Hot take: Every game should be released in weekly 5-hour episodes, just like TV shows.

Do you agree?

  • OMG YES!

    Votes: 11 4.6%

  • HELL NO!

    Votes: 230 95.4%
  • Total voters
    241
Dumbass GIF
 
A few games already tried something like this during the late PS360 and early PS4/Xbox One generation. It didn't work and upset gamers instead.

I think Sonic 4 was one of them and maybe Quantum Break was another.

OP what you actually want is better pacing.

It took the TV audience a while to figure out that they get better paced shows within an 8-12 episode format rather than a 24 episode-run. It will take gamers a while to figure out that a condensed 20-40 hour experience is better than this chase of infinite content in an endless world.
 
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Companies have been talking about doing episodic games for ages now and it hasn't really come to fruition much. They aren't thinking of some weird "weekly" thing though, more they are trying to release things faster that are smaller maybe once a year.

Your idea would just be spending years making a linear game and then breaking it into pieces and having those parts release once a week. 'I find that really strange but whatever.
 
Im a fan of shorter games so I see where you are coming from but at the same time this just wouldnt work.
 
...but imagine if a top company like Capcom did this with an epic RPG, featuring art by Yoshitaka Amano, releasing a new episode every two months.

Oh wait. They did. And it still failed despite being a good RPG because episodic releases are a bad approach. It was called El Dorado Gate. The last few episodes are very hard to find because almost everyone lost interest before then.
 
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TellTales games tried the episodic content aproach, it failed. Ppl play the 1st episode then forget the game exists and never buy the other episodes.

As others mentioned, nothing stops you from buying a 20h+ game, boot it on friday, play for some hours, quit, repeat next week. Making everyone follow that because YOU dont have time to play, is going full retard.
 
Aenima said:
TellTales games tried the episodic content aproach, it failed. Ppl play the 1st episode then forget the game exists and never buy the other episodes.

As others mentioned, nothing stops you from buying a 20h+ game, boot it on friday, play for some hours, quit, repeat next week. Making everyone follow that because YOU dont have time to play, is going full retard.
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Yep, I play long RPGs, because that's my jam (and strategy games), and it just takes me a while to finish.

I don't care if it took me 3-4 months to get through games like BG3 or KCD2 (or any modern Persona). At least I know the story and the game will be there for me to pick back up.
 
I don't think that a weekly episodic route is the way to go. There's so much underlying work to do to generate a video game world that it would probably cost nearly as much to make 5 hours of a game as it would cost to make 20 hours of a game. I'm also not interested in paying weekly for a single game.

There's already a solution. Just invest in smaller indie titles that you can buy for cheap and knock out in 5 hours.
 
ReBurn said:
I don't think that a weekly episodic route is the way to go. There's so much underlying work to do to generate a video game world that it would probably cost nearly as much to make 5 hours of a game as it would cost to make 20 hours of a game. I'm also not interested in paying weekly for a single game.

There's already a solution. Just invest in smaller indie titles that you can buy for cheap and knock out in 5 hours.
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Many games, even open world ones, already divide their content into chapters. I don't imagine this being that much different.

And regarding paying weekly/monthly/etc. They could also give the option to pay for the entire season in advance.
 
Worked quite well in Alan Wake where you'd finish a chapter and a song would play. I played the game in episodes like that.

However, you could of course just play on with AW, because they gave you the whole game.
 
People are saying just play the game in segments, but the OP is talking about fundamentally restructuring the game so that it ends on a cliffhanger after each segment - which doesn't happen if you just randomly stop playing at certain intervals.

It's not a terrible idea, but it's been tried and hasn't worked.

I'm a little surprised that some people are calling this the dumbest idea they've ever heard. You guys need to get out more. I hear dumber ideas just about every day, lol.
 
thatJohann said:
Hot take: Every single player story-based game should be released in weekly 5-hour episodes, just like TV shows.

Drop a new episode every Friday. Keep it tight, focused, and end each one with a banger cliffhanger to get you hyped for the next week.
No more bloated, exhausting 60-hour monsters that sit in your backlog for months.

A 20-hour game? That's a 4-week event. A reason to look forward to Fridays.
Digestible, exciting, and way more sustainable.

Honestly, it would bring back that shared excitement of everyone talking about the latest episode.
Imagine gaming, and still having a life.

The dream.

Games like Red Dead 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and The Last of Us Part II practically beg for this kind of format.
Even Alan Wake 2 and Life is Strange already have the structure, just not the schedule.

Imagine the hype if a new episode dropped every Friday and the whole community lit up talking about it all weekend.

What games do you think could've worked better like this?

Updates to clarify:
  • This would apply only to single player story-based games that exceed 5 hrs.
  • If it's open world, you can still enjoy the open world and side-quests, but MAIN missions that drive the game forward would unlock on Fridays.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, Episodic Gaming. They tried awhile back and in the best case scenario it got mixed results. This was probably one of the things that led early access. Both are bad, imo.
 
thatJohann said:
Hot take: Every single player story-based game should be released in weekly 5-hour episodes, just like TV shows.

Drop a new episode every Friday. Keep it tight, focused, and end each one with a banger cliffhanger to get you hyped for the next week.
No more bloated, exhausting 60-hour monsters that sit in your backlog for months.

A 20-hour game? That's a 4-week event. A reason to look forward to Fridays.
Digestible, exciting, and way more sustainable.

Honestly, it would bring back that shared excitement of everyone talking about the latest episode.
Imagine gaming, and still having a life.

The dream.

Games like Red Dead 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and The Last of Us Part II practically beg for this kind of format.
Even Alan Wake 2 and Life is Strange already have the structure, just not the schedule.

Imagine the hype if a new episode dropped every Friday and the whole community lit up talking about it all weekend.

What games do you think could've worked better like this?

Updates to clarify:
  • This would apply only to single player story-based games that exceed 5 hrs.
  • If it's open world, you can still enjoy the open world and side-quests, but MAIN missions that drive the game forward would unlock on Fridays.
Click to expand...
They had done that with Telltale games and it wasn't a pleasant model for anyone.
 
JayK47 said:
They already tried this and it failed. You ended up with unfinished stories as they cancelled the game before making all episodes.
Click to expand...
Like that Afro Samurai revenge of kuma game... Which only made one episode and didn't even give a full episodic series.

 
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"Hot take", shit usually does have a warmth to it. Games aren't consumed like traditional TV shows, outside of the old Telltale episodic games whoch weren'teven weekly.

I mean people have now adjusted that they prefer TV shows to be released all at once so they can binge-watch, so it's the opposite of what your take is.
 
Nope. Releasing compelling games as a complete package is something the industry has been struggling with for a while now. Finding yet another way to not deliver is the exact opposite of what I want.
 
I hated the episodic approach Wing Commander tried, terrible.

Hey OP no one is forcing you to finish a game in one sitting, on week or a month. Play at your pace, its just a solo player story experience.
 
While not weekly, many live service (gacha) games will have monthly patches with new story/main quest updates, characters etc. Just play those if that is what you want.
No reason all games should fall into that formula.
 
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