Episodic Gaming Changing Gamemaking?

Chris Morris, of CNN's Game Over column, talks this week about how episodic gaming may be changing the way games are made. He explores the possibility that, with the success of GTA and Half-Life 2, developers may start looking towards more of a 'Saturday Matinee' approach; shorter individual game units, but a longer story overall. From the article: "Whether Valve will continue with episodic content after "Episode Three" hasn't yet been decided. The company knew its fans would likely buy the first installment regardless. But they don't know if players will stick with the formula. 'So far the feedback has been really positive and led me to believe we'll be continuing to do this in the future,' acknowledged Newell. 'But we want to get these three out, then sit back and do a post mortem. ... We're really interested in trying this, then sitting down with some customers and asking them, Do you want a TV series or do you want movies - or a mixture of both? It's like they've had a diet of feature length experiences for a long time and this is their first chance to try something different.'"

Episodic IS the way of the future...

[Juggernautz]

For all those people saying "Oh noez!!!1! The developers are being cheap, and trying to give us less for more!", then you obviously don't have much faith in those who build these worlds that you enjoy. Developers don't go out of their way to specifically develop less content, in fact you'll find that if you add up all of the content in the episodes it is much more than a full game would be. Further, because the content is released episodically, the developer can do a post-mortem after each release and analyse what went wrong, what people loved and build on it. Half Life 2 and the Episodes are the prime example. Half Life 2 was an amazing game, but suffered a little in the middle sections as there was too much downtime between brilliant scripted sequences. Cue the expansion, a non stop thriller of amazing setpieces. Plus the introduction of HDR lighting and some amazing new shaders (the pulsing energy ball, anyone?) Other franchises (Sam and Max spring to mind) are going the way of being completely episodic. And like Sin: Episodes, isn't it better that you found out the game was shit and only spent 20 bux rather than the full amount? Yes, episodic content is not new, in fact it is the reason why games took off in such a big way. Everyone who doesn't want to buy the new content every 6 months (more like a year), then just freaking wait until all the episodes are released and buy them in a pack. In the meantime stop whinging. Why am I so opinionated on this matter? Because I make games for a very large, succesful developer. I am working with next gen tech, including some episodic content, and I realise just how much this helps us in creating real, memorable experiences. Episodic releases allows us to keep the technology fresh (or at least appear fresh :P), constantly improve on the gameplay experience and throw in some great cliffhanger moments. Try and tell me that the ending of HL-2 didn't both infuriate and intrigue you. That's exactly what they were aiming for.