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Myst Creator Closes Doors
ComputerSherpa writes "Cyan Worlds closed its doors today. Cyan was the creator of Myst, the game that was partially responsible for popularizing the CD-ROM format. Until it was recently overtaken by The Sims, the Myst series was the most popular computer game series of all time. The last game in the Myst series, End of Ages, is scheduled to be released September 20th by UbiSoft."
It's sad to see them shut doors, but... if their purpose was to tell the story of Myst, and End of Ages is the last chapter of the saga, they have accomplished their mission. Acta est fabula, plaudite!
Circumcision is child abuse.
It was popular because it was cerebral.
A refreshing change from the usual hack and slash, reflexes had nothing to do with it.
> Until it was recently overtaken by The Sims, the Myst series was the
> most popular computer game series of all time.
I'm really struggling with this one, in terms of definitions. I'm not sure exactly how the word "popular", for instance, could be defined to make this true. Popular in terms of how many people have played it? No, that would be Solitaire/Freecell, hands down. Popular in terms of how many hours people have wasted on it? The Mario series probably has that sewn up, if you count it as a "computer" game; if you restrict it to just the PC platform, then we're probably back at Solitaire/Freecell again, but Myst would be _way_ down the list, far below Doom. Popular in terms of what percentage of the people who played it rave about how great it was? I'm not sure what gets that honor, but I'm fairly certain Myst isn't it. The Enchanter series maybe. Popular in terms of money spent on it? That's gotta be one of those MMORPGs you pay a monthly subscription fee for, probably. I can't think of any way to measure popularity that could put Myst on top.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
But I have to say that I'm glad.
They pretty much killed the adventure game genre. Before Myst, we had great adventure games from Sierra, LucasArts and a few other companies. Granted, they escaped the notice of the general population, but when Myst came along and became super popular, it became fixed in the minds of the populace as the definition of what an adventure game is supposed to be, and REAL adventure games were automatically regarded as 'too complex', and now it is nearly impossible to get them published (Sam & Max 2 and Full Throttle 2, anyone?)
Technoli
Have you looked at magazines targeted to women or ads targeted to women? The thin, attractive, large brested women in them do not appear to be driving them away.
They made Myst, which is something. A lot of people even really liked it, which is something else. But they're not, say, Nintendo.
influentialWhat did they influence? It's not like they came up with a genre... adventures have been around since Zork, and point-and-click ones had been around since Sierra and Lucasfilm Games (if not before). The fact they made a point-and-click adventure with prerendered graphics and a storyline was nothing new. Even the fact it was good was nothing new. But it did make it worth playing. It's not like new genres have sprung up because of them.
Unlike, say, Nintendo. (And before you think I'm just a Nintendo fanboy, go look at my posts.)
long-runningSince when? 1995? You realize video games have been around since like the 50s? That today's "senior" gamehouses have been around since the 80s?
not worthy for the front page?Myst is a nice little series of puzzle games with neat graphics and a story to go along. But Cyan's been dying forever (obvious when they couldn't deliver on Uru). Even the story's "most popular game series evar" hyperbole even sounds silly.
In short, this is a tiny footnote in gaming history, and hopefully the adventure genre can recover now.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Someone pissed in your cereal this morning. I think you're discounting the importantance of Cyan a bit too much.
> But they're not, say, Nintendo.
No, but good lord, they sold more copies than anyone else at the time and really was a major contributor to the quick adoption of the CD-ROM format... something that Nintendo lagged behind on for nearly 10 years and the failure of which caused Sony to enter the marketplace. Then again you're comparing a publisher to a single developer. Nintendo has greater influence to be sure, but Cyan did at one time carry major street credential in developer circles.
> What did they influence?
You're kidding right? Tell me that low ID of yours isn't saying this. Cyan did inspire a whole horde of copycats and invigorated the adventure genre. You're correct that they didn't put in some new mindbending technology or that prerendered graphics hadn't been done before. They raised the bar to a whole new level with the adventure genre, causing Sierra and Infocom to bring their A game. Are you going to say next that Blizzard isn't influencial because they didn't invent the RTS genre and stuck to a 8-bit palette until Warcraft 3?
> You realize video games have been around since like the 50s? That today's "senior" gamehouses have been around since the 80s?
Check your dates and the video game developer graveyard sometime. While Wally's Eletronic Tennis in the '50s was technically the first, it wasn't commericially available. (Have a conversation with Ralph Baer or Bill Kunkel sometime about video game history. I know I have.)
What you see today as "senior" gamehouses are the lucky few that managed to swallow up the dying ones. Go visit the graves of Infocom, Sierra On-Line, Westwood, Dynamix, Origin, Sir-tech, the undead lich that is Interplay. The EA and Activisions you speak of survive only by sucking the lifeblood of individual development houses.
In retrospect, perhaps Myst isn't the end all be all game that some might make it out to be. (I liked it, didn't love it, but liked it.) But I wouldn't shamlessly discount the influence they had on the industry. Every game developer I've worked with, talked to or emailed (and that number is in the hundreds) has admired Cyan and studied their games and company to find their "secret".
Disagree if you will, but your assertion that they will be a "tiny footnote" is greatly, greatly mistaken and completely wrong.
Myst was bought by non-gamers, which is precisely why it was so popular.
The reason the Myst series (Riven in particular) are so incredible is that they aren't games. They're complete worlds ready for exploration and discovery, with a HUGE backstory and gigantic mental scope (much of this didn't arrive until after Myst, but the original game is still a classic). They're the kind of adventures where you can literally just stay in an area for 10 minutes "breathing in" the atmosphere. There are places I've visited in various Cyan-made worlds that feel more real to me than many real-life places.
The puzzles and "gameplay" are not the main emphasis -- they're simply a means to an end: story, environment, discovery, adventure. The sound and the music play as big a role as the graphics. There are sounds and musical motives in the Myst "games" that are now encoded in my DNA. I will never, ever, forget my experiences playing Myst, Riven, Uru, Myst IV, etc. They were events in my life not to be duplicated, even though I've played all the games dozens of times over. I've also read all of the Myst books and look forward to the Book of Marrim when it comes out. These books helped reinforce the history of the Myst and D'ni saga and give an added dimension to the worlds in the games.
The loss of Cyan to the game/computer industry is overwhelming. This art form, this incredible technological creative genre -- virtual worlds with beauty and mystery waiting to be explored -- was established by Cyan in a way no, I mean NO, other company has ever done. The future of the game industry is bleak indeed when a group of artists this influential are left begging for crumbs. For someone who has talked so much in this post, I am speechless.
Jared