Tweek wrote:
12 years of following the lore...not seeing it go out with a bang but with a whimper of the lame dog that got hit by a truck..is a saddening concept.
It is not difficult to see that a generative principal at the root of this statement has been the catalyst for everything that has led to this moment in time. The responsibility for it goes directly to the top decision maker(s) at Cyan, and It is important to note it.
The emergence of Myst was an event that was the metaphorical equivalent of catching lightning in a bottle. It was unique. It had enough energy to birth a number of subsequent, yet increasingly less creative offspring beginning with Riven.
Unfortunately, it appears that for whatever reason(s) the leadership within Cyan has developed an attachment to
"The Idea of Myst", and this attachment has allowed the company to become the gaming world equivalent of the "one hit wonder" repeatedly recycling old ideas and old games for new technology. Some of this is no doubt reinforced by listening to a small, but vocal fan base that is just as blindly stuck in a similar feedback loop. This group wants to see each emergence as something new, yet refuses to perceive the reality that very little that is
significantly creative has emerged from Cyan in over a decade.
When one couples that influence with the grand mistake of attempting to recycle the same foundations that propelled the single-player offspring of Myst to modest successes, and apply them to an environment that allows players to co-mingle, one sets the stage for exactly what we are seeing now.
It seems obvious to this observer that to some extent, listening to this small but vocal population has helped reinforce an inability at the very top levels of Cyan to say "NO" to their attachment to
"The Idea of Myst". A Rand Miller Interviewer wrote:
"I don't want to be part of the game that wouldn't die," Miller jokes. "But at the same time, we've grown to love this thing."
You can't have your cake and eat it too.