[peacock]

instead of 40 + hours for $50 why don't we have a game for $15 but say it is only 1/4 of the lengh.

Maybe it would never end but ever 6 months the new episode will come out - kind of like a soap opera?

[Cognitive Dissonance]

Originally Posted by peacock

instead of 40 + hours for $50 why don't we have a game for $15 but say it is only 1/4 of the lengh.

Maybe it would never end but ever 6 months the new episode will come out - kind of like a soap opera?

Err soap opera? Perhaps solving the mystery behind why Sharon Watts is thought as being attractive?

Seriously though my American friend ($ signs you see - truly world class detection on my part ) if you perhaps instead mean serial style adventures like old style Flash Gordon - proper cliffhanger stuff - then maybe. I always thought it would be cool to have an enemy / nemesis you often overcame but could never truly beat, kinda like Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes.

Then again looking at the lack of response here it seems as though no-one else agrees........or cares.

[mycroft]

Originally Posted by Cognitive Dissonance

I always thought it would be cool to have an enemy / nemesis you often overcame but could never truly beat, kinda like Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes.

Nit picking here...but Sherlock Holmes did beat Moriarty. In The Final Problem, he falls over the Reichenbach Falls and dies after a scuffle with Holmes.

And..err...I don't care for this poll.

[Cognitive Dissonance]

Originally Posted by mycroft

Nit picking here...but Sherlock Holmes did beat Moriarty. In The Final Problem, he falls over the Reichenbach Falls and dies after a scuffle with Holmes.

And..err...I don't care for this poll.

Yet you cared enough to view and post.

Go on admit it. You were a bedwetter weren't you.

[GreatPumpkin]

So you want to pay $60 for a $50 game and be forced to wait through three six month lulls before you can just finish the game already? Sounds good. And by good I mean bad. And by bad I mean very bad.

[Sonny-Bonds]

If the games were sold at a cheaper price,
and came out regularly (as it seems Farenheit will)
I believe its a very good idea.

[Ninja Dodo]

Why do you have to make the comparison with soap operas? :eek:

[migviper]

I think this is a very good idea. Woohoo !!!

[Scoville]

Serialized games could be great. They could allow for developers to tell longer stories, as making a 100+ hour game normally would take a long time, and they wouldn't receive any income.

But it opens up a major problem by making games similar to TV shows. Shows are often a terrible means for storytelling, because the networks and producers want to keep them running for as long as they can. Instead of having the story arc planned out in advance, they generally write without any end in sight, and usually would rather not end it at all. The plot then gets bloated and loses focus. And the later episodes risk being worse than the earlier ones because key staff could leave, changing the series' style and direction. I'd rather not have games suffer from that problem as well.

[Stinger]

Originally Posted by peacock

instead of 40 + hours for $50 why don't we have a game for $15 but say it is only 1/4 of the lengh.

Well, that would be a nice idea of games really were 40 hours long. But I have NEVER played an adventure game that was anywhere close to that. The longest adventure game ever, I'm pretty sure, is The Longest Journey, and that's about 22ish hours -- 16 if you just skip over the Alatien tales (kidding). Some of Sierra's older games, like the notorious LSL1, are really only three to four hour games, but you double that with all the dying and restoring and obscure puzzles.

I think any game that's pushing 30 hours has to be really, really, realllllly substantial to hold interest. Final Fantasy 3 (FF6 in Japan) was an example; I put about 32-34 hours in every time I played it and it never got old. Same with FF7. But Baldur's Gate was just a toil. Xenogears is probably a 50+ hour game...but it's pretty much the video game equivalent of War & Peace, which I guess is a 50+ hour book. I just finished Anachronox recently and clocked in at 22 hours (skipping quite a few subquests, I'm sure) and felt like it was just right, but a couple hours more and it would have been pushing it.

Quite a few recent adventures I've completed, like Sanitarium and Broken Sword 1, have come in at 14-17 hours and I feel like this is perfect. Even 20 hours for an adventure is fine, but you can't be forced to just listen to dialogue all day; the story has to just be that darn long, and compelling the whole time. Otherwise length is not a benefit, it's a hindrance.

So, what I'm trying to say is, you're suggesting we should just pay less for a game that's only 10-11 hours...but your whole idea doesn't work because that's the average length of a full-price adventure these days.

Of course, no adventure game has cost $50 for almost ten years anyway, so perhaps my entire post here is just a waste of space.

- Evan

[AGA]

Incidentally, my record for LSL1 was something like 15 minutes (there was a timer in most of the AGI games) to get a perfect score. Man I played the early Sierras too much

[michael1123]

Man, Stinger, you really are the expert on game lengths. I really don't take note myself.

Since I'm sure you know, how long is Full Throttle? That game seems extremely short on replayings, but it is proof that length ... isn't everything.

[Stinger]

Originally Posted by michael1123

Man, Stinger, you really are the expert on game lengths. I really don't take note myself.

Since I'm sure you know, how long is Full Throttle? That game seems extremely short on replayings, but it is proof that length ... isn't everything.

I'm very structured and organized with my time, and as a result I tend to play games in 1 or 1.5 hour blocks. This makes it easy to track how much time I put into a game. I also have a very analytical mind, so it's hard for me NOT to notice that kind of thing. Still, I'm no expert, as game lengths expressed in time is really a useless statistic. Tony Tough, for me reviewing the game, was about a 13-hour game, but I leaned heavily on a walkthrough. Without a walkthrough, it's maybe a painful 30-hour game because the puzzles are SO INSANE. I guess when I think of a game's length, I consider how long it would take an average gamer to play through it, not skipping any cutscenes or voice dialogue, and taking time to do some unnecessary actions that add to the game enjoyment (like exhausting dialogue options). But it's still so far from an exact science...

