Episodic? Schmepisodic, The New Gamer Claims
November 19, 2006 8:10 AM | Simon Carless
Those hombres at The New Gamer (specifically G.Turner) are back with a piece called 'Why We Should Want Episodic Games', and it has some genuine insight.
Something Turner dings developers for is simply completeness: "I don't want to kick episodic games to the curb quite yet as, apart from perhaps Majestic, no episodic effort has yet to even complete an entire run yet. With the number of 'stalled' efforts sadly piling up (SiN, Bone both being recent efforts lacking any official future), it's sad to think that the potential is being squandered."
He continues: "But, if developers can't provide bite-sized games with some frequency and flexibility, why bother with announcing a six-episode game that'll just get cut short? Why not release it as a compromised, fifteen hour game so we can at least play some of the intended vision?"
This is very interesting because it speaks to the problems of how damn long it takes to make games, and also the flipside of one of the supposed advantages of episodic games - that you can just stop making 'em if they're not successful. But what of the customer then?
Categories: PC








4 Comments
Episodic content seems to work better for smaller projects, like Yahtzee's 1213 trilogy. Kind of like the old shareware days....
...those were the days :(
Roushi | November 19, 2006 9:12 AM
It also seems like episodic content gives developers licence to make poor business decisions. Sin is a perfect example of an IP that made no financial sense to bring back.
d | November 19, 2006 12:14 PM
What about HL2's episodic content? It seems to be doing pretty well...
Michael Lubker | November 20, 2006 4:28 PM
I'm pretty sure Telltale has talked about Bone resuming release in early to mid 2007, as soon as they have Sam & Max going smoothly.
mister slim | November 21, 2006 3:45 PM