Before electronics made its way into the everyday lives of American kids, imagination was the best tool in a kid's playtime experience. The only games that existed were the occasional pinball machine that might be at a movie theater or pizza joint, but even these machines didn't offer much to a the creative development of a child. Even as the 1970s came around, video game systems were not the norm in the average American household.
Then Edward Packard created a concept that would spark kids to read even more. In 1979, through Bantam Books, the first national run of Choose Your Own Adventure books would be released. The idea not only led to kids reading the books, but becoming more personally involved in the story because they felt they controlled the direction of the story. No longer were stories just linear to them. They could branch out into multiple directions and could be reread over and over, providing the child with a different ending each time. No longer was the child assured a "happy ending". There were actual consequences to their choices.
Between 1979 to 1998, Bantam Books released 185 different books that grossed over 250 million dollars. The concept ended up creating a genre of books called "gaming books" and other publishers began to copy the concept using their own in-house writers.
With the popularity of video games growing and a new genre of gaming gaining traction, the choose your own adventure style books eventually died off. Role playing video games and sandbox style games attracted kids who would have most likely enjoyed the gaming style books if the RPG genre of video games didn't exist.
While there were some games that offered you to make your own choices such as Oregon Trail, RPG style games such as the Final Fantasy series, Dragon Quest, Lineage, and Diablo started pulling more kids into playing video games. Games didn't have to be linear such as Super Mario Bros. or shooter-style. RPG style games essentially replaced the choose your own adventures books.
Turn based strategy games such as Civilization and Age of Empires eventually drew in adults and The Sims, a strategic life-simulation brought teens deeper into the video game market.
With the RPG genre taking off, choose your own adventure books were doomed. No longer did you have to imagine the story in your head. You saw it on the screen. You could hear the voices of the characters. You could physically see the action take place on your TV screen or computer monitor. Everything came to life right before you, especially as game developers continually enhanced the graphics of their games and the virtual worlds deepened.
Hints of RPG style playing bled into other genres of games. As Batman, your choices in actions and even conversation could lead to a different ending in the Arkham series. Even sports games such as the 2K series games added RPG elements to the create-your-player feature.
So with the death of the choose your adventure genre in books otherwise known as gaming books, is it possible that RPG games could see a form of entertainment that could kill that genre? On one of Kevin Smith's Podcasts, he revealed that he had conversations with other movie executives over the idea. An idea that at the theater would require audience participation in some form, whether it be through touchpads, smartphone apps, or just verbally out loud. A movie project like this would be massive and probably cost an extraordinary amount of money, but the technology to make this a reality already exists. Could choose your own adventure movies be around the corner? If so, could they kill the RPG video game genre? Probably not. The best bet would be a virtual world simulator, especially if it could be priced where the majority of Americans could buy it.
Picture is a screencap from Batman: Arkham City game
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