Episodic Gaming
Episodic Gaming:
A Convoluted Series of Thoughts and Ideas as They Come Up in My Head
Also: A Love Letter to Telltale
By
Rather Dashing
A Convoluted Series of Thoughts and Ideas as They Come Up in My Head
Also: A Love Letter to Telltale
By
Rather Dashing
Episodic gaming is definitely new. As an idea, and in practice. There are several ideas of what episodic gaming truly is, and I increasingly find myself looking at Telltale to find my definition of episodic.
First and most importantly(I think), episodic games are released relatively close together. "Relatively close" obviously has a lot of difference between the different episodic projects. As a few examples, we have the Half Life episodes that release more than a year apart, Penny Arcade Adventures that release presumably 3-4 months apart, and Telltale with their monthly releases.
In my opinion:
-Valve simply can't call their game episodic. You release your games a year apart, no matter the price, they're sequels.
-Hothead has good sentiments behind their release schedule. They are focusing on player feedback, which I can definitely respect. It's hard to say how well this will do for future episodes, since we only have the first one. I can see the logic behind it, and I'm pretty sure I'll buy episode 2. But it is still hard for me to see this as an episodic series, and this is why:
-Telltale.
Okay, I seriously have no idea how this tiny upstart studio got it right. I have no idea how they continue to get it right, a few bugs and missing eyes aside. It must be difficult, because big studios with literally millions of dollars at their disposal continue to get it wrong.
The monthly releases are pretty much just right for following something, for keeping interest momentum up. I could see smaller games with less resources releasing closer together(weekly tiny games?) working on a subscription level, and I can see episodic games working up to 2 months apart(though maybe I'm impatient in this regard!). But wait too long, and a consumer's memory and momentum of interest will fade.
The Season Pass and the Upgrade options are quite possibly the greatest successes of the Telltale formula. To plop down a single price knowing that a new game will be on your account page hassle-free on release day makes the whole process make sense. While it becomes difficult sometimes to justify the price of each episode as it comes out, the season pass option(with an upgrade for the curious or cautious customer), makes so much sense from the consumer's side of the equation. It's like following your favorite TV show after payment. The only difference is, you aren't also paying for hundreds of other shows that you'd never even dream of watching, or even know you have!
The physical media at the end of the season, the "Bonus" or "Collector's" DVD, would not really be necessary for my purchase. But it does make the decision, for me, extremely easy. I love getting that disc at the end of the season and popping it in for the hours of extras. It feels good to be a Telltale customer.
What is the future of episodic gaming?
Whenever we see an article on episodic gaming, Telltale is referenced as "The success story". I really hope that this means other companies wanting to get into the episodic model take a few notes from Telltale's execution. I rarely feel like I can justify paying $60 for a new game(last time I did this? Elder Scrolls IV). The cheaper overall, and subscription-based game model pioneered by Telltale is something I'd LOVE to see in the future. It simply fits with me and my manner of spending, in ways that the big AAA $60 game model doesn't. I mean, there are other things about most mainstream big games that don't quite "click" with me, but the price of admission for the amount of time spent with it. Getting a new game every month feels more satisfying than beating a game in a week or two, whether or not "total hours" is the same. It's like the suspense of a TV cliffhanger, its resolution is far more potent when you've had to wait a week to see it rather than when you've blasted through the series in a season box set.
...I think I just summarized why episodic gaming works for me. I didn't mean to go there at the start. Ah well. I'm typing as I think.
....
You know what?
I'm done.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
There's nothing particularly special about this. They're just making an episodic game.
What do you mean by 'TV styled?'
And each episode is 30 minutes long.
However, I do think that Grimm is definitely an interesting step in the right direction. I've been having fun with the series, even with the...er, nonexistent difficulty. Though I think their philosophy was to make true difficulty come from doing speed runs, while also making the game fun and quick to run through. And it does work, I have fun playing it.
And the price of $4 an episode would definitely be reasonable if I didn't have Gametap already. The $28 season price is definitely reasonable for what is offered, and I think this is a model I can support. Especially with the free first episode.
I wish it was advertised that the episodes can be bought on their own, and I wish there was a "Season Pass" option other than subscribing to Gametap. But I definitely like the way Grimm is going.
Yeah, I've never understood the big deal about the comic. /:
I would say that's a strong point. Though really, the game isn't about Penny Arcade. It has characters from the comic, but is an entirely different story.
...about episodic gaming: it's a shame they canceled sin episodes. even though it was quite expensive for the amount of content it offered, i somehow liked it....and i hate having an incomplete collection.
It's like Nirvana- sure, grunge existed well before they did, but they made it popular.
I would have to say most definitely not.
Just cos their successful don't mean they have the wright to act like gods. I really REALLY don't like that comic.
...I don't see how they "act like gods". O-o
They're a couple guys that have found a way to make a living doing what they love. Otherwise, they're odd-looking nerds that like to play games.
Now, you can dislike their comic, but I don't see why you should feel righteous indignation towards other people enjoying their work. And really, they haven't harmed anybody.
Inform me when they start demanding blood sacrifices from their readers.
Yoshi, I really don't think you're going to be able to convince many here of your viewpoint; could we please stick to the topic at hand, rather than derailing into discussions of the goodness of Child's Play or quality of web comics?
I think that this can be described as an application of the argument to perfection in a sense, but let's break down the reasoning to see if we can't find a more concrete description.
1. Child's Play gives toys to children.
2. Toys are made by poor Chinese children.
3. Poor Chinese children making things is bad.
4. Therefore, Child's Play is bad.
I think we could construct an argument against this in terms of the 'appeal to perfection' fallacy; we shouldn't do it because it doesn't help the children making the toys. This doesn't seem quite right to me, and I think we can find a better one.
A quick trip to Wikipedia finds us this little gem: the perfect solution fallacy.
If we're discussing in terms of this fallacy, which is highly related to the one mentioned above yet closer to the true error in your reasoning, we can structure this argument like this:
Argument: Child's Play does not help all children and therefore should not be done.
Rebuttal: It may not help certain children, but it does help some children, and that's better than helping no children.
In a more general sense, this argument also stems from the appeal to emotion ("MADE by a sick kid- IN CHINA").
To put a conclusion to this overly long ramble on why some guy on the internet is wrong, the simple fact of the matter is that giving toys to poor children has nothing to does not hurt the poor children making the toys more than not giving toys to poor children. I even have my doubts of the veracity of the claim, but I haven't done my research into the matter either and will not attempt to make a factual claim on this. Your argument seems to be that we should concern ourselves with the other children, and while there may be some truth to this it's an entirely different matter altogether and has nothing to do with toy drives.
(And let's let this be the end of this, okay? I really don't want to derail this any further, but I couldn't resist.)