Once upon a time, adventure games were the thing. All my friends loved them, played them to death. Fast forward twenty years and sure, they’re making a resurgence, but the consensus was, for at least a decade, they were totally dead! Could this happen with any of the games we play now?
Like, can you foresee a future without first person shooters? Or without the traditional action game? Or without RTS? Is there a genre that you think is completely unsustainable?
I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. These things tend to be cyclical and I think it is possible that people might become a little tired of first person shooters at some point. Maybe not in the next five years, but after that? I dunno.
It feels, to a certain extent, like video game genres have sort of settled. Studios and publishers are very risk averse and tend to only fund games that at least have a chance at making money. So maybe the idea of a genre ‘dying’ is a thing of the past?
Comments
97 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Next Game Genre To ‘Die’?”
FPS. So last century.
I wish
I want to say platformers but I think they’re pretty much dead now anyway. 🙁
Edit: I meant to say 3D platformers. Well aware 2D ones are everywhere.
Indie game scene, dood.
& Rayman?
Platformers are far from dead. I take it you’ve never heard the lamentation “Not another indie platformer!”. They may not be as popular in the AAA circles as they used to, but the smaller studios are still pumping them out en masse.
(Meant to be a reply to Ben J)
He says that he’s actually referring to 3D platformers, which makes much more sense. As far as they go, you only have Mario and an occasional Sonic game.
*cough*MarioRayman*cough*
There’s tons of fun indie and casual platformers, not to mention the New Super Mario Bros. titles, Rayman, and Sonic Generations to name a few mainstream successes.
Action Adventures are pretty much platformers in more serious clothing anyways. 😀
I don’t know, I still play a lot of platformers. They had a fair resurgence with the launch of super meat boy and the follow up games. Things like spelunky and rogue legacy seem to be popular.
I really enjoyed puzzle platforms like unmechanical and adventures of shuggy.
Yeah I love 3D platformers but its only Mario single handedly keeping them alive – we need Banjo Kazooie back
Unfortunately, it looks like Insomnia, Sucker Punch, Rare and Naughty Dog have moved into grittier fare. I like Uncharted but it’d be nice to have more accessible AAA games out
Mostly true, but Insomniac still makes Ratchet & Clank games regularly. Though, the Rare-style platformer seems to be dead, but if A Hat in Time proves successful (like it probably will) I reckon that the genre might be revived!
Being serious though, I think the death of the purchaseable game that is complete and you can play whenever you like without having to pay extra money or be online to play.
I sadly think those days are numbered, the next generation of consoles won’t be usable 20 years later, in the same way that my Vectrex, PS1, Atari 2600, DS, megadrive and Jaguar are. I can play those systems today in the exact same way I did at launch and play the complete game.
Fast forward to toaday, If you want to play ‘clash of clans’ for example, and the server doesn’t exist anymore, you can’t play the game at all.
Exactly this, like I only got Resistance for the PS3 in the last couple of months and looks like multiplayer will be off the cards shortly, not to mention with GT5.
On PC I will always support games that have self hostable servers = longevity.
Vectrex? Man, I really want to have a go of one of those. Saw a couple in Japan but they didn’t have them plugged in or anything, just sitting on the shelf with “no sale” signs next to them.
Are games like the original Warcraft I & II, and Command & Conquer still being made? I really miss the old warcraft, never like WC3 or WoW.
Well, not C&C now…
What happened to Generals 2? I saw a teaser trailer and it was on the Frostbite engine so I was pretty excited for it. I haven’t heard anything since seeing it.
From what I understand, it got canned in beta in October after testers reacted really badly to it. Apparently it played more like Red Alert 3 than generals and there were even fewer vehicle choices than even the incredibly low number of units in RA3– the screenshots of it showed almost all of the units for China and the US that would have been available at launch, but they would have more available for purchase later. Essentially, from what I understand, it was a bare bones, stripped down version of Generals with awkward UI and bland mechanics and ultimately undermine d by making it FTP. At least that’s what I’ve been reading from people claiming to be beta testers. After Sim City, EA’s wary of launching anything that could turn into a complete clusterfuck, apparently…
That would have been very disappointing, I guess canning it was the best thing to do. Wasn’t a fan of RA3, but I loved 1 and 2 very much!
Same here. Hated seeing what they did with 3!
Well WoW is a totally different genre? In regards to WC3 do you mean the focus on champion characters? That seems to be the main style gone with but the original dawn of war or starcraft 2 might be more like what you are looking for.
Perhaps company of heroes.
