Half-Life 2 Gets Episode 1

Valve has announced that, instead of entitling their first downloadable mini-expansion to Half-Life 2 'Aftermath', the pack is now simply Episode 1. From the Gamespot article: "When asked whether the name change is indicative of a change in direction for the Half-Life 2 franchise, Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi replied, 'episodic.' When asked the follow-up question of whether the new name meant that beginning of a regular flow of content, Lombardi replied, 'yes.'"

Comments

Overpricing Ahead?

[bateleur]

So evidently they reckon SiN Episodes is going to be making big money.

They're probably right too. It's much easier to sell a game for $100 if you split it up into ten $10 "episodes". Combine this with the advantages of sidestepping traditional retail and I can definitely see the appeal.

One of the real losses is the bargain bin.

[(H)elix1]

If they ship this only via steam, there will be no bargain bin like you see in the retail channels. I've been burned a few too many times when they charge an extra $30 for five to seven missions as an add on - at this point, I just wait for the add on to hit the cheap deals. Poke around on Steam's web site. You would be silly to buy the backlog of the titles, plus HL2, for $80 when you can pick up the entire anthology for $20 or less, plus whatever price you can get the full cut of HL2 for $20-30 at the store. If they go download only, there is very little chance they will hit that level.

The other bit is games tend to be way to short these days. C&C: Generals really needed the add-on pack, as did Warcraft 3, as did many others to feel like a 'real' top tier game. You get what, 7 missions per nation/race/etc, with the several being unit trainers? HL was worth every penny. Opposing Forces was ok and added a lot of fun to multiplayer. Blue shift left me feeling robbed. I waited on HL2 until it hit the bargain bin, and if not for Counter Strike, would have felt shorted had I paid full retail. (lord knows I'm still bitter about Doom3) The point being, while they may be honest - this bit is a mere chapter or so in a longer story - I really resent the current trend to shorten games to generate a better revenue flow and try to price it for optimum wallet extraction. Maybe it works... Won't with me. I won't give them $10 for each three hours of game play.