Valve's experiment with episodic content a failure?

[sabotai]

When Valve announced they were going to be releasing content for Half-Life in the form of episodes rather than expansion packs like they did for Half Life (1), I was pretty happy. No longer would I have to wait a year or two for an expansion that retold the same story from a different POV, but it would be a continuation of the storyline AND we would have to wait only months instead of years to get it.

It's been a year since Episode 1 came out (almost to the day, May 24, 2006), and we are still waiting for Episode 2. If you play Episode 1 with the commentary on, one of the first things that is said is that they hoped that providing content in episodic installments would allow them to get content out quicker than traditional ways (read: expansion packs).

That clearly has not happened. We are still waiting just as long (if not longer) for content as we did with the traditional expansion packs. Has it failed? Is Valve just treating these episodes like expansion packs, just calling them episodes? Will true episodic content ever work?

[SackAttack]

The problem with episodic content is that you're looking at two essential demographics for it.

First, you've got people who have never played a particular piece of IP and are more willing to pay $5-10 to try something than $60. That can be important recurring revenue if you get them hooked.

Second, you have people who are devoted to the IP, and that's more dangerous ground. Some will wait until the episodic content has been collected, such as the upcoming "Sam & Max: Season 1" retail box of the episodes that GameTap have been running all year. That may be a desire to play continuously, or just an aversion to digital ownership of the product.

Some will feel like they're being nickel-and-dimed on stuff - heck, even today's Oblivion expansion has gotten comments like that from Xbox Live users, and it's supposedly a 30 hour expansion.

The rest will jump right in and grab the episodes as they come out.

So you've got two distinct groups within the 'devoted' demographic who aren't going to be sold on the idea in the first place, and one entire other demographic that you have to be cautious with. I won't say that it can't ever work, but I don't think "episodic" digital delivery has nearly the future that digital delivery in general does.

[Barkeep49]

I think it's clear that Valve's experiment is a failure because they have basically shown they are unable to produce episodic content.

[Coop]

The only company that has done episodic gaming well is TellTale Games.