Angry Gaming 07.31.06: And On the Next Episode
Posted by Damian Sarcuni on 07.31.2006
Game developers and Pepperidge Farm cookies have got us by the balls.
Welcome to Angry Gaming, home to shome of the mosht diabolical hatersh thish shide of the Misshisshippi. I'm your host Damian Sarcuni and for all their advanced special effects, Sierra still hasn't quite got the hang of making their games compatible with a computer using more than one monitor. Keep trying guys, you'll figure it out someday. Shall we continue?
And On the Next Episode
The Situation
Recently I did a review on this site for Half Life 2: Episode 1. I did my best to treat the game as a normal sequel to a long running series and based my review on pure content alone. The reality, however, is that Episode 1 is much more groundbreaking than that. That's because Half Life is just one of many ongoing game series that are now being released by Valve Software, a subsidiary of Sierra games, in "episodic" form. What that means is that the games within this series are much cheaper, smaller, and shorter in play time than a complete sequel would be. And while this new format for releasing a series might have some advantages, the overall prospects are actually pretty scary for all gamers who value good content…in both their games, and their wallets.
Steaming Mad
There are currently two game series being released in episodic form by Valve software. These are Half Life 2 and Sin. Both of these are available via Sierra's "Steam" service. For those of you who don't know, Steam is a program Sierra uses which allows users to download their games for the PC directly online upon purchase. No more CD keys, no more box art and instruction manuals, just wait for the game to download and then play away.
While Steam makes purchasing games cheaper, easier, and more convenient, it also grants Sierra complete and utter control over its own product. With Steam, Sierra has direct control over which files are made available to users, thus virtually eliminating the possibility of software piracy. Sierra can also monitor multiplayer gaming nearly all account traffic goes through Steam powered servers. This allows Sierra to watch out of things like in game cheats and hacks (though in the case of the ever popular Counter-Strike, they do this quite poorly) and even get an instant look at which games are being played the most.
Personally, I'm scared half to death.
It isn't hard to see where this is going. Since Sierra now controls all accessibility to its own games, they now also control where the end content winds up. Gone are the days of loaning your friend a PC CD when you are finished with it; now you will have to relinquish your username and password before anyone can even get near the content you've purchased. Since Steam has such exclusivity over its games, players will now have to choose whether or not to purchase a new episode to any game series based on the previous episode ALONE. To put it in perspective, imagine a world where every single new episode of the hit HBO show The Sopranos was available only on Pay-Per-View. Sure, there would be riots in the streets, but how many fans would swallow their pride and push the purchase button on their remote each week just for the sake of seeing who gets whacked next? It's a one sided, expensive future, and it's exactly the road Steam is leading us down.
The Good Side
There are a few distinct advantages for gamers in playing episodic games. Developers, for example, have a slightly more relaxed deadline and less content on their plate to handle all at once. This means that designers can focus on making every moment throughout the game count. There is more time to polish up the graphics, run bug tests in depth, and play test the game from end to end. That results in much better, more stable content for the gamer.
Episodic games are cheaper than normal games, running about $20 as compared to a more complete game's $50 or $60. In the case of PC games, there is far less content to load onto your hard drive, so installation is fast and easy while game play is smoother and easier to handle.
Shorter games also mean more action, as events become compressed together for a much faster pace. Instead of long, drawn out periods of exploration, even games like first person shooters or RPG's will now have a feel closer to that of a fighting game, where the idea is to get into the game just as fast as you get out. Also, episodic games allow for instant feedback. Instead of having to put up with an unwanted or poorly designed aspect to a game, vocal players can now look forward to having said feature promptly improved or removed for the next episode.
The Hype Machine
While there are some advantages for gamers in all of this, the disadvantages are far greater. For starters, since developers have more control over the release and distribution of episodic games, game content will inevitably start to decline. Sure, there is more leeway for designers to improve their content, but as episodic games become more exclusive there will be less pressure on developers to improve their product at all. Valve can now be as obscure as they like with the Half Life 2 story and tease an ending for an infinite number of episodes. They never have to reveal a single thing as long as gamers keep paying.
