1-900 Hintline
After seeing a post on another forum reminiscing about somebody begging their parents to use their credit card to call a Lucasarts/Sierra hint line, I got to thinking about hint lines. Before the Internet and instant access to walkthroughs, I always wished that I could call them when I was stuck for days, but I had to resort to ekeing it out with friends or getting that one friend with some form of Net-like access to look things up for me.
I always thought it was some guy at the other end just sitting and giving out hints to callers--not unlike Steven Spielberg calling Grossman for hints--but was somewhat disillusioned when I found out from a friend that it was some kind of automated system.
But the concept is still pretty interesting to me...
- So--did anyone ever use the hint lines?
- For people in the know--IE willing ex-Lucasarts employees--were such hint lines used very much? Was it a considerable source of revenue? (If people in-the-know aren't willing to talk, what does everyone else think?)
- Yes, the obvious reason of expanded access to the Internet probably removed the need for a paid hint line, but why do you think the move has been away from asking gamers to pay for hints to gamers asking the developers to directly implement hint systems in-game (ala Bone and Sam and Max)?
Of course people can say anything about hint lines/systems--this thread isn't intended for me to solely find answers to those questions...
I always thought it was some guy at the other end just sitting and giving out hints to callers--not unlike Steven Spielberg calling Grossman for hints--but was somewhat disillusioned when I found out from a friend that it was some kind of automated system.
But the concept is still pretty interesting to me...
- So--did anyone ever use the hint lines?
- For people in the know--IE willing ex-Lucasarts employees--were such hint lines used very much? Was it a considerable source of revenue? (If people in-the-know aren't willing to talk, what does everyone else think?)
- Yes, the obvious reason of expanded access to the Internet probably removed the need for a paid hint line, but why do you think the move has been away from asking gamers to pay for hints to gamers asking the developers to directly implement hint systems in-game (ala Bone and Sam and Max)?
Of course people can say anything about hint lines/systems--this thread isn't intended for me to solely find answers to those questions...
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
So many conspiracy theories to weave:
- Maybe it was the Internet that ruined adventure games at the big used-to-have-hint-line companies, since it removed the extra income that adventures provided in the form of hint lines.
- Maybe adventure games were made harder and harder in order to maximize hint line usage and profit.
I want my creativity and patience back, internet!
Conspiracy theories aside, I think the Internet definitely changed how people play adventure games, just because it's now so amazingly easy to get a hint. A few years ago, Emily wrote a great article over at Adventure Gamers about her experience playing through Monkey Island 1 for the first time, on a houseboat isolated in the middle of the lake... probably as far from a walkthrough as you can get in this part of California
Nope (after reading), she saved one:
I'm the exact same way though. I probably turn to hints early on given their accessibility but I never used a hint line (didn't want to pay the money).
Also brought back memories of playing Monkey Island when I was incredibly young--I think I wrote down on the insults/responses and actually believed that I was missing extra disks when I looked at, I think, the tree stump (don't remember exactly how the insert extra disks joke was triggered).
It's definitely the tree stump. LucasArts' Help Desk site had troubleshooting tips about that, explaining that it was just a joke and you weren't missing any disks, up until just a couple years ago. Looks like they've since removed it, as Curse of Monkey Island seems to be the cutoff date for old game tech support at this point.
What's the rate?
...Enough.
I wrote down the insults and responses too... in many games I wrote down things, as that was the only way certain puzzles could be solved (without a photographic memory). Did anyone play Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge? I remember having to map out the tunnel scene on paper. Ugh, that took a while.
Still didn't keep me from peeking at walkthroughs a couple times, usually exactly once per age, and about 70 times for Riven.