

[Nature Boy]

I personally think genres die, as has been mentioned, because they are no longer capable of pushing the hardware anymore. It's a tough sell.

Text and Graphic Adventures are the best example of this.

I don't think Puzzle games will ever die. Especially if you take PC gaming into account and online gaming in particular. They work well in that regard.

Beat 'em Ups I never really cared for in the first place. It just seems like a genre that's too limited. Maybe that's what's killing SHMUPs too (however I still like SHMUPs).

FMV should've never happened in the first place. <shudder>

[ashbourn]

some are dieing but if it is a good game people will continue to play it.