Comments on: Sam and Max: Situation: Comedy http://www.siliconera.com/2006/12/20/sam-and-max-situation-comedy/ The secret level in the world of video game news. Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:51:27 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Dranore http://www.siliconera.com/2006/12/20/sam-and-max-situation-comedy/comment-page-1/#comment-34556 Dranore Thu, 21 Dec 2006 06:19:26 +0000 http://www.siliconera.com/index.php/2006/12/20/sam-and-max-situation-comedy/#comment-34556 Episodic content has it's up's and down's. The main advantage is to the publisher. Keep in mind we're lucky to have any more Sam and Max at all. Post the Lucas Arts debacle, it didn't look good. Bringing the duo back episodically makes creating the game financially more manageable for the developers - especially smaller development houses. You're able to give their company a cash injection DURING development. This also lets them build a new audience as they go and give plenty of time to call back old fans. In these days where adventure titles are few and far between before they're quickly shuffled off to the bottom of the bargain bin, a game like this benefits the extended exposure time. Consumers also benefit, instead of one large purchase, their cost is ameliorated over each episode. This also allows the developers to know whether they can afford to develop more episodes. If they make one and not enough people end up buying it to make bake their expenses, it was certainly good for them that they didn't invest more time and money into it. It also lets the developer know just how large their audience is. It's also kind of nice to have something to look forward to. There are downsides as well. We are trained to enjoy games in long form without waiting. Where as films and television and even books enjoy the benefit of being episodic and inconclusive. This will change over time, and developers will become better at creating and pacing games appropriately to match the medium. I would expect some rough edges as episodic content becomes more common. And of course.... we have to wait for it. Early on, missed delivery schedules are definitely possible as teams learn to produce episodic content. Also, if the game is planned out only as each episode is completed, then you're more likely to end up 'uneven' episodes that aren't up to par with others. Also if people aren't able to cope with the continuous production style or don't take a long enough break in between, it's possible some companies might steadily decrease in quality. Perhaps the decrease in difficulty you found in this new episode was intentional to make it more accessible if they received feedback about the first episode claiming it was a bit too difficult. Or it's possible they just didn't spend enough time on the episode polishing it. There are a myriad of reasons of why you might find qualitative differences in episodic content. Due to the efficiency of the cost/time cycle for the development of episodic game content, consoles that now have the capability of downloading games, and the popularization of download PC game delivery, I'd expect it to become the standard rather than the exception. We have more television production that film production for the same reason. Episodic game content will become the television to the epic AAA title feature films of the game world. (Along with a health dose of MMO titles, since they operate on a continual profit basis.) Episodic content has it’s up’s and down’s. The main advantage is to the publisher. Keep in mind we’re lucky to have any more Sam and Max at all. Post the Lucas Arts debacle, it didn’t look good. Bringing the duo back episodically makes creating the game financially more manageable for the developers – especially smaller development houses. You’re able to give their company a cash injection DURING development. This also lets them build a new audience as they go and give plenty of time to call back old fans. In these days where adventure titles are few and far between before they’re quickly shuffled off to the bottom of the bargain bin, a game like this benefits the extended exposure time. Consumers also benefit, instead of one large purchase, their cost is ameliorated over each episode. This also allows the developers to know whether they can afford to develop more episodes. If they make one and not enough people end up buying it to make bake their expenses, it was certainly good for them that they didn’t invest more time and money into it. It also lets the developer know just how large their audience is. It’s also kind of nice to have something to look forward to.

There are downsides as well. We are trained to enjoy games in long form without waiting. Where as films and television and even books enjoy the benefit of being episodic and inconclusive. This will change over time, and developers will become better at creating and pacing games appropriately to match the medium. I would expect some rough edges as episodic content becomes more common. And of course…. we have to wait for it. Early on, missed delivery schedules are definitely possible as teams learn to produce episodic content. Also, if the game is planned out only as each episode is completed, then you’re more likely to end up ‘uneven’ episodes that aren’t up to par with others. Also if people aren’t able to cope with the continuous production style or don’t take a long enough break in between, it’s possible some companies might steadily decrease in quality. Perhaps the decrease in difficulty you found in this new episode was intentional to make it more accessible if they received feedback about the first episode claiming it was a bit too difficult. Or it’s possible they just didn’t spend enough time on the episode polishing it. There are a myriad of reasons of why you might find qualitative differences in episodic content.

Due to the efficiency of the cost/time cycle for the development of episodic game content, consoles that now have the capability of downloading games, and the popularization of download PC game delivery, I’d expect it to become the standard rather than the exception. We have more television production that film production for the same reason. Episodic game content will become the television to the epic AAA title feature films of the game world. (Along with a health dose of MMO titles, since they operate on a continual profit basis.)

]]>