Dead genres and the reason they died

boringnickname

Rear Admiral
Off top of my head:

"Maze" RPG/Dungeon Crawler (Wizardy, Stone Keep..)
Rail shooter (Rebel Assault, Microcosm..)
Text Adventure
Graphic Adventure (Lucasarts/Sierra style)
Flight Sim
Space Sim
Mech Sim
Tactical (X-Com, Jagged Alliance)

Reasoning why they have died:

Maze RPG: Superseded by 2D (Baldur's Gate style), and FPS-hybrid (KOTOR) RPGs.

Rail shooter: Superseded by FPS and Space/Flight Sim.

Text Adventure: Superseded by Graphic Adventure.
Graphic Adventure: Sort of superseded by RPGs.
Flight Sim: Not sure. My bets are on the joystick requirement, your mileage may vary.

Space Sim: Ditto. And maybe because it's harder to implement much map design and graphical effects in games like these. After all, you're in space. Space has no boundaries and is black and empty.

Mech Sim: I guess they are too complicated for today's audience. Many also had a joystick requirement.

Tactical: Apart from X-Com and Jagged Alliance, was never that popular to begin with. Maybe too cerebral for the majority of today's customers (most of whom are on consoles).


What's your take on this?
 
Rail shooter: Superseded by FPS and Space/Flight Sim.

I don't think the logic on this pans out. There have been rail-shooters just as long as flightsims. Their demise was fairly concurrent...
 
text adventures still exist but with the simple coding they don't get any major attention, it's a niche thing - see xyzzy awards
you're mostly right about the maze rpg thing, also known as dungeon crawlers, 2.5d games like diablo and 3d games like oblivion are somewhat successors though
rail shooters may be coming back, depends on how well the old republic mmo is done as the space combat is a rail shooter and the wii is full of them
graphic adventures are becoming popular again with sam&max and a new beginning, again these games are not resource intensive and are a great deal cheaper to make most of the time so they dont get the publicity that shooters & rpgs do
flight sims are sparce somewhat except for the ace combat series and hawx series and ... hold on did you even look for new flight sims? I understand that most of these are more of arcade games than a pure flight sim, maybe the new A-10 game is what your looking for, and also a lot of fps's have flight sims built into them like the battlefield series and the crysis series
Space sims, X:3 is a good one once you get past the learning curve but it's mostly been the same interface since x:tension, Darkstar One was ok there is also the fs2 open community and there are some GREAT games there, blue planet, fsport, silent threat reborn and several others. jumpgate evolution is still in development. you have to remember the average nerd factor of the gamer has went down in the past twenty years, drastically so for the pc as pc's have become much more mainstream
Mech sim, armored core, mech assault (old), chromehounds, mechwarrior: living legends, MAYBE mechwarrior 5 (i HATE harmony gold with a passion), front mission evolved, they've become mostly a variation of tps's and no true gems like starsiege (tear falls for SS:2845)
no comment on tactical games
 
Another round:

All things FVM
Business simulators (Theme Hospital, Pizza Tycoon etc.)
"Serious" war simulators (like those super-complicated sub and tank simulators in the 90s)
Myst-like-Adventure

Reasoning:

FMV: Got too expensive, and it got superseded sort of by the graphical prowes of today's systems.


Business simulators: Were never that mainstream anyway. Today's focus on consoles hurt them further.


Complicated "serious" tank/sub/helicopter simulators: Just too nerdy today.

Myst-like-Adventure: Most of them had new-age themes, with lots of mysticism, Erich Von Däniken and X-Files influence. All this is a lot less popular than it was in the 90s. The puzzles were often times mega-tough and people today won't accept them.
 
I think you'd be surprised how many of those "dead" genres continue to thrive. The fact that something doesn't make the top of the charts doesn't mean it no longer exists. Remember, back in the 1990s, if a game's sales surpassed 100,000, that was already pretty good. Well guess what - there are still (for example) graphic adventures around today, and they still get the exact same kind of success they used to. It's just that 100,000 units today is a little less exciting...

Come to think of it, you also seem to be a little ignorant about even the major hits. There are no serious sims out there, you say? Well, what about the Il-2 Sturmovik series for aircraft, or the Silent Hunter series for submarines? Both are pretty bloody huge, even if you didn't notice them :).

