Comments on: Episodic gaming http://soreeyes.org/archive/2006/06/28/episodic-gaming/ Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:54:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Gary Farber http://soreeyes.org/archive/2006/06/28/episodic-gaming/#comment-19951 Gary Farber Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:07:44 +0000 http://soreeyes.org/?p=1100#comment-19951 "With a serial computer game that is sufficiently popular to justify several releases over a period of two or three years or so, won’t a compilation of all the episodes look and feel a bit strange what with the earlier instalments looking and possibly playing significantly differently to the latest ones? Will players be bothered when they pick up an earlier instalment only to find that it looks rather old-fashioned and doesn’t play as well as the latest?" I don't understand the premise of the question, insofar as this is <i>exactly</i> what's been going on with computer games since their dawn. Check any game with a number in its title, and tell me how this isn't so. As well, controls pretty much never change. The need to have them do so is next to nil. The only difference being talked about here is releasing smaller (in terms of numbers of hours to complete) and cheaper games, rather than ones that take dozens or hundreds of hours and cost upwards of $50/$60 or more a pop. “With a serial computer game that is sufficiently popular to justify several releases over a period of two or three years or so, won’t a compilation of all the episodes look and feel a bit strange what with the earlier instalments looking and possibly playing significantly differently to the latest ones? Will players be bothered when they pick up an earlier instalment only to find that it looks rather old-fashioned and doesn’t play as well as the latest?”

I don’t understand the premise of the question, insofar as this is exactly what’s been going on with computer games since their dawn.

Check any game with a number in its title, and tell me how this isn’t so.

As well, controls pretty much never change. The need to have them do so is next to nil.

The only difference being talked about here is releasing smaller (in terms of numbers of hours to complete) and cheaper games, rather than ones that take dozens or hundreds of hours and cost upwards of $50/$60 or more a pop.

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