Valve Reevaluates Episodic Gaming

Dr. Eggman writes "CVG has a recent article on Valve's future plans for episodic gaming. After the third episode of Half-Life 2 is out, Valve plans to sit down with the community and figure out what is working and what's not. Gabe Newell also wants to spend time with Telltale Games and Blizzard, both developers of episodic and episodic-like game content. It it worth it to try to release content on an episodic basis? 'We just want to sit down with three examples in front of us and talk it over with gamers to find out what they would like us to do next.'"

Re:The Orange box insult to existing HL2 owners.

[W2k]

When you buy the OB, you get gift certificates for HL2 and HL2:Ep1 if you already own those games. I would probably have bought it even if it meant paying for those games twice; the $45 it cost are easily worth it for HL2:Ep2, Portal and TF2 alone.

Re:The problem with episodic gaming...

[JayDot]

So far my favorite "episodic" release has been Guild Wars. They've released three major, stand-alone titles in 18 months, plus a high-level "expansion pack". All have been top-quality.

Re:The problem with episodic gaming...

[GeckoX]

Sorry, you're right:

Step 1: Come up with general idea for grand magnum opus.
Step 2: Decide it'll be in 7 parts.
Step 3: Plan out first 3 parts.
Step 4: Write and sell first 3 parts.
Step 5: ?
Step 6: Profit!

I DO know quite a bit about it. I was a HUGE SK fan thank you very much. It is well know that other than a very loose idea of the 7 books, there was almost no initial planning beyond the first 3 other than an overarching idea.

Reading the entire series, it's all but impossible to miss this. There's the first 3 books...and then there's the other 4 books. They are so incredibly different that they could have been written by completely different authors with completely different visions.

Regardless, it's not exactly a good example of quality 'episodic content' now is it? Most people would agree with that...though very often people become very apologetic when defending something they've spent so much time waiting to come to it's conclusion.

Anyways, you know what my point was, so instead of attacking the example based on your own feelings...both being all but irrelevant to the point at hand...how about addressing the point that was being made?

Re:The problem with episodic gaming...

[SpryGuy]

Let's see... I only want Episode 2. I don't want Team Fortress 2, and I already have Half-Life 2 and Episode 1.

"Portal" is a nice bonus, but still, I'm having to buy this huge bundle, half of which is redundant, and a big part of which I don't want and won't play (TF2).

Having to wait 2 years for them to put all this together, and pay more for it, when I could have/should have gotten just Episode 2 a year ago, at a much cheaper cost, is frustrating.

You don't think that's frustrating?