So why does it feel like a lot of LucasArts games have been rereleased/remastered nowadays, but not Sierra games? The Telltale King’s Quest is the only thing I know of that appears on consoles.
It’s a good game, with amazing art, and a few very unfair puzzles.
Artistically, it was a worse game than MI1.
But, in a very important sense, it was a better game than MI1, because it had an important feature that MI1 lacked: the feature “people know that you exist”.
Ken Williams made sure every computer shop had KQV on display on its monitors. He was a marketing genius.
Maybe because nowadays people don’t have fond memories of Sierra games, I guess due to unfair puzzles and frustrating gameplay.
A wise man once said “Sierras? Majestic? I think not.”
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My own experience is that Sierra games, apart from being unfair, relied heavily on text parser… which is a pain in the *beep* if you aren’t a native English speaker.
Even if not translated (but most were), I could easily play Lucas games because the actions were few, definite, clear. Having to guess verbs when your vocabulary is limited and you don’t know that “look” and “look into” are two different actions (something that really happened to me) makes you appreciate a game way less.
In my opinion that’s one of the reasons why Europe preferred Lucas games.
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I’m wondering if Euros are into Lucas games more, or just adventure games in general. If the search trends are reversed for the forthcoming Colossal Cave game, it might give us a clue.
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Russia in last place? Pfft. What could they possibly have going on right now that’s more important than Return to Monkey Island?!
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I think that this is an important distinction to assess.
So, for the upcoming Colossal Cave 3D there wasn’t enough data, but I’m afraid that choosing this game for a comparison wouldn’t be fair, because we’re talking about a sequel to a game from 1976.
On the other end, in 2015 they rebooted King’s Quest and for it there is a lot more data.
A quick chart:
(Source)
Disclaimer: “King’s quest” is a somehow ambiguous expression that can refer to other things, beside the game. As a consequence, the source data is probably noisy. But I also did other searches to quantify the issue and I’m confident that it doesn’t derail the final outcome much.
So yes, there is a strong distinction and Canada and US are at the top of the chart, now.
Still, European countries usually considered having a special love for adventure games are not far from Canada and US. Germany and Sweden are in the same neighborhood.
It’s very difficult to distinguish the specific factors that lead to this difference. As others have speculated, it might be related to language or to how the original games were marketed or to other signals that we don’t know.
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Speaking for myself, Curse was one of the first I played, also within a few years after that newer ones like Discworld Noir, Escape, Grim Fandango (well, not exactly; it was too hard for my English skills) and Syberia.
The * Quest games by contrast weren’t fancy new things I had to borrow from friends or the library but old budget bin stuff. I picked up Larry 5 for a few guilders at some point, cover art of Space Quest didn’t really appeal to me, King’s Quest VIII or some such I was vaguely aware of.
I think I speak at least for my general friend group ca. 2000 if I say that the LucasArts games were a living thing (which led to playing e.g. DoTT, older MI and Fate), while Sierra was more of a historical background noise, besides that pinball game.
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Even if it’s a joke, the words “cancel the project” do emanate an ominous vibe after what has happened, don’t they?
Waiting for the new tweet from the publisher saying the game is definitely not canceled and the art 100% still does not suck.
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For those who read Italian, the Italian magazine “Segnocinema”, a bimonthly journal of film theory and criticism, has published an unexpected article dedicated to RtMI:
Il progetto “Return to Monkey Island”
Il ritorno del videogame “Monkey Island” apre ad alcune riflessioni sul rapporto tra cinema e videogame.
English translation:
The Project “Return to Monkey Island”
The return of the video game “Monkey Island” opens up some thoughts on the relationship between cinema and video games.
(source)
TIL: Apparently, this thing exists also in a dystopic offline world where they beat trees to a pulp and layer their remains to obtain a medium, over which you can physically imprint letters of the alphabet and pictures.
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Somehow every time I see the new Guybrush, I feel like he either has a bad cold or is an alcoholic, due to the red nose.
Maybe he’s just allergic?
Plot twist: The dust particles in Thimbleweed Park were just a beta-test for the dust mite allergy game loop in RTMI, where you have to pixel-hunt little white pixels every time you enter a room, or Guybrush will sneeze all the time.
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@Nor_Treblig has arisen from his slumber! How did you take the news about RtMI, Nor? With happiness? Sadness? Hunger?
I think that’s the case. I’m from Europe, and I remember Lucasarts was considered to be THE adventure games’ company in the 90s, not Sierra. Most of the King’s Quest games have not been translated.
I also watch some recent interviews from Tim Schafer. He says that Lucasarts games always sold more in Europe.
I think the games being translated was a big part of it.
I remember seeing Monkey Island games at every game store in France in the 90s.
I found King’s Quest VI once at a small store and it was in English only.
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At the time I think I liked both of them about equally, and they were equally well known/popular with me and my friends, but I think the dead ends and deaths hurt the replayability of the Sierra games. Now it’s like a bit of a hassle going back to the Sierra games, compared to the LucasArts games which are more relaxing.
I think I only ever played KQ6 and the random dying bothered me so much I never made it even halfway through the game. Figured out pretty quickly to not purchase any other Sierra adventure games.
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The same happened to me with Larry. I tried to cross the street and I was instantly killed by a car. Never played another Sierra game again, except for Gabriel Knight, because the reviews hinted at a more “lucasartsian” game design. It became one of my favorite adventure games, especially because of the great writing by Jane Jensen.
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I guess the Sierra games were also harder to translate, with the parser and all.
Uh oh. 
News from Ron: it seems that RtMI will be postponed due to an emergency revision of a major character.