Adventure games have been going the way of the dodo for a couple of easily understood reasons. I'll keep it simple, and it has little to do with fun overall.

1: From a business standpoint, a FPS is MUCH MUCH easier to push out than an adventure game like Darklands or Daggerfall etc... People are easily pacified, so why bust your behind makings games that require so much finess and hard work when you can make subtle changes, pay fewer people, or pay less to fewer people, and still pacify the masses and your wallet? That's why FPS have thrived. I don't buy many of them, because they have so little to offer, but I do admit to liking Farcry and Doom3 which are recent. I can argue several aspects of D3 I thought could be better or improved, but that's not what this is about, and I'm not on IDs payroll.
2: Debugging. Again, large adventure games are so complex. Why do you think daggerfall was plagued with crashes and patches? Deadlines, money, and difficult programming. FPS's are much easier which again lead to less costs.
3: Demand. People like them because it's eye candy that's usually fast paced. Watch people who rate movies. All they want is typical unintellectual plots and dialogue. They've been dumbed down, and are either doped on Ritalin, or just incapable of creative problem solving.
4: Hardware. Hardware is getting there. I'm really interested in seeing what Oblivian will be like. I've just finally upgraded my system to have a 24" widescreen TFT at 1920x1200 and a AIW X800XT 256. I'm able to run farcry at that res. with all detail at ultra, and it's smooth. I love atmosphere, and I sacrifice lots (because I'm certainly not rich) to be immersed and entertained. I'm already wondering how long it will be before gaming developers take advantage of using the widescreen format support, and if other people are willing to pay into this. So many just don't seem to care to support it, and that means the costs will stay high longer without the support. If I could play a game like Darklands, true to how it was then, or the original Tie-Fighter on par with D3 graphics, I'd be set a-bliss.
Maybe it'll come. People lose interest fast too, and that'll prompt developers to grab them back by challenging them to things they haven't done. Hense, adventure again. Let's just hope it's not (find the key, match it to the door, enter) puzzles.

new ideas are always welcome, but new ideas are NOT required for a game to be good.
you can just make a good game.
i remember when quake 3 and UT came out, there was this huge buzz over multiplayer FPS. even though those 2 are really BORING multiplayer fps.
im enjoying return to castle wolfenstein. im looking forward to quake 4. i have no intention of even buying half life 2, because valve and steam annoyed me more than i can describe. doom 3 didnt get anyone excited enough for me to want to try it either.

a good example of how 'new ideas' arent always better are what happened with the MYST games - they experimented with realtime 3d with realmyst and the URU games, but the latest one is in the old school slideshow format (but prettier with video in it) because people wanted that control method, not 3d.

Not that SST-issue again... got only ONE thing to say: If one's too dumb to actually "get it", it's neither the movie nor the director who's to blame...

And if one uses THAT example to bash the "mindlesness" of consumers, they are biting their own tail. LOL

@ topic: Why would there be a breakdown? Just because there's nothing "new"? What IS new anyway? When was the first time something REALLY new came into the games-world? I guess 3D was that, but pretty much EVERY genre has been invented already shortly after games became a semi-mass-phenomenon for the first time in the early 80s. Since then everything "new" has just been an "enhancement".

We had "Space Invaders" - Birth of the shooter-genre. Then followed several "enhancements" of the game-principle. First scrolling, additional weapons, stage bosses, scrolling in 3d, then free-roaming scrolling in 3d... but in it's very core, the principle itself didn't REALLY change. Of course the FEELING is totally different nowadays, but there will ALWAYS be ways of altering the feeling of games. 3d, surround-sound, next step will probably be more direct means of transmitting visual- and accustical informations to the player, maybe new ways of "force feedback" will alter the feeling as well. But is that really GENUINLY new?

If that ISN'T what you call genuinly new, than there will ALWAYS be something "new", and surely enough to keep most consumers going.

2 WildZeppelin: not to be rude, but Daggerfall and darklands are RPGs, while I personaly like those even more than adventures, they still arent the same :D

new Ideas are the information ages mutations- they aren't beneficial 99% of the time, yet it's that 1% that makes all the difference in perspective. So in truth "the new" won't usualy be "the good" (try palying wolfenstein and dune), and if the myst series failed in their 360 panarama idea, it should not be considered as a general failture, but as a thing that was tried and found unacceptable at present time. progress moves on to it's next victim.

half the time "new" and "revolutionary" are swallowed by the fanboys, but in a lot of cases its not the first time its been used.
take half life 2 and its "real world physics" .......
tresspasser has real world physics and its a 1998 game. the same year as half life 1 was released

Thank you! It was driving me crazy. :ok:

bah, games arent what they used to be, nowadays i cant look at a game the same way i look at crusader no remorse/no regret's cheesy acting or its entertaining deaths.

"modern" games are just refined ideas, "originality" doesnt exist anymore...unless they try something stupid like C&C with bank management and while your at it, control your "sims" around the new GDI base...bah, of course, thats something EA would have a go at.

....at least their better than counter-strike :whistle:

pure geniuss! you should be the chief Idea designer at EA (it wouldn't hurt them) :D
EDIT: adding a smiley :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

better than the joke counter-strike turned into. but counter-strike 6-7 betas wiped the floor with them

Mr. Picard,

You are entitled to your criticisms of the great Sid Meier of course.

Personally, I've never had that "This is all WRONG" feeling whenever I played a Sid Meier game. Perhaps a "hm, he could've done this better" but anyway...

The point is, people like I (intelligent, favor strategy over action) actually like even enjoy playing games made by the great Sid Meier.

So yeah, Colonization has a lot of weak points, but still, playing it in Viceroy mode is a helluva lot of fun!

Alpha Centauri: what about the story line? It's just Civ on a different planet. But the visuals were more interesting (actual 3-D surface) and the sci-fi-storyline wasn't bad either. And I must admit: it's a damned hard game and the AI is better than in any other Sid Meier strategy game I've played.

Civ III: still haven't played this at the hardest level, but it's a great, great game. It made me even almost feel sympathetic to the USA's quest for oil in the Middle East...

My point is, these games may be intended as simulations of real situations, but at the core they are games. And damned good games!

And let's not forget the great, great game "Pirates!" on the humble C=64!