In a special article posted on CNet's Gamecenter.com, their editors consign to the watery deep five game genres that are fading out more quickly than Voodoo2 cards or cargo pants. The game genres they consider in peril are Adventure games, Combat Flight Sims, Real-Time Strategy games, Sci-Fi combat sims and war simulations.

While we can think of counter-examples to many of their proclamations, it is an interesting look into the short history of games and where they might be headed. Here's an excerpt on why the adventure game is dead, which is actually a mini-rant against Myst, for some reason:

Why it's vanishing: We blame Myst for all of this. In the olden days, back when the concept of a gigabyte was nothing more than a wishful glimmer in some engineer's eye, we tended to our beautiful adventure games, like the Quest series (King's Quest, Space Quest, and so on), and enjoyed our puzzles and our exploration. Those Sierra classics were gems of true puzzle mastery. Before them were the golden days of Infocom, back when Zork ruled in mere text adventures telling stories that were just the beginnings of interactive gaming. It was a wondrous time.

Enter the Internet, which could very well be war gaming's salvation. Since the Internet allows niche communities to grow and flourish, we're seeing war gaming switch to an Internet-only model of publishing and distribution. Firaxis and TalonSoft, for instance, have both dabbled with selling war games online. Then there's Shrapnel Games and Matrix Games, two relatively new war gaming publishers who sell primarily online.

Dying Game Genres at Gamecenter

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