[alex_c]

Industry insiders correct me if I'm wrong, but Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales. Simultaneously, it was a true masterpiece - one of the best in the genre. So it's not surprising that lots of people grew up loving adventure games and now have the disposable income and the nostalgia to fund a Kickstarter project, while at the same time making this a risky project for a game publisher.

[masklinn]

> Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales.

Not precisely since it was followed by Escape from Monkey Island, but yeah Grim basically shuttered LucasArts adventure games, which in turn shuttered the adventure games genre until its revival starting ~2007 (Zack & Wiki, Broken Sword, Sam&Max Save the World, Strong Bad, Tales of Monkey Island, Machinarium, ...)

[jeffool]

Interesting that the Wiki entry continually calls out a commercial failure and goes on to say:

Total cumulative worldwide sales are estimated

between 100,000 and 500,000 units. [61] The game is commonly considered a commercial

failure, [62][63][64] even though LucasArts has stated that "Grim Fandango met domestic expectations and exceeded them worldwide".

[InclinedPlane]

I wonder if it's the Radio Shack problem. Why make only a little money selling electronics components when you can make a lot more money with the same resources selling cell phones? See also adventure games based on new IP vs. FPSes based on Star Wars IP.