Or you can ramp it up a level and check out planetary annihilation
Yeah, the Age of Empires style RTS is definitely in decline. I haven’t seen a decent one in years! Still playing Warcraft 3 and Age of Empires 3 🙁
As much as I’d like to say FPS, the reality is that with VR and AR tech improving like it is, FPS are going to become even more ubiquitous. I’d have to say that traditional MMOs and RTSes are probably going to be the next things to “die”, though they’re really just undergoing a sort of metamorphosis at the moment.
The Nintendo Genre is *doooomed*
You seem sad about this… You should elaborate your point here in article form, entitled “how to fix nintendo”, then pitch said article to @markserrels. I hear he loves reading them.
Fairly sure @jimu was joking. Why all the downvotes?
What a buncha maroooons! XD
Wait, did you not realise I was referring to that?
I don’t think any genre truly dies. Point and click adventure games were gone for awhile but then Telltale reinvigorated it and then Double Fine did their Kickstarter for an old-school style adeventure/puzzle game and we wound up with Broken Age, which seems to be reviewing favourably.
Personally I think the traditional JRPG is in decline – less and less people are interested in turn-based combat where you select your action from a menu (Pokemon is something of an exception but I feel like the game is more about obsessive exploration, collection and grinding than the actual Pokemon battles these days). I feel like people are only really supporting Final Fantasy these days out of habit, and generally they’re some of the best-looking games on the hardware.
RTS hasn’t really risen or fallen. It seems like people are happy to play whatever Starcraft game came out last until the next one drops.
The FPS genre isn’t going to go away, no matter how much people bitch and moan about dudebro shooters ruining everything. I do think we’ll grow out of the COD phase into something more mature and thoughtful though.
Final Fantasys are nothing like the jrpgs you describe anymore.
Seems jrpgs are making a comeback on.handhelds.
In fairness the last one I played was FF12. How many have I missed, not counting the MMO?
On home consoles or anywhere?
Theres 3 parts to.13 & a whole 3(?) on DS.
The ones on Ds are turnbased.
13 is, i dunno.
15 looks like an action game.
Yeah, I wanted a PS3 for FF13 then somewhere in the midst of new console hype back in 2005 I realised I hadn’t enjoyed FF12 very much and lost all interest. I haven’t really played much of anything on DS in between the rise of the Phoenix Wright phase and Animal Crossing New Leaf when I picked up a 3DSXL late last year.
2 mmos now 😉
Well I wasn’t even going to count 11, though I think it probably enjoyed more success than the bellyflop of 14 at launch. I heard it’s better now, but I’m not much of an MMO guy at the best of times.
I would suggest FF13-2 over 13, 13-2 they included all the cutscenes from 13 as a prologue and its not too much different from just playing the game.
FF13-2 was fantastic and I’m hoping 13:LR (or 13-3) is a decent game too, but really I have stopped using my PS3 since the PS4 came out so I’m just waiting on 15 now… which looks like a better version of Lightning returns without the strangely dragged on storyline.
Aside from one or two major offerings (i.e. Starcraft), I think we can say that RTS is dead.
BUT if we say that, then you have to factor in Tower Defence, which is a kind of RTS, and how huge that is on mobile phones.
So…I’d say AAA RTS’s are almost certainly dead with one exception (Starcraft).
Company of heroes, Warhammer Dawn of wars, total war and planetary annihilation to name a few of the big mane ones still out there
Yeah – I don’t even play them but I do know of Total War and Company of Heroes so RTS is still going and tower defence is huge
Wait, adventures died? Why didnt someone tell me!? Been working on a new one for ages, god dammit…
Anna’s Quest episode 2 will bring about a whole new era of adventure game greatness.
Who do Double fine think they are anyway.
Hmm, I think genres will just continue to blur. Adventures steadfastly refused to embrace 3D and higher resolutions and the like. I don’t think it was ever the gameplay, just a stubbornness to keep making things to the status quo. Adventures are back because they’ve gotten over that or have taken traits of other genres. Adventures never really went away either, other genres just took the best parts about them (mainly story and characterizations and light puzzles) and integrated them into their gameplay. There have been classics released long after what was considered the golden age of adventures and I’d argue we’re getting just as much great stuff now!
Nothing ever truly dies
Yeah, ‘dead’ just basically means ‘not as popular as it used to be’.
BAM!
I don’t know RPG’s I guess, too many things slap “Levels”,”Skill Trees”…
I do know I want the resurrection of the space flight combat sims….
Well that was going to be the one I said but I think there might be a resurgance of those when and if the Occulus rift if released and becomes more widespread.
Or you know, they could just release x-wing vs tie-fighter and rogue leader with updated visual for the rift and I would be happy
None will truly die, they will evolve. They will live on through Indie devs, etc.
hopefully modern / realistic / jingoistic / military wank shooters.
recent CoD sales figures have me hopeful that the market is growing out of it a bit.
