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I’m really septic about this new form of commercialization of video games. Let me explain some factors:
– I’m not really sure that this offer in this model and this pricing is more profitable for companies. The advantages of faster cycle’s consumption have still to be proven. What should be discussed is the retention rate for these episodic games. If the dropout rate is high, profitability model raises questions over the conventional model.
– To counter the drop-out rate, I imagine that video games companies will deploy important communications means such as teasing movies. They have to be sure that the consumers will want to wait and discover the next episodes. This undoubtedly represents a significant cost that is not as systematic as in the classical model.
– While in the old model, some gamers ended some classic video games in a few days. Will this format of short episodes suit them?
A Forbes reporter expresses his opinion: “The problem? Comics do not release five issues a year. TV shows do not take two to four month breaks in between episodes. What works for those media does not work for video games because of how long development takes. All it does is create this situation where a huge chunk of players lose interest over time because of an inconsistent or endlessly long schedule.” [1]
He explains in this article that he’s not satisfied with episodic games and he knows he is not alone.
– Moreover, from a psychological point of view, I wonder whether it is not better received to pay once the price at the beginning of the game and then be able to enjoy it in its entirety. I feel that when the gamer advances in the game, he totally forgets the price that it cost him. Reminding him in every episode that he has to pay 5$ to continue playing can become quite irritating in my opinion.
– In addition, the consumers in this type of industry are not always buyers. If it is the parents who buy video games will they be willing to pay much more regularly an amount for these purchases?
That’s a whole lot of questions whose answers are not maybe yet known but it definitely relies on one important parameter: the customer. “The customer is always right”
[1] Forbes.com. (2016). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/02/15/from-the-walking-dead-to-life-is-strange-episodic-games-keep-losing-me/#2ce760850277
[Accessed 26 Apr. 2016].
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Up to now, we already have seen a lot of episodic games that have known long delays for the launch of new episodes. For example, we expected Broken Age Part 2 to be launched by mid2014 but instead it was released in April 2015. The problem is that when the delay becomes too long, the developers can get nervous and start rushing things which can lead to poorer quality of an episode. (1) That kind of problem arises when the episodes are created step by step. One solution can be to have the entire game ready before releasing the first episode. And developers could still have room for bug fixing and optimization between releases. Capcom is releasing each episode weekly and they have not known delays yet. (2) But in this case, the developers have to risk a bigger development cost. It is clear that the first strategy is less risky and implies more flexibility so it is up to developers to choose between these two.
Then, episodic content is a great tool in reducing digital piracy. Indeed, the pricing is highly related to this issue. The fact that you can divide the total price of the game by episode fosters people who were discouraged by the big acquisition price of the ‘normal games’, even though the price of an episodic game is often higher at the end. We can also make each download so it only works with a genuine, paid for game. Besides, we can add more antipiracy into each episode. For example, a good software is Operation Flashpoint, it forced people with counterfeit copies to go out and buy the legitimate product (3).
Episodic games represent a great business model for digital goods and really can dominate this market in the future but this business model is also subject to some improvements.
(1) https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2xgugo/the_curse_of_episodic_gaming_how_can_developers/
(2) ibid
(3) http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_7.html
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The Casual Gaming Market
In various posts on IPdigIT, different business models have been described among the different possibilities in the video game industry. Especially two business models have been explained as the most prevalent ones.
The first business model is the freeware development, knowing the video games that are freely playable for any gamer. This model generates revenue from targeted price discrimination through premium access for the willing gamers, either by providing an aesthetic feature or unlocking a functional component in exchange for a fee purchase. Similarly to the Youtube Red system, a small number of customers from the user base will be ready to pay a lot more money in comparison to the regular users for additional content. In this case, the community size and the conversion rate are critical.
The second business model is the episodic games, that provide shorter games at a lower price in different parts that are released on a regular basis. Its success is partly explained by the availability of the digital distribution like Steam, increasing the expectations in terms of lower prices, lower perceived time commitment and increased accessibility.
In my opinion, it is possible to explain the success of such business models by raising the importance of a quickly growing business segment, knowing the Casual Games.
Such specific target market, among the various types of gamers, cannot be ignored today. Indeed, in 2007, the casual gaming industry was worth $2.25 billion and was growing 20 percent every year. Already at that time, no less than 200 millions active players are represented in the casual gaming market. The amazing success of casual games can for example be seen with the amount of addictive Facebook games that everybody talks about worldwide.
