Games - Episodic games

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	Games - Episodic games

There have been many games that call themselves Episodic because they are serialized, Valve's upcoming revision of for example, is one of the most recent, which plans to release game content to subscribers periodically. Serialized however, might be a better description of this process then episodic.

Episodic online games has been the hope of online adventure/action marketers since online games have been available, especially after watching the big revenue returned from the persistent world MMOGs. Adding episodic content to MMOGs has become one way that older persistent worlds can 'freshen' their content. One game that makes the most effort at new 'episodic' content is . These games are different then sequels, which may change any aspect of the game and are generally completely remarketed, sometimes replacing previous versions, sometimes running parallel to them.

The basic premise for the action/adventure game episode strategy is to sell the game itself with one or two action sequences and then keep selling add-on action on a regularly scheduled basis, usually monthly. In the persistent world games, the content may be regularly scheduled such as Asheron's Call, or it may be irregularly released with announcements throughout the game and community promoting when the new content is coming online. On occasion adding episodic content has been tried to 'lift' the subscriber into a new pay tier to access this additional content.

For the most part, purely episodic games in a multiplayer environment have had mixed success. The problem is twofold with the first being linearity. To create an episode there must be a linear story. While there have been some successful linear stories in stand-alone games, they are usually coupled with puzzle-solving or roleplaying or some other gameplay element. Their main purpose is to provide a storyline to move the player forward through a game environment. In a multiplayer environment, linear stories don't usually offer enough flexibility to players who want to control a story. A linear story creates the second problem, synchronization. In online worlds everyone moving to the next episode must be in the same place at the same time in the story. Difficult to arrange. In persistent worlds, carefully introduced episodic content can be a nice addition to a certain segment of the online population. Bit in both circumstances there is a danger; one or two bad episodes can bring the entire game to a halt.

In both cases the concept of episodic driven game content derives from literature and especially, television where the viewer is essentially solitary and in a controlled environment. Though Tivo and the new mobile release of television programming is altering the synchronization process, the controlled environment of passive programming still makes episodes possible. Synchronization of players in online worlds is much more difficult where login times, session length, and player attributes differ between all players. Also, content author(s) are outside the game structure and like television, if they write good episodes the game survives, maybe even thrives. But if they miss a beat, maybe even just a couple of bad episodes, the chain is broken and the game can be badly damaged.

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