Perhaps not a ‘genre’ as such, but something that is on life support at the moment is local co-op or split screen gaming. Obviously the main reasons for this is to drop the extra development, whilst at the same time possibly securing a 2nd copy purchase if someone REALLY wanted to play each other on a 2nd console.
As for a real genre? Hmm… possibly flight sim? Sure there might be games that you can pilot a plane on the side, but full 100% flight sims, no dogfights or any of that fun…
The real reason is to push people onto a paid XBOX-LIVE type service for multiplayer, the development of local co-op or local LAN gaming isn’t that big a deal.
That is a portion, but not for everyone, that is more a MS or Sony goal… EA don’t have a huge incentive to push them there, EA’s incentive comes from paid DLC packs to be sold to those customers that paid for a second copy
The DCS series is still pretty popular (within the simming community) and as hardcore as they come
Linear games. Most will progress to a more open world situation.
I know this is more of a game “mechanic” than a genre.
I’m not so sure about this, I think games that are used to tell a story will always lock you into a linear progression. There will be more that go the way you are thinking but a well told story of scripted events is still more enjoyable, often for so than sandbox do what I want derpy game
If I was to take a guess, traditional turn-based rpgs. People won’t just stop playing them, but they will be evolved beyond what we recognise. Sort of like how Bioware did KoToR and then ME.
please let sport game yearly rehashes die next. they don’t personally affect me but if they stopped spending their money on them then they would have more spare to, lord forbid, innovate and offer something new to the gaming scene.
Wank Shooter 4: The wankening
Modern warfare games, why can’t DICE make more innovative stuff like Mirror’s Edge, or at least do a sequel to 1942
or a WW1 shooter
or at the very least cut to the chase and make a hyper realistic wank simulator, native 4K in 3D @ 120fps with oculus
There is one out on Steam right now called Verdun. It’s kinda like playing Cod1/Cod UO back in the day. Surprisingly fun and vaguely nostalgic.
So it’s come full circle, people are once again yearning for the ww2 shooters.
Well to be honeset I’m actually jonesing for a frostbite 3 powered sci-fi nazi shooter, Wolfenstein will have to be it 😛
Wolfenstein: the New Order is going to be awesome.
Perhaps not die but JRPG’s and Flight sims are becoming less and less common these days 🙁
Facebook/Casual, addictive, drip feeding, preying on people’s stimulus/reward reflex for “points” style games
Rhythm games have basically died. IE, Guitar Hero and Rock Band and the like. Right now you have Rocksmith which isn’t exactly the same thing anyway, and you can still find DDR in some arcades I guess, but that’s about it.
I’m sure they will make a resurgence again at some point, but for now the genre is dead.
Kareoke games
I truly hope that the next genre to die (if it was ever successful) is any Kinect game. Except maybe a brilliant golf game with a club peripheral…
Text based adventure might die out soon..
I may have missed something but I find that the Racing genre, while still alive and well, stopped being fun a long, long time ago. The pursuit (pun intended) of realism took over the idea of exciting and crazy action racing. This is one case where I think visuals trumped all else and killed the fun in a genre.
I loved Destruction Derby on the first PlayStation. F-zero. The racing parts of the GTA games were nuts because of the potential for unscripted chaos. I wanna see more of that kind of mad, crash n smash wildness that has people screaming at the TV/monitor!
GTA has killed racing games for me
Sonic Racing Transformed is great fun!
Zombies. L4D notwithstanding, its a genre that’s saturating the market with some real shit. There are a few diamonds in the genre, but with so many bad, cheap, shitty zombie games out there, its in real need of a culling.
The traditional MMO, at least with subscription.
Genres may not completely die, but they do get so overbloated and full of gameplay features that they put off the average newcomer and eventually there’s not enough money being put into development in the genre. Time passes. Eventually someone takes a risk on a ‘dead’ genre and releases a game that’s so good it gets the genre going again.
Adventure games ‘died’ due to having no realy gameplay outside of ‘solve puzzles’, and sometimes the puzzles were really ludicrous. Sometimes this was fine (Monkey Island was all about being funny and ludicrous, so silly puzzles were all part of the charm) and sometimes not.
Fighting games ‘died’ for a lot of the 2000s due to the feature bloat I mentioned above. (Compare the process of selecting a team of characters in CVS2 to the process of selecting a character in Soul Calibur…) SF4 kicked off a bit of a revival but the feature bloat is quickly coming back in to the genre. Fine for old fighting game afficionados, not so much for newcomers. I wouldn’t be surprised if fighting games ‘die’ again soon.