Full Throttle's a bit easier, because there really are no difficult puzzles so the time should be the same for everyone. I'd say, off the top of my head, it's a 7 to 9 hour game. And I agree, length is not everything, Full Throttle is a very good game; however, length is a big deal, and Full Throttle could have been a truly awesome game with a deeper middle.

[Curt]

I hate the idea of an episodic adventure released over a period of time. Just think, we've played episode 1 and 2 and just when the story is really opening up and you're just getting acquainted with some new characters, the developers go and get bored or broke and stop the project.

But a sopa opera adventure?

And Mr Stinger is right, the length isn't important, and is relative to how quickly the gameplayer can solve it. And Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon costs €49.99 here and lasts apparently about 12 hours only but involved a lot of man-hours to produce.

I'd guess an episodic adventure with releases every few months would be of an extremely poor quality or would cost a fortune to produce and maintain, and we'd actually end up spending more for the same or less in the end.

The onus is on developers and publishers to ensure that they have enough confidence in their products that they are willing to invest the time and money into long-term development, reaping the rewards afterwards for giving us something worth playing.

Until then, I'll keep dreaming my adventures.

[ragnar]

I would like there to be some more episodic things, but the episodes should be self-contained so you don't need to have played all the previous episodes to understand the new one.

Think about a detective mystery series where you solve a murder per episode, where each episode takes about 2-4 hours to play. The stories needn't be so involving as a full length AG, but you get some bits about the main characters in each episode etc. The developers can use the same engine for a great number of games and only need to slightly refine it for each new episode and thus can cut costs for making the following episodes.

[Stinger]

Originally Posted by ragnar

Think about a detective mystery series where you solve a murder per episode, where each episode takes about 2-4 hours to play. The stories needn't be so involving as a full length AG, but you get some bits about the main characters in each episode etc. The developers can use the same engine for a great number of games and only need to slightly refine it for each new episode and thus can cut costs for making the following episodes.

I really, really like this idea. There's something so appealing about returning to the same characters and locations and seeing how they progress--that's why I think I enjoy Pandora Directive so much. This idea also gives time to make the characters much more developed. And you're right, the costs would be much lower.

The inevitable problem with something like that, at least from the developer's standpoint, is that if you don't get people hooked on it very early, it can be difficult to bring in a new audience. The TV show 24 has this problem; because it relies so much on cliffhangers and dynamic characters, with at least one person betraying someone else seemingly every episode, anyone who wants to jump in a bit late feels completely overwhelmed.

But then, if you go the other way and make it more accessible for new viewers like Law & Order or CSI, it's not nearly as interesting week-to-week...and because of that, it's easier to lose casual fans.

Plus, it would be hard to do in any form other than online, since marketing and packaging is such a huge cost for games with a physical store presence.

I'm sorry, I'm getting far too pessimistic and realistic here...in spite of all that, I think it's a great idea, and I really hope something like this (on a large scale as you're talking about) catches on.

- Evan

[ragnar]

Yes, you raise valid points. I definitely wouldn't want big cliffhangers in one episode and then have to wait months before being given the continuation to the story. That really is too long a timeframe for really dramatic cliffhangers. A week is better, but I don't think anyone is able to put out new adventure games so quickly, even if they are short and reuse the engine.

I think though that if some developer dared make the leap and try to do shorter, episodic (preferably selfcontained), they could be much rewarded if they do it well. They must also count on not going to well with the first few games, while they build up the fan base and community around the game.

If someone did this i think they also will need to streamline the production process of adventure games rather much. I don't really know how they would achieve that, but it would be needed I think.

[Stinger]

It probably would be feasible, again from a developing standpoint, to produce a 3-4 hour game every month, and distribute it online...would have to be properly tested and proofed, of course. I'd probably pay $5, maybe even $7, for that. But I don't think I'd cough up $10 a month for something so short. I'd pay $50 or $60 for a year in advance, too, if I could support it that way.

So I guess the ultimate question would be commercial success...but we'll never know until someone tries!

You've got me kind of excited about the idea.

[Ninja Dodo]

See the other thread for my opinion on episodic-ness...

I absolutely despise soap operas, but Ernest Adams made an interesting point about them at Animex Game. He said that adventures should perhaps try and explore more soap-like interactions between characters. The back and forth discussions and emotional exchanges between characters (though obviously extremely tacky) could serve as an interesting model for in-game conversations. More actual conversations and less "deliver line to further story".

Although for really interesting conversations, I'd rather see designers look at Tarantino films for ideas.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by Stinger

It probably would be feasible, again from a developing standpoint, to produce a 3-4 hour game every month, and distribute it online...would have to be properly tested and proofed, of course. I'd probably pay $5, maybe even $7, for that. But I don't think I'd cough up $10 a month for something so short. I'd pay $50 or $60 for a year in advance, too, if I could support it that way.

So I guess the ultimate question would be commercial success...but we'll never know until someone tries!

You've got me kind of excited about the idea.

Distribution will definitely be a major problem, but if they have a good production process so they can guarantee that they will deliver a new game, say each month or every other month (regualar interval at least), then it would even be feasible to do it in shops I think. If the built up customer base know to expect a new game at some time and get it, they are prone to get stable customers. And a subscription as you suggest would also be a nice way to get it (wouldn't it be nice if you knew you'd get a game each month in the mail?).