What's the consensus on Episodic games?
- Thread starter Lufia Erim
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I agree with the majority here. In *theory* episodic releases could be good, that is, if they adhered to the trumpeted benefits of a lower price point and greater regularity than the sequel turnover of a mainstream AAA series - but in almost every example I can think of, the episodic format has been a net zero at best, or a limiting flaw at worst.
I think I recall Wolf Among Us having a fairly brisk release schedule, and the pacing of the story and the subject matter really did lend itself to discrete episodes with a climax or cliffhanger at the end of each one. The period between episodes was a good chance to let the events sink in, discuss the story and choices with friends or on the Telltale Forums, and so on. Another not-bad example is the first Minecraft Story Mode season, which I believe was initially planned for a 5 story arc but ended up having three additional "victory lap" episodes released after - and don't get me wrong, they were fairly crummy, but in theory it's nice that the format allows the dev team to put out additional content to meet consumer demand, in a sort of digital equivalent of the performers coming back out on stage for an encore.
The downside? The delays adding time between episodes. The end of a planned story arc being put in limbo if the money runs out, or the studio is disbanded, or if the publisher decides they've had enough (that's not strictly just a symptom of episodic games - anybody else still waiting for XIII Part 2?)
Also, I think hindsight will show that the gaming industry was just warming up to the idea of episodic content at exactly the same time the TV industry was moving towards an on-demand, catch-up, box-set-binge model. The consumer just doesn't want to wait for content to be drip-fed when the gaps are one week between installments, let alone two months plus "LOL Valve time". It also must make hair-raisingly poor business sense: your team is going to have to put in X hours work regardless of whether the product is delivered in a complete package or episodic, but if it's split into say five parts, each of those gaps represents a drop-off in sales. Unless you convince people to buy the season pass, in which case what is the benefit to the end user?
I wouldn't say the format has had its day but the genre is in need of reinvention. Ideally it would be a project with almost all the assets in place at the outset, and the episodic format would be used to really deliver the USP of meaningful decisions and branching narratives. The idea that episodic gaming means paying up front to be drip-fed a linear game to no reliable schedule is an evolutionary dead end.
I think I recall Wolf Among Us having a fairly brisk release schedule, and the pacing of the story and the subject matter really did lend itself to discrete episodes with a climax or cliffhanger at the end of each one. The period between episodes was a good chance to let the events sink in, discuss the story and choices with friends or on the Telltale Forums, and so on. Another not-bad example is the first Minecraft Story Mode season, which I believe was initially planned for a 5 story arc but ended up having three additional "victory lap" episodes released after - and don't get me wrong, they were fairly crummy, but in theory it's nice that the format allows the dev team to put out additional content to meet consumer demand, in a sort of digital equivalent of the performers coming back out on stage for an encore.
The downside? The delays adding time between episodes. The end of a planned story arc being put in limbo if the money runs out, or the studio is disbanded, or if the publisher decides they've had enough (that's not strictly just a symptom of episodic games - anybody else still waiting for XIII Part 2?)
Also, I think hindsight will show that the gaming industry was just warming up to the idea of episodic content at exactly the same time the TV industry was moving towards an on-demand, catch-up, box-set-binge model. The consumer just doesn't want to wait for content to be drip-fed when the gaps are one week between installments, let alone two months plus "LOL Valve time". It also must make hair-raisingly poor business sense: your team is going to have to put in X hours work regardless of whether the product is delivered in a complete package or episodic, but if it's split into say five parts, each of those gaps represents a drop-off in sales. Unless you convince people to buy the season pass, in which case what is the benefit to the end user?
I wouldn't say the format has had its day but the genre is in need of reinvention. Ideally it would be a project with almost all the assets in place at the outset, and the episodic format would be used to really deliver the USP of meaningful decisions and branching narratives. The idea that episodic gaming means paying up front to be drip-fed a linear game to no reliable schedule is an evolutionary dead end.
They're okay but I'd recommend just waiting and buying the whole thing in one go. Yes you might miss out on some deal but you'll probably save more money if it gets bad reviews so you don't buy some of them, just like preorders.
