The Benefits of (True) Episodic Content

As PC gamers are well aware, the potential benefits and drawbacks of episodic game development have been discussed at length over the past year or so, though only a few developers are working within the model: Valve with its Half-Life 2 episodes, Ritual with its SiN Episodes (the fate of which may be in question), and Telltale Games with its Sam & Max episodes. According to Rick Sanchez, president of content for partial Sam & Max funder and distributor GameTap, only Telltale is actually living up to the fundamental promises of episodic content. Valve and Ritual, he says, are delivering games that are "more like installments in a single game rather than episodes in a series." Sanchez defines game episodes as standalone products that are still part of a larger whole, each with a relatively short duration of play, and delivered on a regular schedule over some kind of seasonal period. It is the last criteria that has so far only been fulfilled by Sam & Max, which has seen two episodes released with Telltale on track to finish its current Season 1 at the rate of one episode per month. Some of the benefits to this model, according to Sanchez, are actually quite similar to those we've seen given by Valve: gaining more frequent customer feedback, allowing for a more iterative creative process, and avoiding pitfalls of expensive retail publishing. This episodic model allows developers to potentially take more advantage of the enormous PC install base than is done by the waning retail PC game industry, by offering low-cost games in a convenient manner with less of a time commitment necessary per product--but still offering a fuller entertainment experience than a casual puzzle game. Sanchez also presents one potential idea that has not been widely discussed, the concept of a pilot game episode. While some referred to Telltale's first Sam & Max episode as a "pilot," plans to construct an entire season were already well underway by the time of that game's release. The pilot concept presented in Sanchez' article is more similar to the current game industry practice of prototyping, but with a much different application. Rather than having to refuse or greenlight an entire large-scale game based on an initial presentation, publishers could take a chance on riskier projects by, for example, funding only half a season of a pitched game series; if those episodes are successful, the publisher could fund more development. It remains to be seen whether the television-like concept currently being employed by Telltale and championed by GameTap is feasible for other developers. That said, indications seem to be that the project has been financially successful so far, and the company is holding to its aggressive development schedule while Sam & Max has managed to garner strong critical reception and gamer approval.