[MoriartyL]

As an interactive story gets longer, the number of possible versions of the story the storyteller will have to account for increases exponentially. With this in mind, it seems to make sense to sell a collection of several short interactive dramas bundled together. Do you think such a collection could sell in the current market, and if so, is this something you are considering?

[David Cage]

Good question.

I guess you are talking about episodic content. Maybe you know that the initial plan with Fahrenheit was to release it as episodes, exactly like a tv series.

I definitely think that the episodic format as a brilliant future, especially as downloadable content on next gen consoles and PC.

There are some discussions at the moment with different publishers on this idea. This is something that will definitely happen in a near future.

[MoriartyL]

Actually, no. That's not what I meant. I mean a collection of short stories, in the same way you might buy a book of several short stories by a certain author. The reasoning being that it seems much more feasible to create depth and branching paths in a short game than in a long one, while as consumers gamers are looking for a certain length from their games which can be filled by packaging several stories together.

[fov]

Interesting idea. I don't see why the same episodic content David's talking about couldn't be bundled together eventually (when all the episodes have been released) and sold that way. Then players get the best of both worlds... immediacy for those who want to play an episode right away, or a nice collection for those who don't mind waiting.

This is a little off topic, but MoriartyL, you might want to check out Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (if you can find it). It's a game based on a collection of short stories and does essentially what you're suggesting.

[MoriartyL]

The difference is that with episodic content one episode will generally flow into the next, the result being that it is no more easily managed than a full-length game.

[fov]

Are you thinking short games that all had the same characters, or that featured entirely different characters? Like, would they all be related somehow or would they be entirely different little things (which many short story collections are)?

I'd think that the first way would be easier, because you get to reuse your assets (this is actually what Telltale Games is doing, but their plan is to release the games individually rather than as a bundle).

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by fov

Are you thinking short games that all had the same characters, or that featured entirely different characters? Like, would they all be related somehow or would they be entirely different little things (which many short story collections are)?

I'd think that the first way would be easier, because you get to reuse your assets (this is actually what Telltale Games is doing, but their plan is to release the games individually rather than as a bundle).

More likely separate characters, so that the stories should have no impact on each other whatsoever.

[David Cage]

You make an interesting point. But it is likely that if such interactive short stories exist, they would be delivered as episodic content. We have a project like that, that I hope I will have the opportunity to develop.

The main difficulty is that you need to find people able to write these short stories. As the format is brand new, there are not so many people out there ready to write it... yet.

[Orange Brat]

@David: What is your opinion on online distribution...particularly for episodic based adv. game series like Bone?