RPG market's short death in the mid 90's

[KeighnMcDeath]

FRUA, REALMZ and a few others should have filled some of the roles. Though REALMz seemed almost apple exclusive...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Mid 90s were tough for the edgy CRPG enjoyer - abominable action-"rpgs" like Diablo, WTF Ultima 8, questionable M&M 6, Wizardry seemingly dead

you mean that they marked start of deep sadness. One had awesome time with mm6 and then had to wait 16 years for contender

Spoiler

mmx

M&M VI-VIII looked liked crap after Xeen and had real-time combat (HERESY), I softened enough to play them only around 2014

I don't like the later(6-8) M&Ms anywhere near as much as I like Xeen, but they seem to have quite a lot of fans.

 

[Azdul]

It's the same level of bullshit as Nintendo 'saving' video game industry in 80's.

Some established companies became lazy in 90's and had problems adapting to Windows and/or 3dfx Voodoo and released few duds - and it created market opportunity for new guys.

Current year offers even more opportunities than mid 90s: Bethesda got away with 8th re-release of Skyrim and unfinished game by CD-Projekt sold truckloads. Sadly Bioware won't save us this time - because they've decided that MMOs and shitty looter shooters need 'saving' even more - and died trying to accomplish that.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

and died trying to accomplish that.

swtor prints money tho
afaict it's the main reason EA intervened to kill anthem, bioware was taking too many devs off of swtor

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I was in my 20s in the 90s and went through it all. Good memories. I played mostly Looking Glass, Black Isle, Sirtech games back then, with some M&M and Gold Box. Back then these games took a long time to finish. There weren’t Wikis to give you the answers.

 

[octavius]

I was in my 20s in the 90s and went through it all. Good memories. I played mostly Looking Glass, Black Isle, Sirtech games back then, with some M&M and Gold Box. Back then these games took a long time to finish. There weren’t Wikis to give you the answers.

Keith Campbell and Scorpia saved many lives.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

She didn't save me in MM3

 

[Mortmal]

1995: bunch of AD&D games, Exile, Anvil of Dawn

By 1995 the "AD&D games" were piles of shit like Deathkeep. Anvil of Dawn was a third rate Dungeon Master clone, and there would be no need in amateur productions like Exile if the professional industry was healthy and satisfied the demand of RPG players.

That's well summmed up and yes i was there too , that was the beginning of the end there was no saturation of the market , just nothing of quality . 1992 were last revolutionary rpgs Ulima underworld , U7 wizardry 7 . Then 1992 was also the end of gold box games .It all go downhill from that . Have to wait till 1996 for daggerfall, hardly a classic rpg either . 1997 was the start of mmos and death of singleplayer rpg , fallout is the exception that confirm the rule .

1993: BaK, dark sun, dark side of xeen, Ultima Underworld 2, ...
1994: Arena, bunch of AD&D blobbers

Dark sun was last innovative ssi game , 1993 yes , but the other games nothing revolutionary nor anything close to pen and paper . The ad&d blobber are hardly what i can call classic rpgs, ravenloft , menzoberranzan , stone prophet then ssi lost the license. Have a look at them at youtube, not only they age poorly but they have quite simplistic gameplay. No evolution at all past that and its always low budget, that was ok fun but not flying high.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

never really understood the claim, there was basically one year without a bunch of releases('96)

1995: bunch of AD&D games, Exile, Anvil of Dawn
1996 - probably the weakest cRPG year of the 90s. Still had Daggerfall tho. Probably others I can't remember off the top of my head.
1997: Fallout, Diablo

You have to compare it to what came before.

1992: Ultima 7, Wizardry 7, Darklands, Ultima Underworld, Clouds of Xeen
1993: Betrayal at Krondor, Serpent Isle, Darkside of Xeen, Dark Sun Shattered Lands, Ultima Underworld 2
1994: Star Trail, TES I guess, a disappointing Ultima 8, a disappointing Wake of the Ravager
1995: Absolutely nothing noteworthy except Jeff Vogel's Exile which only became a hit because there was pretty much nothing to get excited about

The death is that they went from year after year of getting nearly half a dozen well-done iterative or innovative titles each year to zilch, disappointments, and Dungeon Master clones, with maybe one or two good games at best. Diablo, Fallout, and Baldur's Gate had only just started development when the string of disappointments started, and some journos just assumed that RPGs were going to be never-ending mediocrity-at-best forever.