My prediction for the next genre to ‘die’ is MMORPGs. Outside of the WoW juggernaut the market has been dwindling for a while, and the free-to-play phenomenon is making it harder and riskier to get the money for the continued support and development these games need. Heck, even WoW is losing customers. (Though very slowly.)
Flight Sim’s are dying
not totally dead yet but War Thunder and World of Warplanes (I know not really flight sim) are atleast bringing them back to life slowly
Yea man, Was going to post this. Got a good stick for PC that I have not used in years. Hawx was the last one i played, IL2 and stuff back in the day were great. What are these FTP ones like? Seen them around but haven’t looked close enough yet to get a good gauge. I think that Microsoft Flight thing gave me a bad outlook on these FTP Flight Sims.
Not dying as such, but they’ve always been a niche game for a niche audience. If they could just combine something like looks and gameplay of DCS with the almost unlimited modability of the Strike Fighters/Wings Over series where you can add your own terrains, aircraft, etc, you’d see a significant revival in Flight sims– even a sim with scalable flight settings to be able to cater for the Ace Combat/Hawk arcade style all the way to the ultra-realism set which is kinda what War Thunder has been able to do, would result in a lot of attention from gamers. Unfortunately, there’s a very rigid attitude with flight simmers and devs who seem to think that anything with scalable settings is somehow not a ‘real’ flight-sim or who still only seem to make flight-sims with your bog standard, bland civilian/warbird aircraft (yay, the P-51… yet again. Weeee. -_-) for the hardcore set. The thinking behind this needs to change because there’s definitely a market for it, otherwise the Ace Combat series wouldn’t exist (people aren’t playing it for it’s fucking AWFUL acting!) and GTA/Saint’s Row wouldn’t be adding aircraft into their games if people didn’t enjoy it.
Fighters, eg. One on one fighting games like tekken and street fighter etc. Not as popular as they were decades ago by a long shot.
oh my god that damn spitting contest! i’d forgotten about that – took soooooo long to figure that one out
best…game….ever
Peripheral-based rhythm games? At least for home consoles. They’re kinda dead now.
Except for a few exceptions, like Just Dance (sort of rythm) and singstar (not big, only see it on the PS3 start-up), I’d say you’re right. I don’t know why, a yearly compilation that works with the guitars and drums and has all the popular songs from the year plus a few classics would work well, I think.
Yeah, those ones seem to be exceptions since they use non-specific hardware (eg Wii remote, Kinect, etc) but the dedicated ones are all but gone now.
Though what you said there, that’s essentially what they were wasn’t it? I don’t know how Rock band went, but GH was a yearly thing with its primary releases.
Yeah, but Guitar Hero was more Rock classics than new releases. Rock Band was more the new popular songs, so I don’t know why they weren’t around longer (more content).
Ooh, what about light gun shooters. Maybe they’ll die 😛
Though I wish they wouldn’t. There were way too few of them on the Wii, and I’d love to get more on the Wii U but I don’t see it happening.
I’d say 3D platformers, but they died years ago. It’s devolved into action/adventure these days.
Sports games are already mostly dead. EA just keep re-releasing the previous year’s release with minor tweaks.
I’m tempted to say RPGs, since they’re being absorbed into every other genre, but there are still a handful of “pure” RPGs around.,
Dude, EA’s been doing that since 1989. Bulls vs Lakers, Bulls vs Blazers, Team USA Basketball, NBA Showdown 94, NBA Live 95,96,97,98,99… Ad nauseam
…what makes you think they’ll stop after a quarter of a century? :p
EA aren’t making new sports games, they’re just kicking the corpse.
Oh you bastard, Greg… I’ve been looking at this and thinking “This was only a few days ago, how the hell do I have no fucking memory of writing this!” I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure exactly how I forgot that I wrote this only just a few days ago, only to discover a few minutes ago, it was 2014. A YEAR AGO!
As I said at the start, you bastard Greg, for putting me through that self-induced mind-fuck! lol! :p
Yes, I get the same thing. Even cleared my history at one point, but it only wiped the last year, and keeps bringing up year+ old posts as new…
Anyone who says that turn-based RPGs are dead simply doesn’t own a handheld. They are alive, and doing quite well. The big release ones are still getting incredible fanfare, and are extremely well received and reviewed. Even Square, who (as has been pointed out) has fallen behind with Final Fantasy, has received nothing but praise for Bravely Default.
Companies, especially the major players in the industry, aren’t making turn-based games for the same reason they are making an extreme overabundance of FPS titles. They’re a safe bet, and easy to pitch to investors, while turn-based games are a much harder sell to people in suits looking at what the major demographics are clamoring for. But turn-based games are by no means dead.
Definitely text-based adventure games, seems to be quite a lack of them lately.