> 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, Oran

> 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...