I really don't understand how anyone could NOT want episodic gaming in this case.. All the points have pretty much been made, but if this game had ended up being a normal retail release, we'd be lucky to have 6-8 hours of gameplay from it.
Being episodic means the developers can make money from the previous parts and keep working on new content inbetween. So being episodic works remarkably well, especially for a niché genre - let's face it, the general gaming populatation doesn't have much interest in adventure games and the majority of them don't even know what Monkey Island is. So if this had been released on the PS3, for example as a full price game, it would have sold badly, been around 6 hours long and we'd never see a sequel.
Again, if you don't want to play the episodes individually, just wait and play them all at once.
I want to buy the entire game and play through it all without 6 individual folders and exe files. I don't want to have to wait for the next part of the game. And I just find the whole thing insulting.
So with this new monkey island ness, it ain't a real monkey island game. There are only four games, and a soon to be released remake of the Secret. Which erects my nipples more than any Tell Tale game has done so far.
So then we get the pleasure of waiting even longer? Goody.
The old-school Adventure genre is so niche these days that episodic gaming is really the only way it can still be profitable. Besides, who else is releasing games worth playing over the summer, and this project is looking especially ambitious?
"oh no, we have to take 10 - 20 seconds out of our time to switch to a new episode of a series, or a ned chapter of a game" boohoo to you.
one moth between each episode is not 10-20 seconds, i know to which post you reply, but for me having to wait a month after each episode is awfull, episode one was great i want more and i want it know, i payed for all 5 episodes and i want the full game now
I really don't understand how anyone could NOT want episodic gaming in this case.. All the points have pretty much been made, but if this game had ended up being a normal retail release, we'd be lucky to have 6-8 hours of gameplay from it.
Being episodic means the developers can make money from the previous parts and keep working on new content inbetween. So being episodic works remarkably well, especially for a niché genre - let's face it, the general gaming populatation doesn't have much interest in adventure games and the majority of them don't even know what Monkey Island is. So if this had been released on the PS3, for example as a full price game, it would have sold badly, been around 6 hours long and we'd never see a sequel.
Again, if you don't want to play the episodes individually, just wait and play them all at once.
and i dont understand why you dont understand that somebody wants to play the game from start until the end without having to wait 4 months until he can do so!
and i dont understand why you dont understand that somebody wants to play the game from start until the end without having to wait 4 months until he can do so!
Great, want that as much as you like, but since the game isn't finished yet it doesn't matter much how Telltale choose to release it. The game was only announced a month ago, they aren't sitting on a complete version waiting to release it piecemeal, what would be the point? If you buy the complete season when the last episode is out then you'll be getting the whole thing as soon as it's ready for release.
Yes, if you want to play the full story in one sitting from a disc you take out of a cover and put into your drive like the old days there is a simple solution -- wait until the season is over. If you have paid your $34.95, at the end of five months you will have, waiting for you, a complete Monkey Island game sitting waiting to be played. Once the disc ships to you will even have that!
All you need to do to achieve that goal is resist the temptation to do what you hate so much, and keep yourself from playing the chapters early as they're released for download. Just wait five months (the amount of time you'd be waiting anyway if this wasn't being released episodically) and it'll be there waiting for you. That's it
When we came up with the model for how a Telltale season worked, one of our goals was to still make it "friendly" for people who weren't as into episodes but still wanted to play our content. For people who want to play them as they come out, they can! For people who want to play them all at once but dont care about a disc, they can too! (They just have to wait the amount of time they would have had to wait anyway if we weren't releasing the chapters as they came out, but were waiting until we'd developed a full game.) For people who really want it old school, we offer the game in a case on a disc at the end for nothing more than the price you would have to pay to have the DVD shipped to you from any online store. And for those who preordered the cover would be a callback to Steve Purcell's classic Monkey Island 1 and 2 boxes.
We're trying our best to make it possible for people with many different expectations to enjoy the games! Hopefully you can be one of those people
how about making it freindly towards people who are undecided if you are awsome or not? I am actually saying something to you that would get most publishers out of their chair. Sir, I would very much like to purchase the 2 first episodes as a try out.
