Terminally Incoherent

I have mixed feelings about episodic video games. So far, I think the only company that successfully exploited the episodic content idea is Valve with it’s Half Life 2 series. I think that there were other attempts from other companies, but most of them sailed past below my radar. The only one I can actually think off from the top of my head is the Sam & Max series. Unfortunately I never got into that one, because I was such a huge fan of the original Sam & Max game. The idea of playing a “talkie” version with 3d graphics scared me – I just didn’t want to tarnish my memories of pure Sam & Max awesomeness with some newfangled sequel series. Anyone played these? Are they worth checking out?

But I digress. I think most of other episodic ventures have failed miserably, and this is why I can’t remember them. Can you? Valve has shown us that it can work, but you do need a strong brand to get it started. It can be worth while for a game publisher to invest in something like this, but is it a good idea from the point of view of a customer? Let’s look at some pros and cons. I like episodic content because:

1. I get a new game faster – instead of waiting few years between sequels, I only need to wait few months
2. The episodic games are delivered in bite sized chunks that I can play from begging to end in few evenings. This is actually not a flaw – for someone with no attention span, being able to finish a game without getting sick of it, is an accomplishment.
3. The game is more compact – since the overall length of the game is shorter, plot expositions will likely be packed more densely. For example, Half Life 2 had stretches of protracted combat that took longer to finish than both Episode One and Two put together. The episodes on the other hand offer you short bursts of intense combat, punctuated by puzzles and plot exposition elements. Of course this might just be Valve refining their packing storytelling skill in the new installments.
4. Minimum requirements creep is not so intense. Since all episodes will be using the same engine, you should be able to run them on the same computer. This is usually not true for sequels, which usually get shiny new graphics and ramp up minimum hardware requirements considerably.

What are the reasons to hate episodic content?

1. Glorified expansion packs. While this is not true for HL2 series, some publishers may use this strategy to simply sell you expansion packs with few bonus maps, and a lame, tacked on story arc.
2. Episodic content promotes lame, open ended writing. Just like TV series writers, game publishers may not want to resolve any of the in game story arcs because that would mean the end of the series. What you get in the end is a meandering story that is going nowhere. Of course this is not always the case. For example the Season 1 of Hereos is a self contained story with a satisfying resolution. Despite that, the show did not end, and instead delivered a successful second season. Also, this hardly applies to Valve since it seems that Episode Three will be the last one of the series, and it’s unlikely that we will get any answers from that one either.
3. Pricing sucks – you get a 5-6 hour long game with only some minor tweaks to the engine, but you still have to pay $30-40 bucks for it. Still, this depends. For example, Valve did discount Episode One down to $9 after releasing Episode Two.
4. Finally, you never know if the game will be successful until it hits the store shelves. At this point, Valve can pretty much do no wrong. Any Half Life related title is almost guaranteed colossal sales. But if you are setting out to produce a game series, you don’t know if there will ever be episode two, if episode one is not a huge success. This means that fans of the game may get left stranded after playing just the first chapter of the planned story. If this was a full game release, gamers would at least get the whole story instead of some half-assed game without an ending.

All in all, I loved both Episode One and Two and I think that I wouldn’t mind playing few more episodes before HL3. And while I’m not really sure the episodic paradigm will ever work for the gaming industry as a whole, I think Valve found the perfect formula. What do you think? Can you think of any episodic game series that were successful?

Would you like to see more episodes of Half Life, or is 3 more than enough?