4 ms·
Another point to remember in all this, is that in the early to mid 2000s game companies were obsessed with the idea of "episodic content". There were many othe
by giobox 2y ago
Another point to remember in all this, is that in the early to mid 2000s game companies were obsessed with the idea of "episodic content".
There were many other games in this time period ended in the same trap, that promised a number of episodes following the main release but gave up after the first couple - Alan Wake, Deus Ex HR etc. No one really even discusses the term "episodic content" in the industry anymore.
I suspect the vast majority of Episode 1/2 players did so because it came bundled in Valve's famous Orange Box release, not because they bought the expansions separately.
A quick google turns up this article discussing the same thing:
> https://www.howtogeek.com/whatever-happened-to-episodic-games/#:~:text=Episodic%20games%20promised%20frequent%20releases,it%20hard%20to%20sustain%20financially https://www.howtogeek.com/whatever-happened-to-episodic-game....
- mdorazio 2y agoEhhh, only sort of. “Episodic Content” mostly turned into “DLC” and “Seasons” rather than disappearing entirely.
- astrange 2y agoAFAIK this is a way to keep your production pipeline busy by releasing parts of the game more often. If you do one large project, then your developers are tools down months or years before the game ships - so you need something for them to do next. If it's nothing, you may have to lay them off.
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoAt the time, each episode brought out amazing new gameplay mechanics and we were all buying them as soon as we saved up enough money. I don't think the episode format changed anything other then making it okay to send out a shorter game then a full flagship.
- giobox 2y ago> we were all buying them as soon as we saved up enough money Except most of us didn't. Valve actually gave some decent numbers in 2008. In just one year, Orange Box had sold over twice as many copies as Episode 1 did on its own. The pre-orange box sales suggest ~20% of Half Life 2 players bought the expansion stand alone. Fast forward to today, vastly more people will have played Orange Box, especially as it was the only way to play Episode 1/2 on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The lesson here was full games (Orange Box) typically sell better than episodes, which was the lesson almost everyone learned about "Episodic Content" in the 2000s. I note some folks argue we just got DLC - but we had DLC in the PS3/360 era too. "Episodic Content" was distinct from this as a business strategy, even if it strongly overlaps. Microsoft were constantly pushing the idea back then especially for the 360, there are a ton of talks/interviews still online from around 2005/6 from guys like Peter Moore on it. > https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/12/valve-divulges-life-time-retail-sales/#:~:text=Half%2DLife%20(Valve)%20%2F,Valve)%20%2F%202000%20%2D%204.2%20Million https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/12/valve-divulges-life-t...
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoHuh, TIL. I guess we weren't representative of the whole then.