I cannot figure out why you would make it episodic, but charge up front like a full game. Isnt part of the beauty of episodes that you give people the freindly choice of opting out in the middle if they so please? without having paid up front for the whole? You have made a very good game, I'm just sayin'
edit: Come to think of it, if the episodes was 8$ 10$ each, those who did not trust you will pay for their distrust, having to buy every episode individually, given they liked the first 2.
One of the reasons I love episodic gaming is *this*... right here, the community!
When a game gets released episodically it can have cliffhangers (just like a tv show). So we all get together for about a week after release and discuss what we just saw, theories, findings, etc. (It also makes you want to REPLAY the games and make sure you did not miss anything.)... If we got a full game, there would be no cliffhangers (it would be resolved 2 seconds later after the cut-scene), the discussion would be a lot less fervent/stimulating, and the replay value would be very low.
The whole discussion would just be... "meh, good game... see you all next year."
Now its, "what did that mean?" "who was that?" "is this really going to happen?"
See what I mean, the games actually become MORE engaging with the breaks in the gameplay.
Anyone who cannot see that is quite blind... and childish, yes. ("i wants mah game nao!!!!!!11111")
how about making it freindly towards people who are undecided if you are awsome or not? I am actually saying something to you that would get most publishers out of their chair. Sir, I would very much like to purchase the 2 first episodes as a try out.
I cannot figure out why you would make it episodic, but charge up front like a full game. Isnt part of the beauty of episodes that you give people the freindly choice of opting out in the middle if they so please? without having paid up front for the whole? You have made a very good game, I'm just sayin'
edit: Come to think of it, if the episodes was 8$ 10$ each, those who did not trust you will pay for their distrust, having to buy every episode individually, given they liked the first 2.
With Wallace & Gromit we turned on individual episode purchases sometime between the first two episodes (or right when episode 2 came out). I don't know our exact plans but I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens.
We also have often allowed customers to upgrade from a single episode to the full season for the difference in price -- $26. That also wouldn't surprise me!
The reason we haven't been having single episodes, full seasons, and upgrades available at launch for W&G and Tales of MI is because, especially for new faces not familiar with episodic gaming, it proved time and again to be amazingly confusing! People come expecting a "new Sam & Max game" or a "new Monkey Island" and then instead of seeing something which says "click here to buy your new Monkey Island!!!" they see "click here to buy chapter one." "already bought the game? click here to upgrade!" "get your full season pass here -- get all five episodes together for less!" and ... well, people were confused.
We used that model for three game series -- Sam & Max season one, Sam & Max season two, and Strong Bad -- and collected lots of data and ran surveys and talked to customers and figured out that, yes indeed, people preferred simplicity from the outset. So that's what we now offer, and expand it out as things clear up and become more comfortable.
I for one am a sucker for episodic gaming. While playing games, I usually get bored pretty quickly, unless the game has a really engaging feel to it, which most games start to loose over time due to how redundant they might get. This is especially true for modern point & clicks (this and the fact that they're not always very good anyway).
And even when the game is really good, I can't help but feel a bit sad and disappointed once I've beaten it, because I know it's gonna be a while (usually years or maybe never) until I get to see again those characters I loved. Of course, I could always play it again sometimes later, but it's really not the same, unless you wait long enough until you've forgotten most of it.
So episodic gaming pretty much answers all these issues, while providing a great bang for your buck and a cheer amount of fun and novelty for every episode. Sure you don't get to experience huge storylines as opposed to a full retail game (although ToMI is different in this case), but instead you get strong small adventures along with character development, an evolving world, allusions to previous episodes, etc... There's a lot of positive stuff going on that wouldn't happen in a full classic game.
All in all, I find episodic gaming to be damn engaging and perfectly fit for adventure games.
Comments
Being episodic means the developers can make money from the previous parts and keep working on new content inbetween. So being episodic works remarkably well, especially for a niché genre - let's face it, the general gaming populatation doesn't have much interest in adventure games and the majority of them don't even know what Monkey Island is. So if this had been released on the PS3, for example as a full price game, it would have sold badly, been around 6 hours long and we'd never see a sequel.
Again, if you don't want to play the episodes individually, just wait and play them all at once.