'Episodic' is a relative term in FF7 Remake's case. Game is gonna be huge with areas and ideas expanded upon, new story elements and new enemies, it's an entire re-imagining. Not to mention the stunning graphics and insane production values. Game fits on 2 bluray discs. It's more than enough to stand on it's own.Dalisclock said:
But yeah, I remember the talk about 10 years ago how episodic games were 'the future' but I also remember it being fueled at the time by Kojima who saw at as a way to more equally distribute ballooning development costs and test the waters for new games and the much reported problem at the time(when physical sales were still dominant) of games being traded in for chump change with no return on investment for the publisher. Kojima did try with making MGS5 episodic and maybe GZ gave him some credit but I don't think many saw it as more than an appetizer for Phantom Pain. Though I guess he took the concept even further by having every mission begin with a title screen that it's directed by Kojima, written by Kojima, presented by Kojima and produced by Kojima in case you forgot the game was by Kojima. No matter what idea or concept is thrown around that guy will find a way to use it as a masturbation tool.
The only developer that fully embraced episodic games is former Telltale and I guess it works for their games resembling mostly a TV series format. Other than these kind of interactive story games the concept never really took off. To make games more long-term profitable the industry took an entirely different direction with GaaS crap, loot boxes, microtransactions and pay-to-win.
I saw that apparently each episode(?), section, part of the remake is going to be big. It does, however, beg a few questions:stroopwafel said:
-Are they going to be able to come up with enough new and expanded content to warrant the size? I don't mind getting to see more of midgar by any means but I want it to be interesting. Because right now it sounds like they're taking what was essentially the first 5-6 hours of the original and scaling it up to 40-60 hours and that's a lot more "more". And in the past few years, I've see that "more" and "better" are rarely the same thing.
-If a Midgar only game ends up being like 10% of the full completed remake, does that mean each game is gonna cover 10%? 15%? 30%? Does the second part go all the way up to Aeris dying? How many parts/episodes are there gonna be?
Because, again, the original was 40-60 hours long for a normal playthrough(I'm sure some people made it last a lot longer or powered through in like 10 hours) and now we're looking at mutiple 40ish(presumably) games to cover the same story. So either they're going to add a lot more story depth and worldbuilding to justify the extra size/scope....or I don't know...if they do it wrong, it's gonna feel like there's a lot of filler and treading water.
And of course, the unfortunate issue of "You know that part from the original game you really liked? Well, instead of having to play for 5-10-20-30 hours to see it, now you have to play through at least 1 full sized game and wait likely multiple years in between before you get to see how it looks now". Episodic games normally aren't this huge or have muti-year wait times in between, so there's not much precedent for this. A each part being large is going to mean the wait times between episodes are going be longer, and I have to wonder just how long this can be sustained. Does anyone really want to wait another decade before we see the entire thing completed over 3-4-5 games?
I want FF7 to be epic and amazing, but honestly, I haven't really seen much out of the mainline FF series in a long time to have that much hope. The last game in the series I really dug was IX. X just didn't seem to work for me and I haven't bothered with any of the new ones(granted, half of them being MMOs or MMO without the O part would have a lot to do with that)
S'alright. I've learned from playing some Telltale games on launch that unless you really want to play the game ASAP, wait until all the episodes are out. I did this for every one of their games post Tales From the Borderlands. It was totally worth it.
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It wasn't a horrible idea, but the only company that did it well was Telltale. I suppose some indie fps games kinda did it ok also, like Amid Evil and Dusk. But, for the most almost no one did it well, with Valve being one of those that kinda messed it up, everyone is still waiting for episode 3.
Well, other then those of us who have given up on it ever happening. I know I held out hope for far longer then I should have, but eventually conceded that Valve just doesn't care anymore and it's not gonna happen. Everyone who worked on the previous games has pretty much left Valve, so even if somehow it did end up happening, it wouldn't be the same as if it had come out 10 years ago.Worgen said:
Probably the best we can hope for now is that a fan project does makes a worthy attempt at it and Valve doesn't shut it down(and if they let "Hunt down the Freeman" on Steam, why not let an unofficial HL3 slide?).
My guess: it's going to be padded to hell to draw things out because if they went in a radically different direction than the original game they would catch holy hell for it. Considering that they're padding out the Midgar section (THE LEAST INTERESTING PART OF THE ENTIRE GAME) it shows they don't know what they're doing. Nomura has even admitted they have no idea how many episodes it'll be. I predict the project is going to end with a whimper or just a shrugDalisclock said: