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Valve Reevaluates Episodic Gaming
Dr. Eggman writes "CVG has a recent article on Valve's future plans for episodic gaming. After the third episode of Half-Life 2 is out, Valve plans to sit down with the community and figure out what is working and what's not. Gabe Newell also wants to spend time with Telltale Games and Blizzard, both developers of episodic and episodic-like game content. It it worth it to try to release content on an episodic basis? 'We just want to sit down with three examples in front of us and talk it over with gamers to find out what they would like us to do next.'"
... isn't that we aren't getting a full game, or that they're spreading out the story over 3 or 4 games. No, the problem is when they say they'll release them between 9 and 12 months apart, and they don't release the second episode for 2 years.
I'm a fan of the quick, 8 hour episodes, released yearly. I'm not a fan of having to wait 2 years for that type of content when many games put out full blown sequels. Honestly, either work on upgrading the engine, or work on the episodic content, not both at the same time. Besides, why should what is essentially an overgrown expansion pack run on a different engine than the original? Bang out the new content while you have another team working on upgrading the engine, then you could go back and make the old content run on the new engine, or not, as you please.
All I can say that the Orange Box promotion is a slap in the face for those of us that already have Half-Life 2 and Episode 1.
I see no sign of a Episode 2+Portal+Team Fortress (ie no HL2+E1) promotion (and pre-order discount), and who wants to pay for the same content twice?
I maybe wrong, but if so, then Steam has done a poor job of advertising any alternative promotions. Especially considering it already knows what games I own.
As long as there's a full no-Steam way to get/use it, frequently updated (or just less than the TF to sequel) content is fine.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I wouldn't call that relationship sultry by any means. The stockholders seem to think it was nothing more than a torrid affair.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In my opinion, fewer original games are coming out. Episodic content for great games is fine. Half-Life is an example of this. However, I think thats an exception in an ongoing trend in video games. I think fewer and fewer games are coming out that are even worthwhile purchasing as opposed to renting. There just aren't that many games that are coming out that are newsworthy. Bio-shock and Halo 3 are some examples of games worth buying. PS3 hasn't had any yet in my opinion (and if they don't real soon, they might as well go the way of sega). Even Wii doesn't have that many (It's doing so well just because of the gameplay, but when it comes down to it, it just has a bunch of games that are fun, but not that many that are as engrossing as Bio-shock or to name a classic, Final Fantasy VII.)
It just seems like gaming has gone the same route as movies. Yea, some sequels are decent, but a majority of the ones that come out are never as great as the original. Then on top of that, there are fewer and fewer movies being made that are worth seeing more than once. yea, they're entertaining the first time, but no replay value.
Unfortunately, I think we've hit a downward slope in terms of games as an art.
I think they need to get to more original content. yea, some people might be upset because some of these continuing stories are really great, but I can't see anyone ever keeping that up. Eventually they'll start making bad ones because only so much can happen in a storyline that is exciting. Writers eventually run out of ideas. Then the franchise is ruined and everybody will complain. Its better leaving on a high note, then dragging it out until no one wants it.
Hopefully I got my point across. Kind of tired and I may have rambled a bit. =P
Did you think that the reason you're not seeing much is that the christmas season isn't here?
Six month release cycle. Three hours of content. $10 / episode. Stand-alone (no package deals).
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The game always crashes minutes after starting with some sort of DirectX flaw. It happened once in a while during HL2, and I read that there was interference from Thunderbird so I made sure not to run it during (or before using) the game.
However, Episode One's errors are caused so often that I can't even go a few hundred meters before it crashes again. And despite finding the newest version of DirectX and looking for game updates, I can't find a fix.
I don't mind if the game is shorter, just make it PLAYABLE! I refuse to purchase more games if they won't work (for obvious reasons) so for that reason I'd prefer a longer development cycle for longer games.
I much prefer the way Telltale did their episodic series to Valve's. If I recall, the second Sam and Max episode came out a little late, but all the rest were either on time or early. A month between episodes was the perfect length - my excitement from the last episode hadn't cooled by the time the next one came out. Having the option to buy all episodes in advance for a greatly reduced price was a much better idea than Orange box, which would have been a great deal 3 years ago. Telltale even made a gorgeous retail DVD box available to season subscribers for merely the cost of shipping, and it was packed with tons of content not included in the digital downloads. Very timely, classy, and professional.
I love Half Life and I really love Episode One. I hate how long it was in development and would rather have played it a year sooner with no HDR. The again, Valve's releases are near-immaculate and the developer commentary hints at how much painstaking care they put into their games, so I've learned not to wish too hard that they rush their releases. Still, it's been YEARS since the last episode and if for some reason Episode Two never came out I'd hardly miss it at this point.
1st problem: Developer and/or Publisher fail to commit to the series over the long haul, for example Ritual entertainment was sold off before a second episode of SIN could be made, its a shame to because the first episode was pretty good in my opinion. I basically feel ripped off that I paid for SIN: Emergence, and will never get to complete the full game. 2nd problem: Episodic games are not being delivered in a timely manner. If I am going to pay a premium for continous episodes... I want one every 6 months or less. If the developers can't release an episode every 6 months or less, just make a regular non-episodic game.