Everything Roguey says here is correct. I remember looking for a decent CRPG to play in 1999 and there were some challenges. I was an SSI fan-boy, but their days were over by 1999. I was also hugely into the Ultima series, but Ultima 8 and 9 killed that for me. So I moved into looking for old games and indies. The Exile demo was a god send and the fan boy in me started to gravitate over to Jeff Vogel's Spiderweb Software games, as I ordered directly from his company. I still have that jewel-case CD and hint book in its cardboard postal packaging on a shelf somewhere. I really tried to get back into some SSI collections the company sent out in a last ditch attempt to make some revenue, but they loaded their Gold Box game with a stupid code wheel. Their games would constantly ask for the correct passcode, and I'd have to take that stupid fucking wheel out and try to figure out what shapes I was looking at and get the answer wrong half the time. That fucking code wheel was the main reason I stopped buying SSI games and stopped playing the Gold Box games. Today, I love the Gold Box games and sing their praises, so you can imagine how much their DRM decisions hurt the company instead of helped them.

I also replayed the Baldur Gate and Icewind Dale games several times during the 1999-2002 years, since not much else looked interesting to me. A girl friend of mine got me the Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor game as a birthday present in 2002, and that finally killed my CRPG interest for a year or two.

Honorable game mentions during this drought: Blood and Romance of the Three Kingdoms X. Played the hell out of them both.

 

[octavius]

A girl friend of mine got me the Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor game as a birthday present in 2002, and that finally killed my CRPG interest for a year or two.

Her cunning plan worked.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

A girl friend of mine got me the Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor game as a birthday present in 2002, and that finally killed my CRPG interest for a year or two.

Her cunning plan worked.

Nah, she was a HUGE Icewind Dale fan and was she was also big on Baldur's Gate... I had to sometimes convince her to go out and drink.

 

[Lady Error]

I gave up on gaming for the most part around 1996 and played the Infinity games only over a decade later. And the reason was indeed that RPG's and other genres I liked took a nosedive in the mid-90's.

At the time, I remember that CD games just came out and retard companies thought that churning out trash like Rebel Assault that uses up the CD space with graphics is the way to go. Doom also came out and everybody started copying it.

A major reason is probably also that the PC gaming market used to be much smaller and people who were in it appreciated complexity. So as the market grew, the dumbing down began. It may also have been just a coincidence that no notable RPG's were created for a few years. Fallout came out already in 1997, so the dry spell was really only 1995-1996.

 

[anvi]

Gaming barely existed in the 80s? WTF are you talking about?

I'm trying to explain the time. Not everyone lived somewhere with money and arcades and things. There was no such thing as 'a gamer' back then, people would assume you meant pool or something. The vast majority of kids had other interests. The first games I saw were shit like Space Invaders and Pong which no normal kid had any interest in. At home in the 80s most kids would be lucky to have one of these shits:

Spoiler

I saw 1 Sega Megadrive and 1 Mastersystem in my entire life, and it was in a house full of kids and nobody touched it. And nobody had a PC unless their dad was an accountant or something. I knew 1 kid with a C64, and I knew someone who knew someone who had an Amiga. It was the only one I've ever seen.

It was only the NES when I saw other kids really sit and play games at home, and especially the SNES. And it was only the PS1/2 that I saw 18 year olds admitting they played games. I only had a PC at home because my dad needed one for his job, the first one had no graphics card, just text based games on a green screen. When we finally got a decent 286 or whatever, I was desperate for any game I could find. There were only 5 kids on my whole school (>1000 people) who had a PC, or we knew had one. 2 were a few years older and 3 in my year. We shared games on floppy disks that had probably been copied 1000 times all over town. There was a place to buy games but they didn't have that many. My friend joined a magazine gaming subscription service where he got a game a month in the mail. I would go to computer fairs and shit, looking for games, the PC games stall would be 10 games that were mostly terrible.

