Even in Germany, nobody needs to explain who Ron Gilbert is anymore. As Adventure Gamers we thank him for ultimate classics like 'Maniac Mansion', 'Indiana Jones and the last Crusade', 'Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders' and especially 'The Secret of Monkey Island' and its sequel 'Monkey Island 2: LeChucks Revenge'. Though it got a little quiet after he left LucasArts, after the digital release of 2010's action-adventure- hack 'n slay 'Death Spank' Ron is back and kicking. We met him at Germany Games Form in Hannover and asked him a couple of fairly difficult questions.
Hello Ron, first of all thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with us. Let's get started: Why do you think Adventure Games have gone from being mainstream, defining the mainstream even, to a complete niche genre?
Ron Gilbert: (thinks) I wish I had a good answer to that. People often ask "Why did the genre die?", but I don not think it died and I actually think that adventure games nowadays are selling more copies than 20 years ago when Monkey Island came out. The difference is that all these other games are selling millions of copies and compared to franchises like 'Call of Duty', or first person shooters in general, adventure games are just a small piece of a pie that has grown almost exponentially since the release of 'Monkey Island' back then.
There is just something about them that is just not resonating as well with the players and I do not really know what that is, to be completely honest. I think players today want to know where to go and what to do and then they want to go do it. If you look at all those first person shooters today, or platformers and so on, they’re telling you what to do and where to go, and then you immediately go and do it. And with adventure games questions like "Where do I go?", "What do I do?" and then "How do I do it?" are an essential part of the gameplay itself. So it is a completely different progress. Adventure games are also much slower paced and you have those moments of quiet contemplation where you walk around and think about that thing you have in your inventory and so on. It is more about sitting down and being by yourself for a little while.
On the other hand nowadays you have games like 'Limbo', have you played that?
I have.
Ron Gilbert: It is so fabulous, because when I played it, I just sat on my couch and just looked at it and I took my time and nobody was pressuring me to do something. And that really reminded me about what was really neat about adventure games. And I think as the audience for games gets older and becomes even more of a mass market than it is today, I think we will see a resurgence in adventure games. Because people are not always going to want those fast action things, but relish in having these quiet moments, and getting to think in front of the computer or mobile device, for example. I think that is something people are going to enjoy that again.
Do you think adventure games are old fashioned that way?
Ron Gilbert: They probably need to change a little bit. I think if you made a game like Monkey Island today and released it, it wouldn’t do very well, because people are looking for slightly different things nowadays. And I think 'Limbo'did some of those things really well and that was one of the reasons it did really well. I think adventure games have to change a little bit in order to accommodate those different tastes and expectations.
And if you look at adventure games nowadays and back then, where do you see the big differences and the most potential for change?
Ron Gilbert: I do not know a good answer to that. The bad answer to that is the things I did not like about 'Limbo'. The problem is that, while 'Limbo' is a very nice, quiet game, it was very linear. See, when you walk across the stream and you hit some kind of puzzle, you have to stay right there and solve it, then you move on until you hit the next puzzle. And I worry that a lot of gamers today need that kind of guidance, that if you give them an open world to walk around in and literally get lost in, they would not be able to or want to deal with that. They are too used to having everything put right in front of them, and you see that a lot in games, where I feel like things are just being fed to me. Like: "Now go this job. Oh, well done! Now you get an achievement. Then you do this…" and so forth. Adventure games are not going to survive in that environment because they are about going around exploring, and they are about being lost for a while, and that is the good thing about them. I really hope that future adventure games are not going to just become variations of 'Limbo', and that walking around and exploring things is something that players are still going to enjoy in the future.
Do you consider a game like 'Limbo' a contemporary adventure then? Because thinking about our adventure game developers in Germany or Europe, they would probably disagree.
Ron Gilbert: I think they would and I am glad that they would. I kind of see 'Limbo' as maybe what adventure games have become, not necessarily what they should become. And while I would love to make games like Monkey Island again, I am not sure that it is possible. But I think it is a compromise. I think 'Limbo' went too far with its linearity, but it picks up this relaxed play style where people can kick back and solve puzzles at their own pace without getting lost.
And where do you see the adventure game genre in the future?