I reinstalled Half-Life 2 the other day and fired up Steam, and I'm finding that I really like the way it's set up, some small issues notwithstanding. I bought Episode One, and played through it while waiting for Bioshock, and I have to say I like the idea of episodic releases. The only problem is the cost. Half-Life 2 was about $60. Episode One ended up being around $20 or so. I would gladly pay $20 per 8-hour episode if the entry cost wasn't so high.
So here's an idea. Rather than sell a game like HL2 as-is at $60, for example, sell the engine with "Chapter 1", or whatever initial bit of the game plot for around $30 or so. Then, release subsequent episodes for $15, $20; for that matter, release different games using the same engine at the same pricing scheme. In other words, you buy the Unreal engine, for instance, with maybe a sampling of games, and then you buy the particular games that run on that engine separately. In the end, you're spending about as much as you would now, but there's modularity, and the business model is a little friendlier. If you buy Unreal and decide you don't like it, you're out $25 as opposed to $60. And let's say you don't like the game but the engine's nice, and a different game comes out using the same engine. All you spend is the $20-$30 for the new game which runs off the already-installed engine, rather than $60 for the whole thing.
It just occurs to me that it seems a little strange as a consumer to pay $60 for one game, and then pay $60 for another game that is using the exact same technology and is essentially a modification of existing software. By separating the two elements you can turn the somewhat daunting prospect of paying $60 for a game you might or might not like in to the much easier to swallow prospect of paying half of that for the guts of the game with the option to purchase the actual "game" parts that you want later. Consoles essentially work that way now, why not computer games?
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As if people actually know what they want, and are just waiting for someone to ask. If that were true it wouldn't be a secret, and those games would already be in development.
That's why it's art. You make what you think is good, and then people either like it or they don't. No great work was ever created by asking people what you should do.
Now don't get me wrong. Valve is great, HL and HL2 are my all-time favorite games, and I don't even mind the "orange box" package. That said, given the long wait for ep1 and ep2 (shorter, I admit, than the wait for hl2), and the bundling with ep2, I think it's a stretch for Valve to claim they have much experience with episodic releases. Maybe the discussion should be more centered around whether Value can even do episodic releases.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
I love episodic gaming, and am very much looking forward to Bioware's release of Witch's Wake episode 2.
It's perhaps instructive to think about some of the things that happened in the world since episode 1 was released in Dec. 2004:
- W. Mark Felt was confirmed to be Watergate's "Deep Throat"
- Michael Jackson was found not guilty of child molestation charges
- Lance Armstrong retired after winning his seventh Tour de France
- The Xbox 360, PS 3 and Wii were released
And for those Bioware boys in Edmonton:But there's nothing like a bit of a wait to build anticipation.
I think the problems Valve is having with episodic gaming are fairly obvious.
First, build a robust graphics engine and don't touch it at all over the course of the series. I don't really understand why people at Valve felt the need to start tinkering with the graphics engine for each episode. In essence what they've done is build a new game each time.
Secondly, I think they should be working off templates. From what I've seen it looks like the Half-Life episodes feature distinct environments from the original. That's all well and good, but it's going to increase production time dramatically. At the very least I'd say important assets should be produced during initial development so that it's ready to go once it's time to be featured.
Third, I think the series should be thoroughly planned well in advance. This means building out the story far in advance and possibly beginning work on some of that content from the start.
If they were developing standalone sequels this all would be irrelevant. However, if they claim to be producing episodic content they need to be prepared to release that content on a regular basis. Episodes should be released every 3 to 4 months, at the longest. Certainly not once a year.
I think they should look to MMOs as a guide on how to offer new content on a regular basis. One of the better examples I can think of this is City of Heroes. In the early days they were releasing two, sometimes three expansions per year. They weren't always significant, and heavily relied on templates, but it meant new content on a regular basis. They broke everything up into manageable pieces. It also helped that they basically had a bible that provided more than enough foundation for anything they might want to add to the game. From what I've read things have grown significantly more complicated since then, but for a time it seemed to work well.
Valve has been too ambitious with each episode. If they wanted to put this much effort into the episodes they might as well have just packaged these into a single game and offered it as a sequel.
I remember this concept way back when I was growing up. I downloaded Doom and only got to play Episode one until I paid for the other two episodes. It was called shareware. Are we saying we now should pay for shareware? Seems like a lame model designed to nickel and dime. With hundreds of other games out there I'll skip half life for good now until they change their release model.
I don't want to hear a peep from gabe or anyone at valve until I see team fortress 2 released!!
In fact, it was originally announced that Episode 2 would "include" TF2 and Portal. Not that we would have to pay the equivalent of a full game for a "box" with a lot of stuff we already own.
Why release large games slowly when you can release smaller, bite-sized episodes slowly?