Who are these gamers?
Casual gamers are usually older people. Interestingly, 74% of these gamers are female, which tendency is opposite when talking about traditional video gamers. This may be explained by the fact that these people typically have other activities. Older people have a job and a family to care about, while girls in general might have more real-time social occupations than boys. Being able to attract such groups is a key marketing success, as these people are usually not considered as potential target users in the video gaming industry.
“In the early days of the video game business, everybody played. The question is, what happened? My theory – and I think it’s pretty well borne out – is that in the ’80s, games got gory, and that lost the women. And then they got complex, and that lost the casual gamer.” Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and developer of Pong, considered as the first video game.
The key characteristics of casual games:
Accessibility: A casual game typically aims to facilitate the efforts required to play the game. Indeed, such games are cognitively and materially very easy to acquire. This is heavily helped by the domination of the digital market today. Moreover, the game design is accessible enough so that the gamers do not have to endure a heavy learning process about the rules before starting to play. Finally, most parts of the games are available without requiring significant investments. This means lower purchase prices, as can alo be seen in free-to-play and episodic games. It is often possible however for some users to purchase premium content, such as in famous first-person shooters that provide the possibility to customize a weapon for some money.
Simplicity: Casual games involve an important change in terms of design simplification to broaden the potential audience as much as possible. The gamer can have a lower cognitive implication and can even combine it with parallel activities of the daily life. Having fun does not require a lot of knowledge and skill to develop.
Flexibility: Casual games can be played during other activities, requiring a low level of attention.
Success factors:
Casual games have different success factors that mostly regroup both of the two business models previously mentioned.
Lower price: Such as in free-to-play and episodic games, the casual games aim to lower the price barriers to consumption in order to attract the most important user base as possible. This is enabled due to lower game design and duration requirements as casual gamers do not have the possibility to commit too much time to play.
Lower commitment: Casual games respond to the needs of casual gamers by lowering the cognitive and time commitments required to have fun.
Higher innovation: As the expectations are lower in terms of design, fewer budgets funds are required to develop such games. That is, trying new types of games is less risky, increasing the incentives for game developers to innovate. Further, the increased market penetration involves a higher number of sources of feedback from users, allowing developers to keep improving their games.
Controversy:
Casual games are often criticized from traditional gamers and game developers to have lowered the quality standards of the video game industry. Moreover, by trying to attract as much gamers as possible for feedback and minimal revenue, casual game developers might choose to release an early version of the game which is sold at the definitive price. The danger is that, once purchased, nothing guarantees the customer that the game will be completely developed.
” It’s kind of a passive attitude they’re taking, and to me it’s kind of a pathetic thing. They do not know how interesting it is if you move one step further and try to challenge yourself with more advanced games.” Shigeru Myamoto, famous video game developer for Nintendo
However, according to others, the traditional video game market can survive this trend.
“I do NOT think that PC gaming is over… it will always be the choice of the gaming enthusiast who is willing to put in the extra effort for a richer, more rewarding experience.“Mike Wilson, video game executive and co-founder of Devolver Digital.
Sources:
http://venturebeat.com/2007/10/29/casual-gaming-worth-225-billion-and-growing-fast/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casual_game
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/video_game.html
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell
Kultima, A., (2009). Casual Game Design Values, Universty of Tampere, 8p.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mikewilson300266.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Wilson_(executive)
Di Loreto, I, et al. (2010). Social Casual Games Success is not so Casual. HAL. Pp.1-11
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Episodic games on top of being a new model will also allow for the growth in a certain style of game. I think this is an important point to make as different models tend to work differently for different styles of games. For example, putting micro transactions in a AAA game title like Deadspace 3 is a great way to get to accused of a cash grab. The type of games that tend to work best for the episodic model are games that are heavily story based and cinematic games as this fits great with the structure. (because of: commitment and risk aversion, anticipation between episodes etc.). Wolf among us, The Walking dead and Life is Strange are 3 of the most popular episodic games and they are all cinematic and story based. I believe that as episodic games model becomes more popular this will allow more developers to create more cinematic and story based games.