Ron Gilbert: That is a difficult question. I know where I would like to see them. I would like to see the return of games like 'Monkey Island' and 'Maniac Mansion', which are about exploration and they are about a big story being told. I am not a big fan of achievements. It feels like gamers today need to be treated as though they were five- year- olds, that you have to reward them with a token or an achievement the second they do something right. I hate that. I would like to see more games like those, but I do not think you could make them exactly like 'Monkey Island' or 'Maniac Mansion' anymore. But I would like to see more grand stories being told.
I really tried to do that in 'Death Spank', which is not an adventure game per se, but I really tried to make the adventure game part of it work, doing those dialogue puzzles and inventory puzzles, and to weave that in with the RPG part of the game. But what we found out when we focus tested that game was that people got lost. So we had to simplify things and limit the players, only let them go over here, because they had to go here. I was unsatisfied with that game and I wished that it could have been more like an actual adventure game, but when we tested it, people were just lost and they said "I don’t like this game, because it didn’t tell me where to go" and we had to work with that.
On a more pessimistic note, where do you fear adventure games could go and evolve into?
Ron Gilbert: What I fear with games like 'Limbo' being such a big success is that a lot of people think that is what an adventure game is supposed to look like. There is a puzzle, there is the solution and I just don’t find that very engaging and I would hate to see them go down that road.
What kind of audiences do you think adventure games are developed for these days?
Ron Gilbert: I think a lot of adventure games today are developed for people who remember adventure games from 20 years ago. And maybe that is a little bit of a problem, because they’re just feeding that audience with the same old stuff. You know, there are a lot of classic adventure gamers and they want games just like they were back in the olden days. And while they are very loyal and love the medium you are working with, they can be your worst enemy. Because if you go and try something different, they will start screaming "No, no that’s not like it was in the old days" you know, so you cannot actually elaborate on that. I would love to do another Monkey Island, I would absolutely love to, but it scares me to death, you know, that if tried some new and interesting things, they would go "No, no, no that’s not Monkey Island!"
And what kind of audiences do you develop your games for then?
Ron Gilbert: I develop all of my games for myself, because I make games that I like. And Death Spank really came out of that, because I like adventure games, I like that genre, but I also like diablo and the likes, I played World of Warcraft maybe 20 hours per week, you know I play all that stuff and that is why I decided to try and blend those things together. I make games for me and then I just hope other people like it as well.
That sounds like a terrific idea!
On to Part 2
Ron Gilbert: (thinks) I wish I had a good answer to that. People often ask "Why did the genre die?", but I don not think it died and I actually think that adventure games nowadays are selling more copies than 20 years ago when Monkey Island came out. The difference is that all these other games are selling millions of copies and compared to franchises like 'Call of Duty', or first person shooters in general, adventure games are just a small piece of a pie that has grown almost exponentially since the release of 'Monkey Island' back then.
There is just something about them that is just not resonating as well with the players and I do not really know what that is, to be completely honest. I think players today want to know where to go and what to do and then they want to go do it. If you look at all those first person shooters today, or platformers and so on, they’re telling you what to do and where to go, and then you immediately go and do it. And with adventure games questions like "Where do I go?", "What do I do?" and then "How do I do it?" are an essential part of the gameplay itself. So it is a completely different progress. Adventure games are also much slower paced and you have those moments of quiet contemplation where you walk around and think about that thing you have in your inventory and so on. It is more about sitting down and being by yourself for a little while.
On the other hand nowadays you have games like 'Limbo', have you played that?
I have.
Ron Gilbert: It is so fabulous, because when I played it, I just sat on my couch and just looked at it and I took my time and nobody was pressuring me to do something. And that really reminded me about what was really neat about adventure games. And I think as the audience for games gets older and becomes even more of a mass market than it is today, I think we will see a resurgence in adventure games. Because people are not always going to want those fast action things, but relish in having these quiet moments, and getting to think in front of the computer or mobile device, for example. I think that is something people are going to enjoy that again.
Do you think adventure games are old fashioned that way?
