I believe that the true success stories in episodic gaming will be story and character driven, not technology driven. Emotions will drive consumers to play the new episodes. Yes, there are other factors, but when it comes to episodic content, story is king.

I also agree completely that diminishing returns is a huge problem facing episodic content. In almost all past releases of pay-per-episode content (comics, serialized novels, etc.) ‘issue #1′ always sells more than subsequent episodes. People want to stick their toes in and see if they like it. If they do like it, they’ll keep going until they stop liking it. If they love it, they’ll tell their friends and sales might pick up around episode 5 or so.

In gaming, I believe that it’s too risky to go forward with a straight pay-per-episode plan. We all know it’s a hit driven business. With a standard release, even a terrible game can make some of it’s money back during the first week of sales at retail – as long as there’s enough promotion behind it. The $50.00 price point makes it’ possible. When that first release has a price tag of $10.00 and costs the publisher almost as much as the full game, it’s going to be hard to get the exec’s to approve the game.

In order to make episodic content less risky for the publisher and consumer, I see two potential solutions in the to the episodic puzzle: subscription and in-game advertising.

A subscription model means that it’s likely you will stick around if there’s ‘One Bad Episode’ and also let’s new users enjoy the previous episodes for free, allowing them an easy way to join in on the narrative. By it’s very nature, subscriptions also help build communities around the content that will result in the evangelism that episodic content needs to be truly successful.

A subscription model allows publishers to adopt the role of television network: “Subscribe to EA Games for all of your sports gaming needs.” as a family of content is more likely to attract subscribers than a solitary title.

As an added perk to the subscription model – people often forget to cancel subscriptions. How many of us realized two months too late that we were still paying for an MMO we stopped playing three months ago.

While in-game advertising is still relatively new, it’s definitely possible that a premiere single player episodic game could be supported with advertising, allowing the user to play games in the same way they surf the web and watch broadcast television – for free.

Of course, there’s always plan C, an episodic gaming business model that nobody has thought of yet and that has no relevant comparison in the industry today.

What does episodic gaming have to do with publishers? This is a game developers decision. The reality of episodic gaming will force the market share shift toward the teams creating the content.

An assumption, but opinion appears to forget that running a development studio requires additional business acumen beyond the reliance on a publisher. If considered, such acumen will force a change. STEAM/Valve alone cannot do this due to the distribution via STEAM being on PC only, and a dose of consumer confusion because they gave their download system a public brand. The name simply mystified the process.

Episodic gaming does have a future. Those interested in the business side will appreciate its not developers who need convincing. Development teams are problem solvers; given the correct business support, episodic gaming will become prolific. How else do developers continue to survive the five year hardware evolution thrust upon developers?

Realising episodic game development makes the idea of game development more attractive to investors. How? Episodic development, on the surface, carries less risk. If you don’t want to touch venture capital, there are R&D grants or Business start-up funds; both require a resolute business model which single product development does not offer.

It all sounds somewhat perfect for developers so here is the spanner. Episodic game development can only be achieved in a stable technical environment; which, for most studio’s requires a greater reliance on external game rendering engines, physics, and some library content. The emphasis will be on game design and innovation. In fact, this is almost an inevitable path if you want to secure non-publisher funding to retain control of market share and IP. Reduced or manageable risk is what makes business enterprise appealing.

And marketing? Consider two types of consumers, digital and non-digital. Digital consumers are easy to reach for developers; set-up a website, release video’s, concept art, screenshots and develop a consumer inclusive strategy to creation and exposure. To reach the non-digital you outsource; utilise PR and advertising agencies. They are competitive markets, use them to your advantage. Why marketing remains in contracts is beyond me; there is more evidence of terrible publishers marketing campaigns than there are success’.

Ideology suggest the demands will require improved quality across game development. Code practices will demand stability, design will demand innovation and improved implementation, production will demand efficient internal practice and large outsourcing networks.

Where gaps need to be filled, industries can flourish – User testing, code testing, game specific marketing, game engines, digital distribution models, retailer P.O.S. strategy, not excluding a healthy game equivalent of the DVD/Graphic Novel product.

Is this death to the publishers? Not at all; but they will need to adapt. They will need to offer alternate funding solutions; some could break the business up to offer product solutions which a developer may or may not sign into. They can develop the retail relationship to support the new direction. They can invest in developer technology, as opposed to stealing it via way of contract.

These are raw thoughts, an overview to encourage further discussion; however, on the surface, Episodic is not going away.

Offering bite size content that you can easily access is the key to hitting the masses. Will level 60 WOW players be as excited about these games… maybe not? But in the grand scheme of a world wide marketplace, hard core (i.e. spend my life playing games) users is not that big of an audience share.

The whole game market NEEDs to reach out and find a wider audience, and I think this is a great start.

On the other hand, it’s not always hard to introduce gameplay episodically. It’s been remarked that in an FPS, the guns are the stars of the game. From Doom through Half-Life 2, linear FPSes have always been punctuated with “Sweet! A new gun!” moments. It’s assumed that in a good FPS, a new gun means a new way to play. (I think Unreal Tournament is a very good example of this.) A new FPS episode could certainly both include new story elements… and a new cool gun.

Some people don’t have the time to finish the games they buy. Buying a game is not only a dollar commitment, but also a time commitment.

I fit exactly in that category. I am pretty much a demo-holic now and rarely buy games anymore. It is not because I don’t have the money, it’s that I don’t have the time. The idea of an episode that I can finish in a single (reasonable) sitting very much appeals to me.

I completely disagree. While new environments or other elements of gameplay may complement the development of a story line in an episodic title, I think the narrative is really the key.