It was only in the 90s when PCs were being sold on TV to more ordinary working people, and even then it was a serious purchase.

So about games, early 90s when people were forming these opinions about the games industry, the reality is that me and my friends only even KNEW about a small number of RPGs. I owned Ultima Underworld, Heimdal, EOTB2, my buddy had some Ultimas and Champions of Krynn. And we had a few others probably copied. I loved EOTB and hated all the others. My friends didn't really like any of them. Mid 90s was when a few other kids at school started getting PCs, they were desperate to play Syndicate, Rebel Assault, Xwing.

So from my pov mid 90s may have had an over saturation of low tech crap brown RPGs for spergs, that hardly anyone knew about and got no marketing, but it certainly wasn't what I'd call an over saturation of RPGs, especially not good ones. So my point is that the games business gave up on that type of RPG and focused on the more presentable ones, but they decided it all before any of those games really had a chance to evolve.

 

[anvi]

And they did the same with a bunch of other genres too -.-

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I only had a vic 20 my uncle won at a contest, a colecovision, and sometimes accessyo my Dad's c-64. I didn't get a NES until 87 I think and that took a lot of paper route money.

Maybe there just seemed like a lot of RPGs to me. I spent a majority of my time on ACS but I also played the hell out of dunjonquest games, Questron, wiz1, bard'stale trilogy and might & magic 1-2.

SSI plumped up some of this with wizard's crown, eternal dagger, phantasie 1-3, shard of Spring, Eternal Dagger, Rings of Zilfin, Cars Wars + Europa, Gemstone Warrior/Healer.

I probably consider some action as RPGs. The lists per company needs some trimming to RPGS & Elements there-of imho:
SSI LISTING
EPYX (Automated Simulations)
Polarware (Penquinware)
Sir Tech
Electronic Arts
Sierra
Origin
New World Computing
Aardvark Software (odd not on mobygames)
Mindscape
Etc that falls under the radar. Maybe it didn't serm like such a vacuum with such slow computing speed. Load times were pretty bad now that I think about it. A lot of this was pioneering in the rpg game field. Different machines, space, computer languages etc. It took time to build up what we have today. Most games I purchased were on sale or bargain bin unless I really saved for something. If you were looking ONLY for a certain type of RPG like TBT rpg with or w/o blobber adventure then the early 80s are probably lacking. I honestly didn't care so long as it was entertaining and had good repeat playthrough because back then... that's what those of us with limited income did (we tried to pick a game that would replay). Again, my nostalgia glasses are probably foggy.

 

[anvi]

Yeah I might have felt the same if I started a bit earlier, I didn't know most of those games existed back then, only whatever was in PC Format. I saw major progress in FPS from Wolf3d onwards, so I was expecting the same to happen in RPGs and everything else. But the opposite happened.

I played some old RPGs and Eye of the Beholder 1/2 a lot, loved it. I wanted more!! I played Ultima Underworld, Stonekeep, etc. But they weren't progressing the same as FPSs. EOB3 was a disaster. I remember seeing Lands of Lore screenshots and thinking wooow! But when I played it I was shocked it was still grid based with no looking around, and not a lot of depth either. It was more Adventure Game with RPG elements. M&M series fizzled out too, and Wizardy. I loved BG and Icewinds, but they seemed old to me even at the time. The industry just gave up on those kinds of games but they did it just as technology was exploding.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I need to read the CRPG bible. I'm also curious if there is a spreadsheet that goes month by month with each separate platform for the release of each RPG from across the globe. Notations should be made for type of RPG or if just elements of. A list works ok. I think this has been attempted quite a few times already though. I'd include MUDs and MMOs unlike the wiki listing. Its the multi-platform that can be irksome.

