Episodic Content: The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown

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It’s always interesting to see when a developer decides to go the episodic route. For those who don’t know the episodic approach is releasing a game in segments, just think chapters in a book. The developer will release one episode/chapter of a game at a time and hopefully over time they will be able to give you the whole story. When the developer decides to go this route they have a couple of options when it comes to pricing. 

  • Each chapter has a cost associated with it

    1. The gamer can jump out whenever they want and they only pay or the parts of the game they have played

  • The full price is charged to the gamer

    1. The developer is promising that the gamer will have the complete game

  • Some of the game is given for free and then requires purchase for later chapters

    1. The developer wants to bring gamers in by giving them a ‘demo’ taste

      1. The developer should understand that the chapters gamers will pay for will require an upgrade from the first

        1. Graphical look

        2. More in-depth gameplay

        3. LONGER GAMEPLAY

I’ve played my fair share of episodic adventures and honestly there isn’t that golden way to do it that will make you a success. Each of the above methods can possibly work, but there is always the unknown that can doom a developer, a game, or user retention. In this wonderful crazy ass world there are sometimes forces out of everyone’s control which will cause a developer to be here one day and completely disappear the next day. The hope is that the developer didn’t just take the money and run, but the more likely scenario is that they didn’t budget correctly for the project and they ran out of money. When they run out of money two things can happen.

  • The project is dead, deceased, has moved on to the great beyond

    1. This is the scenario that kills me as a person who supports independent creators. The scary thing is that this isn’t exclusively an indie issue, there are large companies that can fall prey to this as well.

  • The project isn’t dead, but no one truly knows when the next chapter will arrive

    1. When indie developers run out of money they might be able to do freelance work to help pay their bills, and in their free time keep working on the game. 

    2. Little progress is better than no progress but the developers level of determination has to be EXTREMELY strong to gut through the hard times.

  • The project isn’t dead, you think, you don’t know, I mean it may tomorrow, right?

    1. This of course is the worst situation for the gamer. The developer promises progress and then there’s radio silence, and maybe they pop up months later with something cryptic and then disappear again. You are left wondering if the developer will work on the project ever again, but only they know.

 

As a gamer I’m not strictly set on any pricing model. There are many games that I have played that have fallen under each of these categories. I will also tell you that I’ve seen success and failures in each of those approaches as well. As the consumer there isn’t a fool proof method of always getting the best games and avoiding those games that are going to suck. I do have some advice for the consumers to hopefully help weed out some of the crap games.

  • Check to see if the developer has been able to release a full project before

    1. There are plenty of developers out there that are amazing right out of the gate, so if they haven’t released anything previous that doesn’t mean you should avoid them like the plague, it just means you need to be a little more cautious.

  • If the developer tells you up front that this game is episodic see if they have a set number of chapters that they will be looking to release

    1. Once again this isn’t a must, but it does REALLY help the gamer to truly build their expectation of what the size of the game will ultimately be, and will also allow those late to the party to understand how close to the full experience they are when they, hopefully, purchase all the previous chapters.

  • See if the developer has a release schedule for at least the next TWO or THREE chapters.

    1. As a gamer/consumer this gives you some confidence that the developer has planned things out and that, hopefully, you get those other chapters (at least).

    2. Now as the gamer, we do need to understand that things happen, and so those release dates can change, but hopefully the developer gives you their best, and it's not rushed, and that they update their outlook on the next couple of chapters.

  • If the developer claims the game is episodic but doesn’t give you a set number

    1. I hate to say this, but temper your expectations. You could be blown away with the results, or you can be deeply depressed over the fact that the game just stops on a cliffhanger.

 

I hope all this makes sense, or helps not only developers but gamers/consumers. I LOVE games, I love experiencing new stories, art styles, approaches, and mechanics. I wish that all projects could succeed where a developer pours their heart and soul into it, but the sad reality is there is that chance that the potential is never reached, or it all just falls apart.

**** UPDATE ****

After publishing this and having others read over it we have all come to the conclusion that naming specific examples would be beneficial to pair up with the approaches that I've mentioned. So that's just what I'll do.

A good/recent example of knowing how many episodes you're going to have (3), what your release schedule is going to be for ALL episodes (Aug 27, Sept 7, and Sept 10) and a one all up front price ($29.99) is the game Tell Me Why.

There are also those games that had a set number of episodes announced (3), and they were going to charge per episode ($4.99), unless you were a supporter of their KickStarter campaign ($15 for all 3, up front), that after the first episode fell apart and that would be The Long Night.

The game Reversion is a game that set out to have 3 chapters, at one time the first chapter was free but now its set to $0.99, the second chapter is set at ($5), and the final chapter is set at ($10). The difference in length of game play between the first and second chapter was about 5 minutes (that means you're basically getting 39 less minutes per dollar spent). The release schedule was sporadic March 2012, March 2013, and Feb 2020.

There's of course many many more examples of episodic games, and I think it's clear to say that there isn't a magical formula, that sure fire approach for success, but hopefully this gives you some pointers if you're a developer, and if your a consumer hopefully a better grasp on how far the pendulum can swing when it comes to episodic games.

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