Age of Doom Myst III

It has become apparent to me that we are entering the Age of Doom Myst. Its a phenomenon that behaves like it sounds. In the gaming world, we are blinded to high end marketing and reviews that are motivated more on their sponsors, and less on the actual game. This Halo of Doom Myst can affect the minds of millions where we become zombie like and buy the game because we had this unknown need to play it, regardless of how good the game actually was.

The truth be told, games like Halo, Myst, Age of Empires 3, and Doom 3 are hurting not only their genera but also the gaming community as a whole. Sadly, the truth is in the tape. The NPD Group is a marketing research firm, whose analysis includes video games. Every one of the games I just listed not only made the top 5 on the NDP list, but also stayed on the charts for some time. Hence, proof these games were bought by consumers. In many cases, buyers are newbies into the particular genera, which can lead an assumption that the game they played is the defacto of the genera, because the marketing told them so.

So why am I picking on these particular games? Well...
~ Myst killed the adventure genera. Jesus, an adventure game that doesn't have interaction or dialog option with other characters. Graphics and marketing made the game the highest selling adventure game, not interactive storylines. Doom Myst strikes.
~ Doom 3 showed that you don't need to update a formula to sell the game, just a well known title with a pretty make over. Carmak himself quoted FPS don't need storylines or plots. I'd rather shoot at pop-up duckies. Sigh, Doom Myst strikes again.
~ Age of Empires 3 unbalanced online skirmishes due to levels, graphics were sub-par to games like Dawn of War, and it lacked unit diversity. But, thanks to Microsoft marketing and having a respected IP title, its one of the highest sold RTS. Even professional reviewers raved about the graphics. Damn Doom Myst.