Episodic games? No, thank you
The last months show a sad development in games industry: Episodic games. Why is this happening? Are developers not able to finish their games? Is the market pressure too high? I´m playing Half Life 2: Episode One right now and I don´t like this concept at all. It´s boring to know that the game will end in 3 hours, only to give you a cliffhanger that is more than unsatisfying. So why is Telltale Games making the same mistake? I have read somewhere on this forums "2 hours of gameplay per episode"? If this is the case I won´t buy this game. I don´t see any sense to torture my gaming experience over many months to see the end credits. That doesn´t make sense.
Why do I hate this idea? The main reason is inconsistency: What happens if the main characters voice actor passes away and we have to hear Sam or Max with a different actor. What if they change the overall game style? What if Episode 1 doesn´t sell well and they cancel all other episodes? What if it sells so well that they stretch the game from 3 episodes to 10?
I´d rather had a full game, a full piece of art and not just a puzzle where I get the pieces after months of waiting. I love Sam & Max and I´m waiting badly for years to see a Part 2, but, Telltale, if you really stick to this idea I will have to say "without me".
This is just my unimportant opinion but many other gamers are feeling the same. I have read many other discussions in other forums about this topic so you should take this thread serious.
Why do I hate this idea? The main reason is inconsistency: What happens if the main characters voice actor passes away and we have to hear Sam or Max with a different actor. What if they change the overall game style? What if Episode 1 doesn´t sell well and they cancel all other episodes? What if it sells so well that they stretch the game from 3 episodes to 10?
I´d rather had a full game, a full piece of art and not just a puzzle where I get the pieces after months of waiting. I love Sam & Max and I´m waiting badly for years to see a Part 2, but, Telltale, if you really stick to this idea I will have to say "without me".
This is just my unimportant opinion but many other gamers are feeling the same. I have read many other discussions in other forums about this topic so you should take this thread serious.
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That would be an option.
I bet you anything you'll still buy the first one. haha
The plan for the Sam and Max episodes seem fairly solid and should really accommodate the format well. Having a completely solved case within an episode, with an overarching story connecting them all together, seems like a good idea. The thing is it's a format we've all seem hundreds of times on television and, just as with a television show, it comes down to how well it's done. Some shows are good and some shows are not, but it really has nothing to do with the episodic format. It has to do with the skill and passion of those producing it. Just because episodes are a familiar structure in television or comics doesn't make it an invalid choice in another medium.
Also, you may want to reconsider your definition of art, which tends to be a fairly nebulous term these days anyway. Being episodic hardly takes away from a games ability to be art. More likely, a game can now consist of several pieces of art that come together to form a sum greater than its parts.
In any case, you can just buy the whole season once it’s completed if you want. Though really, I think this will be an option for those who are uncomfortable with something ever-so-slightly outside of their comfort zone. As a Sam and Max fan I think you are probably quite at ease with things outside of most people’s comfort zone. So just go ahead and give it a chance. These episodes at least promise to give a satisfying ending to each episode. While Valve makes amazing games, their endings have always been somewhat unsatisfying.
The idea that a game can’t be properly explored, enjoyed or replayed because it’s shorter is ridiculous. A smaller game area encourages people to explore more deeply and it makes replaying a game far less daunting.
When discussing the forthcoming Sam and Max episodes some seem to be hung up on the “2 hours of gameplay†quote, which at this point means nothing besides providing a general estimate. What factors this estimate is based on are beyond our knowledge. Is that an estimate based on a playing through the game without digging deep into it like a more casual gamer might? Is that after finding every joke possible? On top of that, the game is not near completion yet. That estimate may change based on the actual finished product.
None of this takes into account the fact that mileage will vary between players. Some may get stuck on a puzzle and spend an hour and a half trying to figure it out, where others may solve that puzzle instantly.
On the subject of your wallet, the price per episode hasn’t been released yet. All we know is that it’ll be cheaper than the Bone episodes. With this in mind, if an episode is released every 3 months or so, you’d need to put aside less than one United States dollar a week to purchase an episode the day that it is released. I’m sure most of our wallets should be safe.
Outside of the calculations of Time Played versus Money Spent, I paid $40 for Full Throttle when it came out. I beat the game in less than a day and a half, if memory serves correctly, and I didn’t regret it one bit. It was an excellent game, if a bit short.
There are factors that go way beyond Time verses Money. If you enjoy the hell out a game and the price is reasonable than all this other stuff is just moot.
Just remember, an episode is just a way of delivery. The enjoyment and richness of the game experience is not dependent on the format.
Back in the eighteen hundreds, the most popular books were in episodic format - I think pretty much all of Dickens stuff was released on a monthly/bi-monthly basis. Thats why his books are so think and dense in one volume - They were written to be read in seperate chunks over the course of a year or so.
For movies - Most trilogies - Star Wars, LOTR, etc.. are all episodic, most TV programmes are, comics, etc.. pretty much every 'entertainment' product produces episodic versions.
It makes sense with video games (they can tighten the next chapter of the game depending on the feedback from the last release, smaller software houses can see revenue return much faster.
For me I dont always have time to play an entire video game all the way through - with work, relastionships, house stuff, drinking, etc.. I only get a few hours a week free to play video games, which means even 'short' 10-15 hour games take sometime to work through (by which time I'm usually just playing the game to finish it and move onto the next thing)
the episodic contents means I can spend a weekend or two playing the game before completing the chapter - I'll finish the section which give the bonus of completing the title, and while I'm waiting I can play alternate episodic games e.g. Half-life 2(3), Sin, etc..
