Welcome to Digital Dialogue (working title), where we here at Great White Delight have civilized conversations about various topics in the world of games. In this first episode, we give you a series of e-mails between Dan Kaszor and I which spawned during the week after the events of E3, about current state of Episodic games and digital distribution. Enjoy.

Ramin: So, one thing I noticed at E3 last week is that a number of publishers are starting to work on smaller, cheaper games. Sony had a bunch of them, what with the new Ratchet game, and Siren, both for PSN–even Resistance on PSP, in its own way. It reminded me of a few years ago when a few publishers *coughvalvecough* suggested that distributing games in bite-sized episodes would make everyone happy with cheaper games that were easier to produce and more quickly distributed. So far only Traveler’s Tales has made any headway on that promise, so I’m beginning to wonder if this new downloadable trend isn’t the next step. Did episodic games end before they even began, or what?

Daniel: I think the big problem is how developers are conceptualizing episodic games. A big 40 hour RPG split up into 12 monthly chunks could be a big hit, but the focus seems to be getting the first episode out the door. They don’t really work unless the whole thing is finished before you release the first episode. This is the model that the only real episodic “success story,” Sam and Max, is using. It’s also a model that I don’t think a lot of publishers use; they need the money from the first episodes to fund the rest of the project.

Ramin: Well, it’s systemic, right? I mean the publishers pump money into a project that always has a chance of failing. If they complete the whole fucking game, and then release in chunks, only to have the first chunk, or first few chunks, suck balls, well then they lose all of their investment, don’t they? Looking at Alone in the Dark, for example which had its “episodes” built into the disc itself, it didn’t really do much to enhance the user’s experience. Had those episodes been divided into downloadable chunks after the fact, it’d still be a game with clunky controls and fire as the “win” key. It would probably do less in sales.

Though that can’t be the only reason it hasn’t worked. I mean, ok, from a timing standpoint, its probably going to take more than a month to make an AAA-like title in episodic chunks when they’re doing it piece-meal. But doesn’t this whole surge of bite-sized downloadable games present the same sort of sales model as episodic did? Cheaper to sell, cheaper to make, and faster to produce? Or is it different somehow?

Daniel: I would contend that one of the best parts about Alone in the Dark was its episodic nature and that the narrative form really did help the game out. There’s a reason that some people are head-over-heels for the game and it isn’t because of all the bugs. And if they had released it in chunks they could have been able to tweak the later bits to make them better. Also people would have been more forgiving of the problems with the game if the investment had been smaller.

And I would say that “bite-sized” games are a different beast. Episodic implies a narrative and an arch of gameplay that smaller games don’t. Episodic games really aren’t cheaper to make, just that the content is dolled out over a longer period and (presumably) because you can charge more for what you’re selling over time.

Ramin: Well, resisting the urge to get into a talk about the “narrative form” of that game–I’m assuming you couldn’t say that with a straight face–you have a point; if they had split the game into actual downloadable or purchasable episodes, it may have done better in reviews and possibly sales, since it didn’t do a terrible job in either of those categories.

It’s funny because when Valve first headlined this idea, I think it scared the shit out of publishers. It seemed to me like publishers were just afraid to try an episodic structure and narrative now because of the investment it requires from them. There was one fiasco with SiN: Episode 1 and everyone but Traveler’s Tales cut-and-run.

Yet now we hear a lot more about downloadable games; the shear amount of XLBA and PSN games in August are a good example of that. So maybe the idea of episodic games was just a little ahead of its time.

Daniel: I’m amazed that we’ve gone this far and haven’t talked more about Siren — a full retail game broken up into episodes and offered all at once on the PSN. I’m pretty sure I’m going to give the first four eps a whirl for $15. I certainly wouldn’t be doing that if I had to go into a store and pay $60 for the full game. I think the episodic game is here right now.

Ramin: Let’s talk about Siren, then, because I disagree that this is a benchmark for episodic games. You could argue that I’m picking on semantics, but to me Siren is no different than Alone In the Dark in that neither of them are really “episodic” games so much as complete games broken up into chunks. In fact, the potential metacritic of it not taken into account, Siren seems worse to me, from a consumer standpoint, because it’s cheaper to buy them all at once. If you buy one chunk, and then like it enough to buy the full series, you’re gonna pay more to buy the other two chunks than you would have if you had bought the complete package–and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were banking on that These games are not episodic, they just happen to have as single game broken into episode-like chunks. There’s no possibility of the developer altering mechanics in future “episodes” because not only is the game finished, but the whole thing is playable at once.

Yes, it’s a bit cynical, and I’m albeit unable to see what kind of narrative difference this will make for the game, but it doesn’t seem like it would be much of one; at least not one so large that the overall feel of it would be drastically different had the game been released only as one complete package. So if it signifies anything, models like the one Siren is taking signify a continued resistance or fear to try games in an episodic model; they don’t have the confidence in the product to risk that kind of venture–though based on 1up’s review, maybe Sony should have.

Daniel: Episodic game: a single game whose narrative allows it to be broken up into several smaller pieces, which can be sold separately.

Didn’t we earlier agree that the only way for episodic games to work is if they finish all the episodes before they come out?  Theoretically you could release any game like that as a whole game (see Sam & Max season 1 coming out for the Wii). Siren is a bit weird in that all of the episodes are coming out at once, but it is a full priced game everywhere but in North America. You aren’t being overcharged for buying the episodes; you’re getting a discount for getting them all at once. Personally, I’d rather pay $20 more for something I like than $25 more for something I don’t. From a publishing point of view, episodic games are absolutely about raising the price. You’re essentially just amortizing that cost over several purchases by the consumer, with the increased risk that they won’t purchase any after the first.

Also, didn’t we also agree that Alone in the Dark should have been released in episodic form? I think you’re getting this backwards: Siren and Alone in the Dark are episodic games that were incorrectly released as full games.

Ramin: To be fair, episodic games were not initially pitched as games whose narrative allowed it to be broken up. It was supposed to be a production decision made by the publisher to make the development and release cycle easier on everyone–though yes, simultaneously amortizing the cost over several purchases. Now, I’ll agree that essentially the best way for that to work is to have the game finished, break it up into chunks, and tweak it over time, but no one has ever done that except Traveler’s Tales–Sam & Max season 1 coming out on Wii, or being sold as a complete set on Steam, was done after realizing that the their model was a huge success.

I’ll concede that  ALitD and Siren could have been episodic games that were incorrectly released as full games; but that’s not some sort of magical happenstance. The publishers didn’t want to risk it. Which isn’t to knock the publishers; their job is to ensure they keep making money. Insomniac releasing a smaller semi-sequel to Tools of Destruction is only happening because, well, the Ratchet series is something they consider a safe bet. So if more companies start going in this direction over time, are we gonna start seeing episodic versions of current hit franchises before anything original hits?

Daniel: That remains to be seen. Honestly I think that developers are ready to start putting out games as episodes, but that the digital distribution channels just aren’t quite there to support them yet.

But that’s another discussion.