And pay gamers shall, if they want to make sure they experience the complete episodic story. You can't purchase the last episode of a game and understand it anymore than you could watch the last ten minutes of a movie to understand the entire thing. The worst part is that the complete experience will eat away at your wallet like a dozen half baked stoners in a local McDonalds. Oh sure, episodic games only cost $20 a piece, but unless developers decide to release no more than 3 episodes to complete the entire story then episodic games have a total cost that far exceeds a normal, complete game. With Valve's reputation for obscure explanations and unexplained events, I don't see any of their series coming to a close any time soon.
Speaking of Valve, one of their greatest assets in selling their games has always been a large period of hype before a game's actual release. While episodic games can be cranked out far faster than full length games, you can expect many a pushed back release date as developers build off the open endings of previous episodes to build hype. From a storyline perspective, game developers now are more interested in stretching their games out for as long as possible than actually completing or even improving them. Designers don't even need a completely thought out story to release another episode (something I've long suspected Valve guilty of), they just need to come up with one or two plot twists and developing angles. Anyone who's ever watched pro-wrestling for a length of time can tell you this could easily go on forever, and anyone who has watched pro-wrestling lately will surely warn you to expect a long way down in terms of product satisfaction.
Making a long article short, episodic games are a great way for developers to sucker gamers for large amounts of cash by putting out small doses of open ended products. At the rate technology is growing, it won't be long before developers are capable of releasing episodic content exclusively and phasing out normal games altogether. Like the tobacco industry or Pepperidge Farms, these corporate fat cats can now charge us whatever they want with almost no overhead or advertising costs because product demand will become so great, they know we will pay. DAMN YOU SAUSALITO COOKIES!!! DAAAMN YOOOU!!!
Where Have I Seen This Before?
PC games aren't the only ones being released in episodic form. Not too long ago the popular anime title .hack (or was it Hack Sign? I never quite figured that out…) released four role playing games for the PS2. Despite the obvious fact that the actual game's ending didn't happen until the end of the fourth title, .hack fans ate the series up, purchasing every title and playing through the entire series.
The common link between all of these titles is that they are all part of a previously established franchise. .hack and Sin were already popular in both comics and animation before they crossed over into game form at all, and Half Life was already one of the most popular game franchises whether episodic or not. This is not only the basis behind episodic games, but also its biggest saving grace. The fact is that an episodic series cannot do well on hype alone; it needs a previously established game or franchise to work on. That's good news for gamers, because as long as online episodic content isn't our only source for new games, developers will never have a complete monopoly or pure content control.
As episodic gaming grows, we can expect that complete, original games will actually become a selling point for new releases. This is similar to the free online play of Guild Wars, a massively multiplayer online RPG. NcSoft, the developers behind Guild Wars, could easily have charged $10 a month for the exact same online content they now offer for free, but instead they used free online play as a selling point for the game. If episodic games become the new standard for game releases, then a complete story will have fans running to the local GameStop much in the same way Guild Wars did, and this is a marketing ploy that CAN succeed based on hype alone.
Conclusion
It's a brave new world, and developers are starting to tighten their grip around the products they create. For now, gamers can feel safe in the fact that even the big companies need to work off an established franchise in order to create episodic games, so our wallets and our patience aren't in danger of being attacked quite yet. But you can bet that developers around the world will soon be looking to cash in on episodic games in the exact same way they looked to cash in on Massively Multiplayer Online games, and if it grows too large we are all in big trouble.
Consider for a moment the popular racing anime series Initial D, which grew so huge in Japan, it recently ran its 4th season completely on Pay-Per-View. Episodes were released every two or three months and you can bet fans didn't give a second thought to paying for the show they had already grown to love when it was free. As anyone who saw the series can tell you, the overall number of episodes decreased, as did the actual appeal of the show. Fast pace races with startling finishes were now replaced with lots of drawn out talking and cheap endings throughout most of the last few episodes. Games are in danger of the exact same thing happening.
As we always stress here at Angry Gaming, buyer beware! Developers take notice every time you are quick to throw your hard earned money away on even the slightest changes. Games like Half Life 2 and Sin are good, but are they worth all that money and all that waiting? We say they are not, so always be skeptical and always buy educated. The future of the industry depends on you, the gamer.
It also depends on how fast we can find a way around this downloadable content crap. Warez groups, don't fail me now! Heh, I just kid.