Eventually C64, appleII, and some of the other systems just weren't going to be able to compete with the pc market. I recall the time we saved up for a 486Dx from packard bell. Later we bought our first CD drive. The dos screamed compared to the c64. When i got MM2 and loaded it up compared to c64; BAM! It was like instant. Colors weren't as great as the amiga at the time but that speed was mind blowing for the time.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ah! Yeah I copy-pasted these links before:

1975-1985
1986-1987

 

[samuraigaiden]

I was alive, I was a teenager and I played RPGs - almost exclusive on consoles. So here's a slightly different perspective, I guess.

SNES JRPGs were very easy to get into. Final Fantasy II and III, Mystic Quest, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Illusion of Gaia, Tecmo Secret of the Stars, I remember played all these at the time. I don't remember ever seeing the SNES Ultimas, Wizardry V, Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master in the rental place. Maybe I just didn't notice them.

I also played games on PC. I remember being very interested in Star Wars games from LucasArts, which led me to Point & Click Adventure games like Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. I played RTS games like Command & Conquer, WarCraft 2 and Z. I also remember playing Lemmings, Stunts and Wolfenstein 3D. My father didn't like videogame violence, but felt that Wolfenstein 3D was fine because violence against nazis didn't count.

I do not remember playing any RPGs on PC. They were not prominently displayed on the stores where PC games were sold. The only one I remember playing is Stonekeep, because my dad showed up with that CD in our one day out of the blue. No idea how that happened. Stonekeep seemed super complicated to me coming from console RPGs (yes, lol), and I never got far.

I got tons of those demo compilation CDs from magazines and such. I don't remember any RPGs in the older ones. The first RPG demos I remember playing were Diablo and Fallout, which says a lot.

In my memory, the super popular PC games at the time were Myst and Phantasmagoria - other than Wolf 3D and Doom of course. Myst and Phantasmagoria had people who were not gamers talking about them. They were really a mainstream, normie success.

What I extrapolate from all this is that CRPGs in the early 90s were not selling very well at all, which would explain why the stores didn't carry them. Maybe when people say CRPGs were dead, what they mean is they weren't selling, not that they weren't being made.

Or, possibly, that their sales were stagnant and not growing with the expanding market, unlike other types of games.

 

[ValeVelKal]

1995 had Albion for us euros and, err, well, let me think, ... nothing else ?

But year, 1995 was the year of the RTS for most of us. I wasn't even into RPG in 1995 - much too young - so actually I did not play Albion until much later.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The CRPG market may only have experienced a short death in 95/96, but CRPGs qualitatively never recovered.

 

[anvi]

The CRPG market may only have experienced a short death in 95/96, but CRPGs qualitatively never recovered.

I didn't want to say it lol.

 

[laclongquan]

I'm only interested in the take of people who fulfill all 3 criteria:
- were there
- were at least teen agers
- were RPG players.

Please mention if you fulfill all 3, when you post.

Yes, yes and yes.

1. The oversaturation of the market.
Between 1983 and 1998, a grand total of 44 D&D titles came out. And that's just D&D.

My question to you: Did you really feel like there were too many RPGs and you couldn't play them all, hence skipping many of them knowingly?

No, there is never enough RPG

There is, however, NOT ENOUGH, good rpg. Speaking as a heretic around here, the RPGs of that time is NOT to my taste. I play only one, Pool of Radiance, but even then it's by Pool of Radiance Remasted mod in NWN2 engine, not original game. Visual graphic aside, that game content is nothing special, slightly good, not too bad, that is.

Wizardry series can be another example: I installed it twice or thrice over years, and uninstall after 30 minutes playing. There is problems in their gameplay and designs. Same with Darklands.

2. The lower quality of the games that were being churned out.

My question to you: Did you feel at the time that a lot of the RPGs were just mass produced for a quick cash grab?

No. Quick cash grab in game industry is a myth. An overused of fashionable trends, yes. Not paying enough attention to game writing, designs, gameplay element, yes. Cash grab? No.

