ASCII art also played a big role in the early video walkthrough world too. Back then, sites like GameFAQs only accepted plain text documents for their guides, so ASCII art was the only way to add any form of images or decorations to your work, and make them look more interesting than a giant wall of text.<p>So the folks who wrote 50,000 word guides to the latest Zelda or Final Fantasy game also usually ended up becoming pretty good as ASCII art too.<p>Unfortunately, this era also died for various reasons. Most notably, the world of text based guides and simple message boards got replaced by a mix of wikis and sites that could actually support images, as well as video walkthroughs on sites like YouTube.<p>So when the relevance of GameFAQs and its ilk faded, so did the importance of ASCII art.