So then we get the pleasure of waiting even longer? Goody.
one moth between each episode is not 10-20 seconds, i know to which post you reply, but for me having to wait a month after each episode is awfull, episode one was great i want more and i want it know, i payed for all 5 episodes and i want the full game now
and i dont understand why you dont understand that somebody wants to play the game from start until the end without having to wait 4 months until he can do so!
monkey island is a niche? lol
Great, want that as much as you like, but since the game isn't finished yet it doesn't matter much how Telltale choose to release it. The game was only announced a month ago, they aren't sitting on a complete version waiting to release it piecemeal, what would be the point? If you buy the complete season when the last episode is out then you'll be getting the whole thing as soon as it's ready for release.
All you need to do to achieve that goal is resist the temptation to do what you hate so much, and keep yourself from playing the chapters early as they're released for download. Just wait five months (the amount of time you'd be waiting anyway if this wasn't being released episodically) and it'll be there waiting for you. That's it
When we came up with the model for how a Telltale season worked, one of our goals was to still make it "friendly" for people who weren't as into episodes but still wanted to play our content. For people who want to play them as they come out, they can! For people who want to play them all at once but dont care about a disc, they can too! (They just have to wait the amount of time they would have had to wait anyway if we weren't releasing the chapters as they came out, but were waiting until we'd developed a full game.) For people who really want it old school, we offer the game in a case on a disc at the end for nothing more than the price you would have to pay to have the DVD shipped to you from any online store. And for those who preordered the cover would be a callback to Steve Purcell's classic Monkey Island 1 and 2 boxes.
We're trying our best to make it possible for people with many different expectations to enjoy the games! Hopefully you can be one of those people
I cannot figure out why you would make it episodic, but charge up front like a full game. Isnt part of the beauty of episodes that you give people the freindly choice of opting out in the middle if they so please? without having paid up front for the whole? You have made a very good game, I'm just sayin'
edit: Come to think of it, if the episodes was 8$ 10$ each, those who did not trust you will pay for their distrust, having to buy every episode individually, given they liked the first 2.
When a game gets released episodically it can have cliffhangers (just like a tv show). So we all get together for about a week after release and discuss what we just saw, theories, findings, etc. (It also makes you want to REPLAY the games and make sure you did not miss anything.)... If we got a full game, there would be no cliffhangers (it would be resolved 2 seconds later after the cut-scene), the discussion would be a lot less fervent/stimulating, and the replay value would be very low.
The whole discussion would just be... "meh, good game... see you all next year."
Now its, "what did that mean?" "who was that?" "is this really going to happen?"
See what I mean, the games actually become MORE engaging with the breaks in the gameplay.
Anyone who cannot see that is quite blind... and childish, yes. ("i wants mah game nao!!!!!!11111")
With Wallace & Gromit we turned on individual episode purchases sometime between the first two episodes (or right when episode 2 came out). I don't know our exact plans but I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens.
We also have often allowed customers to upgrade from a single episode to the full season for the difference in price -- $26. That also wouldn't surprise me!
The reason we haven't been having single episodes, full seasons, and upgrades available at launch for W&G and Tales of MI is because, especially for new faces not familiar with episodic gaming, it proved time and again to be amazingly confusing! People come expecting a "new Sam & Max game" or a "new Monkey Island" and then instead of seeing something which says "click here to buy your new Monkey Island!!!" they see "click here to buy chapter one." "already bought the game? click here to upgrade!" "get your full season pass here -- get all five episodes together for less!" and ... well, people were confused.
We used that model for three game series -- Sam & Max season one, Sam & Max season two, and Strong Bad -- and collected lots of data and ran surveys and talked to customers and figured out that, yes indeed, people preferred simplicity from the outset. So that's what we now offer, and expand it out as things clear up and become more comfortable.
And even when the game is really good, I can't help but feel a bit sad and disappointed once I've beaten it, because I know it's gonna be a while (usually years or maybe never) until I get to see again those characters I loved. Of course, I could always play it again sometimes later, but it's really not the same, unless you wait long enough until you've forgotten most of it.
So episodic gaming pretty much answers all these issues, while providing a great bang for your buck and a cheer amount of fun and novelty for every episode. Sure you don't get to experience huge storylines as opposed to a full retail game (although ToMI is different in this case), but instead you get strong small adventures along with character development, an evolving world, allusions to previous episodes, etc... There's a lot of positive stuff going on that wouldn't happen in a full classic game.
All in all, I find episodic gaming to be damn engaging and perfectly fit for adventure games.