SiN Episodes: Emergence Interview

The real important part of that for us is we want to be at the same visual and quality bar as games like Half-Life 2 at the non-episodic model, but at the $20 price point...our set $20 price point. Ourselves and Valve are two of the first ones that are kind of innovating this space. We’re the first ones, Valve’s is coming out about a month later and we’re going to have a catalog of Valve episodes and Ritual episodes over the next year. And we’re just going to get more and more.

There you go: $20 is the de facto price point for an episode, and judging from Sin Emergence, that's going to be about 5 hours and no multiplayer. They could create new maps with mostly the same graphical assets, and it would still be $20 per episode. Larger return on investment for them in comparison for a $50 box price for a game that could require a new engine, graphical assets, staff turnover, etc. The net return over the $50 per full game depends on how many episodes with the same asset set they use. They could also charge $10 or so for a multiplayer game that uses mostly the same assets from the single-player game (which would either need to be installed, or need to have its GCF files downloaded).

9 episodes planned sounds interesting, but how many can be released in the next 11 months? The playtime and replayability would determine if the $20 per episode price is worth it for the gamer. Five hours per episode for $20 is a little better return than getting 10 hours for a $50 game, and the skill system motivates you to run through the game again to improve your stats. I guess in the long run it benefits both the gamer and Ritual.

The first episode was good, except for the boses, I mean, come on, were past those days!
Plus the end boss it was lame! riped streight out of Soldier of Fortune 2 that part showed lack of imagination. But the rest was fun.

emergence sucks bigtime.. lamest fps game in many years.. short and very boring

I like the idea of episodic gaming but unfourtunatly, Sin:E bored me to death.

Unless future episodes are much more innovative, i wont be buying again.

Episodic content is unrealistic. They are planning 9 episodes, with 6-8 months in between each. That means in about 5 years we will have all the episodes. Now in 5 years, the tech will be old and unless they can squeeze something really amazing out of the Source engine, or up the ante with the gameplay to remain competitive with games like Crysis and who knows what else will amaze us in 5 years with the new consoles coming out and new computer technology. Its just not the best way to go from a technology and even a gameplay standpoint.

All this sounds great in theory, the shorter turnaround, the community feedback and input, the evolving tech and story lines. But honestly the first episode already bored me, and I dont think I'll be getting the second. All I played was a generic fps that didn't really innovate or offer anything new in terms of gameplay or story(except nice boobies). and I mean if i've lost interest after the first episode, who is still going to be there 5 years down the road, credit card in hand, waiting in ancipation for the 9th chapter?

Also, that was the shittiest interview ever and I hate AICN even more. I know it took place during E3 and the whole point so for the developers to be talking, but the dude "asking the questions" was a clueless hick who barely even knew what the fuck Mustaine was talking. God, I hate AICN.

Well, and I don't know what the plan is, but I think that the era of "start over from scratch" engines may be over or nearly over - in some interview somewhere they mentioned that HDR ligting may be in SiNEP2 and they might retroactively apply it to SiNEP1. I think engines like Source and Unreal will just continually evolve so the concept of five years from now a new engine being needed won't be an issue - the Source engine will just evolve over time.