Ron Gilbert: They probably need to change a little bit. I think if you made a game like Monkey Island today and released it, it wouldn’t do very well, because people are looking for slightly different things nowadays. And I think 'Limbo'did some of those things really well and that was one of the reasons it did really well. I think adventure games have to change a little bit in order to accommodate those different tastes and expectations.
And if you look at adventure games nowadays and back then, where do you see the big differences and the most potential for change?
Ron Gilbert: I do not know a good answer to that. The bad answer to that is the things I did not like about 'Limbo'. The problem is that, while 'Limbo' is a very nice, quiet game, it was very linear. See, when you walk across the stream and you hit some kind of puzzle, you have to stay right there and solve it, then you move on until you hit the next puzzle. And I worry that a lot of gamers today need that kind of guidance, that if you give them an open world to walk around in and literally get lost in, they would not be able to or want to deal with that. They are too used to having everything put right in front of them, and you see that a lot in games, where I feel like things are just being fed to me. Like: "Now go this job. Oh, well done! Now you get an achievement. Then you do this…" and so forth. Adventure games are not going to survive in that environment because they are about going around exploring, and they are about being lost for a while, and that is the good thing about them. I really hope that future adventure games are not going to just become variations of 'Limbo', and that walking around and exploring things is something that players are still going to enjoy in the future.
Do you consider a game like 'Limbo' a contemporary adventure then? Because thinking about our adventure game developers in Germany or Europe, they would probably disagree.
Ron Gilbert: I think they would and I am glad that they would. I kind of see 'Limbo' as maybe what adventure games have become, not necessarily what they should become. And while I would love to make games like Monkey Island again, I am not sure that it is possible. But I think it is a compromise. I think 'Limbo' went too far with its linearity, but it picks up this relaxed play style where people can kick back and solve puzzles at their own pace without getting lost.
And where do you see the adventure game genre in the future?
Ron Gilbert: That is a difficult question. I know where I would like to see them. I would like to see the return of games like 'Monkey Island' and 'Maniac Mansion', which are about exploration and they are about a big story being told. I am not a big fan of achievements. It feels like gamers today need to be treated as though they were five- year- olds, that you have to reward them with a token or an achievement the second they do something right. I hate that. I would like to see more games like those, but I do not think you could make them exactly like 'Monkey Island' or 'Maniac Mansion' anymore. But I would like to see more grand stories being told.
I really tried to do that in 'Death Spank', which is not an adventure game per se, but I really tried to make the adventure game part of it work, doing those dialogue puzzles and inventory puzzles, and to weave that in with the RPG part of the game. But what we found out when we focus tested that game was that people got lost. So we had to simplify things and limit the players, only let them go over here, because they had to go here. I was unsatisfied with that game and I wished that it could have been more like an actual adventure game, but when we tested it, people were just lost and they said "I don’t like this game, because it didn’t tell me where to go" and we had to work with that.
On a more pessimistic note, where do you fear adventure games could go and evolve into?
Ron Gilbert: What I fear with games like 'Limbo' being such a big success is that a lot of people think that is what an adventure game is supposed to look like. There is a puzzle, there is the solution and I just don’t find that very engaging and I would hate to see them go down that road.
What kind of audiences do you think adventure games are developed for these days?
Ron Gilbert: I think a lot of adventure games today are developed for people who remember adventure games from 20 years ago. And maybe that is a little bit of a problem, because they’re just feeding that audience with the same old stuff. You know, there are a lot of classic adventure gamers and they want games just like they were back in the olden days. And while they are very loyal and love the medium you are working with, they can be your worst enemy. Because if you go and try something different, they will start screaming "No, no that’s not like it was in the old days" you know, so you cannot actually elaborate on that. I would love to do another Monkey Island, I would absolutely love to, but it scares me to death, you know, that if tried some new and interesting things, they would go "No, no, no that’s not Monkey Island!"
And what kind of audiences do you develop your games for then?
Ron Gilbert: I develop all of my games for myself, because I make games that I like. And Death Spank really came out of that, because I like adventure games, I like that genre, but I also like diablo and the likes, I played World of Warcraft maybe 20 hours per week, you know I play all that stuff and that is why I decided to try and blend those things together. I make games for me and then I just hope other people like it as well.
That sounds like a terrific idea!
On to Part 2
