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."

Damn...

I remember taking a tour of their "studio" way back in the early Myst days... I worked at a similar shop, and we'd been talking about doing stuff like that for months, and then BOOM! there it was... better than we could have imagined. They used all the common tools of the day in fantastic ways... after I got that game, I spent the rest of my workdays playing it. Research, y'know. But they weren't just crazy minds, they were very nice guys, too.

Then again, it's not like they've died or anything... but it's still sad to see them go.

I remember that game!

It was the game that mostly women played and got addicted to, before it was replaced by the other most popular game ever made that mostly women play and get addicted to (The Sims).

I sure wish the game industry would stop being so sexist and start focusing on games that women would enjoy.

Some people are still hoping, it seems....

Support Cyan: http://www.mystembassy.net/supportcyan.html [mystembassy.net]

Sigh...

Being an avid Myst fan myself, I was hit hard by the collapse of Uru Live in February 2004, then the fact that Cyan seemed to deteriorate due to financial pressures...and now this. 'Tis a shame -- while I have nothing against violent videogames (I love Halo immensely), Myst was able to create a new kind of game. And the fan support has been amazing; the Myst community is one of the most closely-knit ones I've ever seen. Shorah, Cyan, and may the ending never be written.

The play is over, applaud!

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!

PC Gaming Legacy

Its sad to see them go.

Though this wasnt entirely unexpected. They put alot of money into URU only to have it never get off the ground.

So they ended up relying on publishers to fund new projects, and most publishers won't fund a triple AAA adventure game.

Its sad to see them go, but such is life.

Myst, Popular?

As someone who used to be a heavy gamer and still plays in between programming and sleep, I have never played this series. I remember when it came out and have heard it mentioned a few times since then, but never thought it was popular. Anyone in the know mind telling what Myst was about, and why it was so popular?

Most popular of all time? In what sense?

> 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.

Open source it?

Could they open source it? I never played and wouldn't mind checking it out. Could it become abandonware so we could try it for free?

People are going to hate me for this,

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?)

Only on games.?

Why is it that the sudden closing of one of gaming's most important, influential, and long-running game developers just before the release of the end of their long running saga not worthy for the front page?

Re:Only on games.?

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.

so sad...

so sad to see them go. Played the games, enjoyed the book, became part of the community. It gave me a world to escape to.. They were really creating worlds. It's ashame that after the first it didn't really catch on as much anymore...

Indies Are Dying Out...

As gaming is making way in terms of mass appeal it seems that, more and more, independent developers are being pushed aside. Independent studios made PC gaming, and it's a real shame to see what is happening to so many of them.

I'm sure that Cyan has become a different company in the years since Myst was released - they might have moved away from the spirit they seemed to have back in the day - but, speaking as someone who has played more than their share of videogames, this (and the relatively recent closing of Black Isle and a bunch of other good studios) seems like a sign of more bad things to come for videogames in general.

Truthfully

I am going to be honest -- and, not to be a troll -- but I never could figure out the excitement engendered by the Myst games. They seemed like a slide-show with puzzles, to me, and I hold them partly responsible for the deterioration of the genre.

I started out playing the Zork games, and later Dungeon Master (MUCH better than Eye of the Beholder), and finally Monkey Island and all of its successors/spin-offs. Myst, IMHO, didn't compare with the least of the games I've just mentioned. It was even sub-par when compared to the Sierra games, which we really adventure games for people who didn't like adventure games.

Once again, why the excitement?

Myst was NOT a game

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

"Good riddance."

That's all I can say about this. Maybe someday the computer adventure genre will recover from the damage that Myst did to it, but I would be very surprised if it happened.

Rob (Quoting Green Day's "Time of Your Life" makes me even less sympathetic)

Sci Fi Wire confims

The Sci Fi Wire has an article up about it right now:

Myst Developer Closes Doors [scifi.com]

It claims that it could theoretically reopen in the future, but don't hold your breath.

Mods

It was an obvious joke, mods.