3. The market simply stopped growing.

I don't have a question here. Other genres were finding new audiences, DOOM made random office people install it at work, while RPGs had the same audience they always had. And since it's a growth market, the RPG market offered no growth and as such hit the wall, which was a disappointment for a lot of the investors. I don't think any of you were into investing at the time, so I don't think it can be constructively discussed, but feel free to share what you think.

[/QUOTE]
This is yes, in a way. The game devs over-exploited current market, which is the nerd group born in 70s (and respectively the DnD content), and not paying enough attention to youngers. Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 can be shown as attention to such group, with content approriate to their interest (gun porns, post-imperialism).

True DnD to an extent is just a niche market~ it's by expanding to generic fantasy that it can be popular product. and mid-90 is pure DnD. No wonder they died a little there.

 

[Ladonna]

Yes I fulfill all criteria.

1. No there were not too many RPG's. SSI did have a bit of a schizoid era where they were trying to create different DnD franchise games, but things were changing in RPG world. Graphics capabilities were increasing rapidly, and the press at the time was dumping on anything that wasn't twitch gaming with next gen(tm) graphics. And many of those DnD games were NOT RPG's, and also I only liked certain styles like the Goldbox games, Magic Candle's, Wasteland, SSI RPG's, Dungeon Master, Ultima's and other Origin RPGs, etc. I wasn't a big fan of the "Blob" style of RPG until I came across Dragon Wars, that included some light elements from Wasteland to make it a bit more interesting.

2. No. Cash grabs were usually shit arcade conversions, and other twitch games. RPG's are a bad format for cash grabs as they require a lot more effort on the part of the devs, but perhaps a few of the SSI DnD non RPG games were cash grabs (heroes of the lance and stuff like that).

3. In a way. The 80's right up until 1991 were on fire for CRPG's. Then things changed.

The early 90's were a shitshow in so many ways. You had the C64 being laid to rest after a decade of success, the Amiga trying to continue on and crashing, and the PC getting continuous upgrades ($$$). The gaming press were suddenly shitting on turn based RPG's "Not another boring Turn Based game!!!!!ONE! Don't you know real time is how it should be and more immersive!" and even shitting on RPG's in general. Wing Commander and "movie" style stuff on CD's were all the rage with real actors playing parts. Did I say continuous PC upgrades? ($$$), EA taking over great gaming studios, and a lot of old studios falling over (SSI being a big one). All I wanted were more Goldbox/Magic Candle/Wasteland games. Those days had gone, along with the "1 or 2 guys cottage industry RPG scene".

I missed out on quite a few titles between 93-96 because my old shit 387 PC died, and I was too busy finishing up High School and getting a full time job. I would occasionally still play a C64 or Amiga game, but I didn't regain interest until I bought a Pentium 200 MMX in 97. I played Diablo which was fun, and bought a lot of "budget" releases of games I had missed out on due to my sucky or incompatible hardware when they were released; Ultima Underworld games, Ultima VII, Lands of Lore, Dark Sun, etc. I bought Fallout the day it came out, and thought it was awesome (it got middling reviews at the time), but not long enough. The rest of the 90's were just a Black Isle Studios fest of goodness.

Early 2000's onward was the real decline.

 

[Mortmal]

I gave up on gaming for the most part around 1996 and played the Infinity games only over a decade later. And the reason was indeed that RPG's and other genres I liked took a nosedive in the mid-90's.

At the time, I remember that CD games just came out and retard companies thought that churning out trash like Rebel Assault that uses up the CD space with graphics is the way to go. Doom also came out and everybody started copying it.

A major reason is probably also that the PC gaming market used to be much smaller and people who were in it appreciated complexity. So as the market grew, the dumbing down began. It may also have been just a coincidence that no notable RPG's were created for a few years. Fallout came out already in 1997, so the dry spell was really only 1995-1996.

One rpg a year , thats not an healthy state for a hobby , and you could finish fallout in like 10 hours . Nothing beat 1992-1993 till the kickstarter era. If you have at look at wiki release page, its a sea of jrpg with barely one western rpg a year and most often not even good ones.