Episodic Gaming Changing Gamemaking? 63
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.'"
Movies (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
based on the MMO model, an ideal episodic series would have updates around every 3 months or so. just long enough to gen
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This analogy carries, in that, if a TV show has a bad episode, it might not get cancelled (think The Haunting of Deck Twelve [startrek.com] from Voyager). On the other hand, if a TV series has a particularly bad season, it might get cancelled. Likewise in gaming, we could see the death of a series if a particular "episode" is not well reci
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheap little games? Sounds good to me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I enjoyed Episode One, but I do agree with others that it's kind of lame that we spend time getting through a third of a game, and then have to wait another year to play the second third, and probably another year after that for the final third. It really kills the epic feel that Half Life 2 had. I would have rather they just spent 3 yea
Re: (Score:1)
It's not. Go read the box for HL2:Ep1, you do not need to own HL2 to play Ep1.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Second that. $20 per installment is probably too much for episodic content. I'm the patient type, so I don't usually mind waiting for a game (also lets me hear what the public has to say before I waste my money on it too). I just bought Far Cry (unopened retail) for $10 a couple weeks ago, and I'm fee
HL2 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:HL2 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
One thing I found hugly lacking in HL2 in terms of story was goal-orientation. The first few hours in HL2 are spend for nothing that matters, first you have to walk a way that you normally should have been teleported acroos, then you have to run through Ravenholme since a few lausy stones blocked your path. Later on when trying to free Alyx father it finally gets somewhat more goal oriented, only to then turn into kind o
Re: (Score:1)
Nintendo has a similar approach (Score:1)
I doubt it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Like anything else.. (Score:1, Insightful)
When the Timothy Zahn "Dark Force Rising" Star Wars books came out they were well crafted and captured the essence of the 'original' 3 SW movies. Each title was an engrossing story and could stand on its own but when combined they crafted an even better, more involved story. I looked forward and kept track of each book's release date (probably the single thing I've ever done that made me feel like a nerd the most).
The second series of books I tried was t
Re: (Score:2)
The storytelling in Descent 3 is far better than in Descent 2... the plot actually evolves and changes as you play through it. I enjoyed it much better than the classic Descent games in a way (but I will probably go back to play them someday, they were still fun in their own way too). I encourage you to go and try it (the Mercenary expansion pack is neat too, although I don't think I ever beat it).
Here's some examples of things I liked in D3 that D2 could never have pulled off: In the 4th level in the b
TV Shows Vs Movies (Score:2, Insightful)
Not fast enough (Score:1)
Changing the way games are made? (Score:1)
And so far, how many companies have hopped onto this apparent bandwagon? Va
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
While you might sell more units initially if you release a short single player game for $20, it gives players a whole lot of gameplay to decide that they don'
Welcome to 1991 - (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm thinking I might not be reading enough into this, it really looks like that business model is making a return, but with one big catch. You have to pay for the first episode now, and it's usually the biggest and most expensive of all the episodes. This is the only difference I've seen thus far, and it really wouldn't surprise me if game studios reverted back to that old model of 'episodic content' now that it's become the in-thing to do again. I'm not complaining, I'd really like to try a game before I wind up wasting my money on it. I'm just wondering why they're treating it as though it's some big, new thing, when not only is it an old practice, it also hasn't been in style for about ten years. Just my take on it.
Why are episodic video games bad when... (Score:2)
Would it be terribly bad for a quarterly or twice yearly video game that continued and expanded over time.
One benefit I can see (and have seen over the Xenosaga through three episodes) is that people get better over time with the practice. Each of the three games have had their own problems (X1, too childish characters, X2 had an overly-complicated complicated combat system, X3 is actually a much better, scenimatic story with just a few glitches in combat
Re: (Score:2)
Would it be terribly bad for a quarterly or twice yearly video game that continued and expanded over time.
Would you watch a quarterly or twice-yearly TV series? No, a TV series comes at you in one hour chunks once a week for three months -- regular as clockwork. The delay between episodes is small enough that you get to keep the story in your head. Would you buy a game that you played for only an hour or two in a week? Increase the episode size and the delay between episodes will go up, because dev time
Re: (Score:2)
Games are different, you can pause (save) your position in a game and return to it later, something you can only do with PVR or "On Demand" television. My experience is that people tend to play one game to the exclusion of others, and then when they've completed the game they move on to other ga
The topic of the hour. (Score:1)
Why not both? (Score:2)
"Episodic" (Score:2)
This not only gives me something new every couple of months, but lowers the risk of purchasing an "over-rated" game. At the same time, it gives developers a little more leeway to take risks. If a small "episode" flops, it's $5 million instead of $40 million. (Or whatever your numbers may be.)
Runescape already adds weekly content (Score:2)
This approach seems to work really well, and the fact that it's a low-spec java based game means that the cost of developing the extra content is not prohibitive, and when the users have a problem wi
rewards (Score:2)
Someone mentioned previously that it's the difference between movies and TV shows. It could be
I don't think it'll work... (Score:1)
I hate it (Score:2)
It's great for the devs and publishers. They get to finish a game at their leisure, releasing small pieces at a time for a higher overall price than if they had finished a complete game and sold it for $50.
The biggest problem is that they are getting a positive response from people who are just too stupid to see where this is going to lead.
How are you going to feel when you're half way through a "game", I use quotes because it's just episode 3
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Think of Firefly. Canceled mid-series because it wasn't earning enough revenue. Much of the time, TV series are paid for one season at a time. Think of a season as an 'episode'. One of the trickiest aspects for scriptwriters is to work with the constraint that they don't know how many 'episodes' there will be. For example, Babylon 5 was conceived as a 5 series story. But apparently, due to threats
Re: (Score:2)
Episodes (Score:2)
Maybe the first episode contains the start and the end of the game, and a single quest and dungeon, and subsequent episodes expand the game from the middle, so the game is complete fr
They already exist (Score:1)
Nothing new about this at all (Score:1)
Content (Score:2)
Let's look at video. How many 'epic' tv shows can you count? How many movies? I'm betting you have a lot more movies on the list than tv shows, and I bet the tv shows took a LOT more time to get to that status for you.
The same applies to video games. You get a 5 hour game every month for 6 months and it'll just seem ho-hum. If you get a 30 hour game with the same plot, it's a lot more dramatic. Why? Maybe because of how it has to be written. The 30 hour game doesn't h
Episodic IS the way of the future... (Score:2, Informative)
If it works, I'd get it. (Score:1)
Why I hate it, Why it fails. (Score:1)
Episodic Content Fails when you release each episode for $20, knowing that you'll lower the price in 6 months. In this manner it fails because people will hold out for the 3 announced episodes so they can buy it in a bundle at a cheaper price ($40 vs $60 {$20X3}). In the end when you pay more fo
Re: (Score:1)
Bah (Score:2)
And we LIKED IT.
Episodic Multiplayer (Score:2)
Is Episodic Gaming really changing gamemaking? (Score:1)
No.
It won't change the way games are made nowadays, but rather will add in a new avenue for people who have content they'd like to make into something, but don't have enough to create the 10-20+ hour game that some people expect.
Would Descent 2's ending have been so awful had it been part of an episodic series that only cost $5-10 a game?