Take Two Interactive has decided after much research to join companies like Valve in creating episodic games.Researchers have found that normal 20 hour stand alone games aren’t producing enough revenue for developers to make them worth while. With game production costs going up, and fresh ideas harder to come by, the developers at Take Two have decided that splitting games into episodes will produce longer gamer loyalty and more constant profits over time.
Why create a 20 hour game for say $60 a pop and have them sell steadily for 3 months, when you can split the game up into 3-6 hour installments for say $10 a pop and have them sell for over the course of a year? Great idea, you marketing geniuses!
Question is “Will gamers put up with waiting 6 months to play the next episode of a game, when we could be playing the same whole game over those 6 months?”.
Note: The early report on Grand Theft Auto IV being in produced in two episodes was a mistake. Take Two and Rockstar will be producing 2 downloadable episodes exclusively for the Xbox 360. My original source was misleading. Sorry for the confusion.
Via CNNMoney.com
2 comments:
I see a lot of people waiting for the inevitable compilation versions of these episodic games.
I really don't like episodic content, IF I am forced to use an online subscription service for singleplayer. Steam has ruined Halflife for me, because it doesn't run well on my computer. Episodic content itself can work out in some cases, but I don't like the trend.
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