Your list is kinda unsystematic, as well. You're mixing tools, limitations, and genres. A dungeon-crawler is not a genre - it's simply a first-person RPG game. These are not only still around, they're also hugely successful (ahem, Oblivion), but rather than confining themselves to a single dungeon, they feature dozens and dozens of dungeons (and lots of other locations).

Similarly, FMV is in no way a genre either - it's a tool that you use for storytelling, and which has been used in virtually every genre, from adventure games to strategy. The tool was superseded, but that's inevitable... which, by the way, is why I can't stand those silly internet "journalists" whining along the lines of "boy, what were these guys thinking making FMV games, didn't they realise it's a dead end?" and the like. I'd love to hear somebody making the same claim for silent movies, for example - geeze, what was the point of making silent movies, didn't they realise the talkies would come along and change everything?
 
Similarly, FMV is in no way a genre either - it's a tool that you use for storytelling



Yeah, my wording wasn't great. I shouldn't have put FMV in the the "genre" section.

Silent Hunter

Wasn't it full of bugs? Ubisoft ceased to support it completely just one year later. Looks "dead".

Sturmvoik:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/il-2-sturmovik-birds-of-prey-review?page=2

Taken as a rousing aerial shooter, it's easy to recommend - and sadly rather too easy to complete

Not exactly like the hardcore simulations from the 90s.

A dungeon-crawler is not a genre - it's simply a first-person RPG game

Something like Wizardy has a completely different feel and plays different than something like KOTOR.
OK, both have RPG elements and both are first person, but by this metric, System Shock and Doom 1 are one and the same game.
 
If i take a look at the recent development in shooting games i come to the conclusion that railshooters are more popular than ever.
 
Silent Hunter

Wasn't it full of bugs? Ubisoft ceased to support it completely just one year later. Looks "dead".

SH3/4 still have strong community support. And yes, the engine is a twitchy mess.

Sturmvoik:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/il-2-sturmovik-birds-of-prey-review?page=2

Taken as a rousing aerial shooter, it's easy to recommend - and sadly rather too easy to complete

Not exactly like the hardcore simulations from the 90s.

You're confusing "hardcore" (being more attentive to physics, dynamics, etc) with the difference between a Survey Sim (has many aircraft) and a Study Sim (focuses on just one or two aircraft). IL2 at full realism settings isn't an arcade shooter, regardless of whether you can twist all the knobs.

And yes, even Study Sims are still going on, despite all the developers of them having a bad habit of getting gobbled up by lucrative government contracts.

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/
 
Ive contemplated this as well.

Mech games. I think the problem with these is most people don't like the slower response (big mech has to have inertia) and tactical aspects. being big and powerful is fun but I think "simulators" turn a lot of lazy gamers off. Many who want to shoot want fast paced shooters. A mech combat principally cant be that fast (excluding Japanese mechs which are the Japaneses answer to FPS's, IE ridiculously fast) I loved games like mech warrior and steel battalion. Armored core was fun but a little silly.


I like having to use a joystick rather than a mouse, I feel it gives better control. I felt wing commander played that edge nicely. Different ships, different flight envelopes, so some thinking was required between "oh crap someone is on my tail" to "turn and shoot him" I almost always wasted 1-3 hrs setting up a system optimally for a game when I first baught it. And for WC and MW etc, I thought it was totally worth the simulator experience. I like emersion in my stories. and they have to have evolving plot (not just petty reality show plot).

I think RTS's have edged out turn based tactical because they again are faster "less boring". Xcom was great. And I reload it periodically or play fan versions but the excitement is what you build in your head, not what happens directly on screen.

A lot of it comes down to a simple model. TV and the net (watch me date myself) vs our decaying attention spans. Things are getting faster and flashier because it stops you from getting bored and turning away. but it also gives you less time to think... which is where some people get bored and turn away. Sadly, if you want a larger audience you have to do something to excite them, and fast feedback is generally one of the best ways.

Another element is learning curves. This is why I think tactical simulators (turn based) and flight/mech/space simulators are edged out. they ahve higher learning curves which can be frusterating if you just want to sit and have fun for 1 hr after the kids go to sleep. This is an on-demand world and people are expecting it in everything.
 
There was the UFO After(insert word here) series in the last few years that did well as tactical sims, and there's always the Command and Conquer series. If that's not tactical, I'm a kitten
 
Space sims and mech sims were my life. I don't try hard to keep up with newer games anymore probably because these genres are so rare these days.

