People have been talking a lot about episodic gaming of late, but is it really episodic, or just the latest buzzword to enter the public relations lexicon?

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Episodic Mal-Content:

Buzzword or the Real Deal?

The concept of chopping up a game into bite-sized episodes was one of THE hot topics of 2006. People were talking about Sin, Half-Life, Sam and Max, and other games that were going this route. It was going to be the future; however, the more one thinks about it the more one wonders if this future will become a reality or go the way of flying cars, and packing entire meals into pill form. Pundits have quieted down of late in the wake of console launches, and the dreaded fourth quarter, but seeing as conventions such as DICE and GDC are just around the corner, it’s likely only a matter of time before people start yammering about episodic content again.

There is plenty of potential in this concept, but the way the term has been bandied about, it feels more like a buzzword meant for the bullet points on the back of a game’s box or to be highlighted on a press release, than anything that has real meaning. When people think of something that is episodic in other entertainment mediums, they get something that is updated at regular, predictable intervals, packed into reasonably sized, contained experiences. It could be a comic, a weekly television program, or some web drama. Whatever the case, what people are getting is something that has a release schedule that they one can practically set their watch to, new installments are frequent, and the experience is long enough to feel like they’re getting something out of the experience.

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Now, let’s take a look at some of the games that have come out recently that the developers decided to slap the “Episodic Gaming Inside!” label on. Right off the bat there is Half-Life 2: Episode One, which most will agree was a very good game. However, it hardly deserves to be called episodic. Initially, Episode Two was slated for release some time in the fourth quarter of

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2006, about six months after the release of Episode One. That’s a long time, and it’s only going to get longer since Valve has subsequently delayed Episode Two. The same held true for SiN Episode 1, where its second episode was due out six months after the first, and now the series is in limbo after poor sales for Episode 1. If an episodic series decides it wants to release a new installment bi-annually, does that mean it’s still episodic? It sounds more like a sequel, but the PR spin-doctors don’t want people thinking that. It very much feels like the publishers of these games wanted gamers to fawn over the notion of episodic content without giving much thought as to what would define this business model. It’s a case where the old saying, “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle!” is playing itself out to a tee. About all that gamers knew was that more episodes were planned for these series, and that each installment would be relatively short. However, we only had a vague notion of when the next episode was due out (usually a long way off), and there was often lingering doubts that the next part would be released on time. The notion of “Stay tuned next week!” cannot be applied in these cases. When people were done with these games it was more like “Stay tuned six months from now…more than likely…we hope…”

Conversely, the recent Sam and Max games, as well as the long forgotten serialized RPG for the Dreamcast, El Dorado Gate, have done a much better job of conforming to something most sensible people would define as episodic. Sam and Max has been getting released on a very regular basis, with new episodes coming out about once per month so far. The episodes are short, to the point, when players are done they aren’t waiting half a year for more content, and they have a pretty good idea when the next episode will be out. It was similarly the case for El Dorado Gate on the Dreamcast where new episodes generally got released every couple of months, which was no mean feat given that these games were RPGs. Granted this series was pretty plain Jane as far as role-playing games are concerned, but, again, it fit a more reasonable definition of what episodic content is compared to the games mentioned in the previous paragraph.

The point of all this is not to discuss whether or not any of these properties are any good. What we’re trying to get at is whether or not the term “episodic gaming” is being applied properly. While things don’t seem as bad as they were a year ago, there is still a large question mark hovering over whether or not some who are expunging the virtues of this concept are creating episodes or is what they’re discussing actually glorified sequels. With GCD and DICE on the horizon, maybe we’ll get a clearer view of what developers consider to be episodic gaming; hopefully it will be far better defined, and not come off as marketing spin.

Mr. Nash

February 5, 2007


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