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The Impact of Episodic Gaming

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the drawing-it-out dept.

GameDailyBiz has a piece up looking at what episodic content is, and what it means to the future of the games industry. From the article: "Our age is one of aging. Mainstream gamers are now older on average than they have ever been. When you are single and unemployed, it is easy to play The Godfather for nine straight hours the day the game hits the shelf. When you are married, it becomes tougher. When you have kids, it might be impossible. It is difficult to slice some time for yourself. And in that slice, you have to carve a portion for gaming. It is no wonder casual games that require no more than 10 minutes to play continue to grow in popularity. This is why we are more likely to login to Call of Duty 2 on Xbox Live to play a quick five-minute Team Deathmatch and leave the Lobby."

8 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Ugh by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Subscription-based video game consumption via digital distribution appears to be one of those paradigmatic shifts that could dramatically and permanently alter which side gets how much in the foreseeable future.

    I hate newspeak. I buy games in order to play them. This has worked fine up until now. I can buy a game for $50 and play it for 4 or 5 years. I'm happy with that.

    The main problem I see with this push toward "pay us via subscription" is that there's only room for a handful of successful games with the kind of monthly charge they're expecting. $1/month? Fine. $20/month? Homey don't play dat.

    --
    Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    1. Re:Ugh by Xugumad · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > I can buy a game for $50 and play it for 4 or 5 years.

      Yeah - I'm kinda puzzled by this idea of "Of course you'll want to complete the game you paid for, as quickly as possible."; if a game lasts me a month or two, it's a good thing! In particular, when I hear episodic gaming, I think Half-Life 2, and I think SiN. I don't know how SiN will turn out, but the idea of buying something shorter than Half-Life 2 is absurd - I completed the game in 3 days, and would neither consider myself particularly skilled at games, or as having significant amounts of free time to devote to games!

      What I really want out of games is more things like Marble Blast Ultra (off XBox Live marketplace), that I can pick up, play a level of (or fail repeatedly a level of), and then put down. Or Burnout, where I can do a couple of races when I have time.

      What I'm really looking for is the ability to feel I've done something, in 30 minutes or less, and in 10 minutes or less for some games (which are ideal if I have dead-time between things I have to do). This doesn't mean making the game short, it means ensuring that save points are frequent, and levels are not too long. Games with parts that take more than 30 minutes are fine, as along as they're exceptional (so, maybe a major mission), and it's made obvious they'll involve a reasonable time committment, so I'm not going to make a start then have to put them down half way through.

  2. Marriage Vs. Single by darthservo · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Ever since I got married, I don't have time to play games as much anymore. At least that's what I've been told.

    But, in all seriousness, it is true. My life no longer focuses on, "What should I do tonight?", it became, "What should we do tonight?" Otherwise, if I was to tell my wife that I was going to sit down for a few hours and game, my marriage would not be as happy as it is. I enjoy spending time with my wife much more than gaming.

    In fact, my wife isn't opposed to games. She grew up with the same games I did - old school DOS Games like Commander Keen or Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. Or, we'll play FloboPuyo or Jump N Bump together. Sometimes we'll fire up DOS-Box and one of us will play those games for a while. Or, we'll even fire up the NES and play Mario for a while. My wife plays my old Gameboy Advanced more than I ever did, and sometimes we'll link them up and play against each other. However, we play more board/card games together than electronic games.

    But, I don't feel that I'm missing much, especially with newer games. Mediocre titles and long gameplay are factors that turn me away. If anything requires that I have to spend over an hour focusing on, forget it.

    --

    Prove it.

  3. Section Length Can Stop You, Too by turbopunk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have to agree with the idea on casual games. I am surprised, however, that it hasn't been carried through to other game formats. I'm in the middle of about 3 or 4 games right now that I would love to finish. all three require you to go to a savepoint. The problem is that, as the game progresses, the savepoints get further and further apart. Therefore, I get 20 hours into a 30 hour game, but I can't finish it because I don't have a block of 4 hours to set aside to get to the next checkpoint.

    The problem isn't going to be fixed with edispodic content. As long as the game makers keep placing checkpoints farther and farther away to increase difficulty, then the problem will always persist.

  4. Quake 3 Arena by Sunlighter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You know, in Quake 3 Arena, you can hit Single Player, Skirmish, pick a map, hit Next, pick your opponents, and set a Time Limit and no Frag Limit. Like say for 15 minutes. And that's when the game ends.

    I've been doing that for years.

    --
    Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
  5. The impact summed up in one word... by aztektum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Minimal.

    Especially at the 20 bucks a pop method that I keep hearing rumored Valve will use. Particularly when it will just amount to a few linear shooter levels.

    Meanwhile I continue to play Gal Civ II over and over with all the different outcomes for 29.99. Or even Civ IV for 50 bucks is a better investment.

    --
    :: aztek ::
    No sig for you!!
  6. Re:Same here. - no free time lost by SpecialAgentXXX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm your age and single. I have just as much free time as when I graduated college and started working. In fact, I have even more free time since I'm not sucking up at the office and putting in O.T. to get on the boss's good side. I'm in cruise mode at the office.

    The reason you, a single guy with no g/f, have less free time is because you are unorganized. Here, do this. Put 15-minute blocks for the whole day in MS Excel (96 total). Now fill in what you have to do in those blocks. i.e. 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, 1 hour of commuting, etc. The blocks that you have not filled in are your free-time blocks. It may surprise you how much time you have. Maybe you waste time surfing /.? I know I do. ;-)

  7. Adventure games? by Aramgutang · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe this is part of the reason why adventure games have nearly died out (not the only reason, obviously). It's one of the few genres where continuous playing for a long time is crucial to an enjoyable experience.

    With, say, an FPS, as long as you stop playing when you finish an area/level, it's easy to pick up again on the next day. With an adventure game, it can be pretty crucial to have a lot of things fresh in your memory, like "I've definitely tried using my rabbit's foot with that checkout counter" or "I think the blind hermit mentioned something about frogs and WD-40 being an explosive combination".

    Otherwise, trying things over and over again in separate gaming session gets really old really fast. So older folk don't have the time to enjoy playing them, while the kids, dumbed down by TV and MySpace, don't have the attention span.