As for Mechwarrior 5, ditto on hating Harmony Gold to death.
 
Hi there!

I agree with Quarto here. Some of those aren't quite dead.

Just let me give you a few examples to think about.
Flightsims:
"LockOn: Flaming Cliffs 2" (2008 I think)
"DCS: Black Shark" (2009 IIRC)
"Rise of Flight" (2010)
and the most recent "DCS:A10C" (2011) which is the most complex flight sim ever, even more complex and realistic than the famous "Falcon 4.0"
The newest IL2 isn't that complex, although still too complex for "normal" gamers. Unfortunately it is full of bugs that's why I don't play it yet.
EDIT: Next year there will be one called "Jet Thunder". That one may become a great one.

Rail shooters:
....well, are there others? Those levels in modern shooters give you so little space to move, you could as well be on rails. Back in the days shooters were labyrinths full of enemies and very little ammo and medi-packs. So you had to work with your resources.
Nowadays you run around and find ammo almost everywhere, even your health regenerates in some shooters so no need for medi-packs.
Ok, ok, they gave up the labyrinth gameplay in order to tell the stories better I guess. Because linear games are easier to make story-wise.

Graphic Adventure:
There are still some around, for example "Still Life" 1 and 2 which I enjoyed, and in the kids' games sector there are a lot more.
But I think you are right on this one: a lot of adventure elements can be found in RPGs nowadays.

I think I agree with the others though.
 
A lot of it comes down to a simple model. TV and the net (watch me date myself) <snip>

Grabs popcorn, sits in front of the pretty glowing box in anticipation...

"Tonight! Will Astro commander find out that Astro commander has been dating Astro commander behind his back?"

P.S. throws in support for Xcom - played 1 three times, 2 twice and the third once.
 
Space sims and mech sims were my life. I don't try hard to keep up with newer games anymore probably because these genres are so rare these days.

As for Mechwarrior 5, ditto on hating Harmony Gold to death.

I replayed EarthSiege 2 and Starsiege recently. Starsiege and SS: Tribes were games I really remember just because of the insane amount of extra universe stuff came in the box. I still have the big chronology book and the other stuff that came with them.
 
Oh man that giant compendium book that came with Starsiege was amazing. I wish non-special edition games still came with extras like that.
 
I replayed EarthSiege 2 and Starsiege recently. Starsiege and SS: Tribes were games I really remember just because of the insane amount of extra universe stuff came in the box. I still have the big chronology book and the other stuff that came with them.



Elite 2: Frontier had tons of extras, too.

You had a starmap, a "gazetter" with background stories to the most important star systems, another book that included 8 short stories that played in the in-game universe and finally the manual itself which was written in an "in-universe" style.

http://www.planetmic.com/orbit/feinbox.htm
 
"Maze" RPG/Dungeon Crawler (Wizardy, Stone Keep..)
Rail shooter (Rebel Assault, Microcosm..)
Text Adventure
Graphic Adventure (Lucasarts/Sierra style)
Flight Sim
Space Sim
Mech Sim
Tactical (X-Com, Jagged Alliance)

I didnt read any posts beyond the initial one, because the initial one made me frown already...

To start with, youre naming genres that are pretty general but which were restricted in their nature due to what computers were able to do back then.

"Maze" RPG/Dungeon Crawler (Wizardy, Stone Keep..) - thats RPG now, nuff said.

Rail shooter (Rebel Assault, Microcosm..) - Id say any 3D shooter nowadays, go for Serious Sam if you want simple stuff.

Text Adventure
Graphic Adventure (Lucasarts/Sierra style) - Graphic Adventure took over from Text Adventure. That genre is something I see in decline (or rather saw 10 years ago). On 'Easy' you can probably play a lot of nowadays RPG games (Mass Effect, Fallout) as Adventure.

Flight Sim/Space Sim - No idea really. Is there still MS FS? I wouldnt know.

Mech Sim - That sounds like a pretty specific genre anyhow, might be out of date because no one wants to play it anymore.

Tactical (X-Com, Jagged Alliance) - Can't offer any insight on this one either. I played those games for a loooong time (actually replaying TFTD right now). Cant see why round-based games would disappear and real-time ones certainly are around.
 
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