Myst. 5 released main games, one huge MMO solely on cooperatively adventuring into unknown places and finding out what happened without a single form of fighting involved, three book novels and a fourth coming up. The story of the D'ni race is one to emerge in and not coming out of it for a long time to come. Funny thing; Cyan Worlds went bankrupt too, but they crawled up again. Not able to host the online game anymore, they released it opensource because they didn't want the world of Myst Online to die. Fans take over, designing their own ages and stories, and so it grows again.
Those games are out there, CING is not the end. Perhaps you should search for them and give them a try.
I realize (even before your post, no worries) that CING is not the only company in the world that tells compelling stories. And thats definately a good thing.
I haven't had too much contact with Myst - I've played one of the early games (probably the first) years (many years, I'm an old cynic :() ago and - back then - didn't find them all that good. But I'll admit that I never got far into them and thus might have judged too early (I don't remember any of the story, so my frustrated young self probably quit very early in the game). What Mystgame would be a good starting point to get into the series? (I'm not into MMOs and cannot play them right now anyways, so that one is unfortunately not possible).
Still, with that said, you cannot deny that there are only a few companies out there to create these kind of games. Since both companies went bankrupt, it's easy to see why, of course. Still, I really like these games, and it's a shame when one of the very, very few developers still creating that kind of experience dies.
Spike - Since CING finished that title and released it in Japan (where it, sadly, sold poorly), that one's probably in Nintendos hands (Translation isn't done by CING - at least not as long as they've coded things properly, and since it worked with their earlier games, I'm pretty sure they did). I think Hotel Dusk sold pretty well both in America and especially Europe, so it seems likely that they will release them here. But I don't think they've announced the title yet.
(But CINGs "AGAIN" is coming to America soonish)