I guess the point is, for my lifestyle espiodic content works well, I have no problem spending 12 dollars on a game that lasts 2-3 hours (same price as a movie ticked for longer entertainment).
This uncertain ground makes me fearful.
See, if every game was that expensive, I think I'd just give up on gaming. There's no need to price a 2-3 hour game at over 10 dollars. There might be a need to do this for movie tickets, but I don't care, since I'd rather use Air Miles for movie tickets - it's not worth the money when I can buy a DVD of the movie for a little bit more and watch it whenever I want.
And to put this all into context: Oblivion can easily give you more than 100 hours of gameplay for 50 bucks. The plug-ins are about 2 bucks each, and provide you with about an hour of extra gameplay, and potentially even a lot more. Strategy games like Civilization can last you hundreds of hours, also for about 50 dollars. So I see no reason why I should pay more than 10 bucks for a 2-3 hour game. I hope you see where I'm coming from.
I have got the same issue with some games, too. There are plenty of games of which I've completed about 80% and then just stopped playing. I also reviewed games for a couple of years which essentially raised the bar for games to be interesting at all.
It's just that too short is always too short. Though I'm beginning to be optimistic about the episodic system. We'll see.
I'm pretty sure this is everyone's bottom line.
And Dickens was paid by the word, which is why his writing is so verbose!
Shacknews has a feature about episodic gaming here that may be of interest to some of you. It talks mostly about Valve and their reason for doing Half-Life in episodes. I found this to be particularly interesting:
I can relate - I'm more likely to start a game and NOT finish it than play it all the way through to the end. I just uninstalled a bunch of games after resigning myself to the fact that I'd never go back to them. I just don't have huge chunks of time to dedicate to playing a game all the way through, and a problem with long adventure games is that when you take a break from them, you're liable to forget what's going on in the story.
It seems then that you must suffer for society’s crime!
I almost never have a problem finishing an adventure game (although I gave up on Syberia -- too boring and slow for me). FPS games however, are always giving me trouble. Usually I just play a few levels and get weary of the whole thing and delete it from the drive, mostly to never be tried again. I've installed and deleted Halo three or four times now and only played a couple hours of it. I finally managed to finish Call of Duty and it's expansion pack after a few installs, but I think I was all crazy excited about shooting Nazi's once I got started into that one. A rare exception. I think Valve/Steam may have the solution for my FPS gaming needs here. Small chunks at a time. Oh, and Telltale, too, of course. But I almost never complain about an adventure game being too long.
Out from Boneville - finished.
The Great Cow Race - finished.
It's not that I don't want to finish them, it's just with 3 kids, a business to run and other things going on in my life it's hard to get more than a few hours a week for gaming - and I kind of forget what's going on or what objects I have or what quest I'm on in the longer games, so tend to find it more appealing to try some other game rather than attempt to pick up where I left off on older ones.
So, like many others who have less free time as I did in the Adventure heydey (which was when I was a student), short games actually suit me way more than longer ones, and I'm betting the same holds true for a lot of 30-40 (??) year olds who grew up on Monkey Island, DOTT & the Sierra games in the early-mid 90s.
The challenge for Telltale is reaching "us", I guess.
reaching the million people who bought and enjoyed hit the road..and are now older and probably not buying video games anymore..is a good challenge for telltale
You watch those too?
Look at 24, one case takes 24 Hours.
but the story continues..these episodes of sam and max are self contained
I completed the orignal Bone episode in 2-3 hours - which I did think was a little short (I've spent more time playing some game demos), but it was fun, so I bought the next chapter - It may just be because of the echange rate ($12 = £6 = 2pints)
See, I reckon that's a bit misleading - both Oblivion & Civ are well known for being HUGE games - the vast majority of titles these days tend to be designed with a 10-15 hour play time (costing $59.99 for the average console title, $49.99 for PC) - Quake4, Max Payne, Call of Duty 2, Black and White 2, etc...
Personally, I'd rather go for quality than quantity - but at the end of the day, everyone is looking for something different from their gaming experience.
Yeah, sorry about that man - I didn’t mean to suggest you preferred quantity over quality, just that I'd prefer a shorter game where the developers spent time thinking more about each aspect, than a longer game where you spend a lot of time back tracking, pixel hunting, repeating the same type of task over and over, etc...
Sure, I know what you're saying - (not that I think you're wrong) but I reckon that’s the beauty of episodic games; after you've played a chapter/episode you can come onto the forums, chat with the guys who are developing the game and tell them what you like and disliked about the whole thing (which possibly is why there are no mini-games in the second Bone release?)
You can call me JP if you like.
And yeah, Mercenary was a great game. First 3D 'adventure' I played (On my old Commodore Plus/4). You know there have been PC Remakes of Mercenary, Damocles and Mercenary III. The beta release is available now.
lol.. sorry man - I'm just not that bright [:">]
Good stuff, thanks - Definitly worth a play!
I guess it all comes down to personal taste - personally, I'm from the other end of the Spectrum - I was a HUGE Ultima fan during the eighties (and of open ended RPG's since including Oblivion), but could never get into the Final Fantasy series - In the same way that Final Fantasy hits the right buttons with you, it hit all the wrong ones for me
Then again I could never get into Baulders Gate (though a big fan of Torment) or Diablo either)
I am a huge Ultima fan but don't care for Oblivion. the Ultima series was much more solid than the Elder Scrolls series. Oblivion allows you to do too much without being penalized and wandering around doing sidequests messes up the gameplay in the main storyline pretty bad with the flexible difficulty level.
Anyway, I'm not trying to compare Oblivion to Sam & Max per se, because they're obviously totally different games. I just want a nice, immersive game, if possible.