On top of this the adoption of VR has huge potential to drive growth in Episodic games as it creates a whole new market for new cinematic experiences. VR is hard to make and when you add in character creation and story telling the episodic model fits great. By creating smaller pieces of the game quality can stay high giving the users a better overall experience.
The lower prices for these episodic games is also very important. Especially when we are talking about story games. Replay ability is a concept most gamers are familiar with and with story based games it tends to be much lower. Thus by separating the game into smaller chunks the prices can stay low attracting more gamers.
http://gamemoir.com/opinions/picks-games-episodic/
http://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-episodic-games-games-of-all-time/reference
http://vrworldcongress.com/news-and-media/blog/the-episodic-story-game/
http://www.roadtovr.com/opinion-badly-need-episodic-narratives-vr/
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There are actually two ways of making episodic games strategy: episodic standalone games and episodic downloadable content. The first correspond to launching every part of the video games independently. For example, the firth four parts are games completely independent and the fifth links every part together. The difficulty is to keep the customers engaged in your games and to promote them. The latter is the most spread way of the episodic game strategy. The different parts are in the same video game and that’s the example of Telltale’s the walking dead video game. It’s an even more promising strategy because the developer can have the insight of the player very easily and thus adapt the video game according to these points of view. Furthermore, the next episodes can benefit from the success of the first episode.
We can read that most of the time people never finish the traditional video games and are done way before the ending of the game and that may cause a one-shot experience. Episodic Downloadable Content is an answer to that problem and people often finish that kind of game because it requires 4 or 5 hours to complete. Accordingly, people want more and are even keener to buy the following episode and I think it’s a good way to fund that kind of video games.
In terms of timing, we can see that in the past decades episodic storytelling (The Sopranos, Game of Thrones,…) have a great success and the model of episodic games are coming from it. As far as I’m concerned, I think that the timing must be inspired by these storytelling, not every week but it must be regular and people must count the time before the following episode is available. Developers have also to include very well the emotional aspect of the story and some kind of identification to the characters to create a strong engagement from the players. This way, developers can also incorporate cliffhangers between the episodes.
I think that the problems of pricing and piracy are very linked. According to the fact that the games are shorter, it costs less for the developer to create the game. This smaller cost permit a very diminished selling price and thus customer are keener to buy the episodes. Actually the immediate risk they are taken in buying the game is smaller and therefore the uptakes are higher.
The first cited reason for piracy is the cost of the games. With the reduced price of the episodic formula, piracy must be reduced: an episode of The Walking Dead cost only 4,99$ and the whole game costs 14,99$ (in comparison to a traditional game who cost 60$). Moreover, the developers can make the downloading of following episodes possible only from a genuine copy. In that way, players will go out and buy a copy to continue playing the game. The developers of “Operation Flashpoint” have chosen this technique and a high sales peak was recorded after every release of an episode.
http://blog.gamedonia.com/how-to-develop-episodic-games
http://www.shacknews.com/article/85432/opinion-what-happened-to-episodic-games
http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2012-02-10-telltale-discuss-episodic-gaming-strength-in-its-storytelling
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/10/01/interview-kevin-bruner-and-dan-connors-of-telltale-games.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_video_game
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_7.html
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At first glance, episodic games show a lot of economical advantages as explained in the text. However, there exist multiple disadvantages of this kind of games.
First, the end of each episode must be catchy in order to retain the biggest number of gamers. However, games developers may have difficulties to divide a basic story in multiple episodes as well as each other.
Second, we aren’t sure that the whole game is already created. Maybe the game developer would have opted for an episodic game in order to acquire financial resource in a first phase. The second phase would lead him to finish the game because he haven’t yet raised all financial resources.
Moreover, being a former gamer and an amateur of TV show, there is a big disadvantage in this kind of game. Indeed, once you’ve finished one episode, you must wait for the next one which hasn’t released yet and so, you depend to the game developer to continue playing. You’ll tend to switch to another game with which you won’t have to wait.
Concerning digital piracy, I think episodic game is a great concept to slow down the digital piracy. However, it’s not enough to fight it.
Show lessThe issue of uncertainty about the existence of future episodes is a good point. If the first episode is free of charge, the risk for the gamers is limited though.
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Digital distribution is a method of selling games via the internet. This kind of distribution was first really limited, usually to Japan. One of the more prominent examples is Nintendo Satellaview. It allowed players to subscribe and connect to St. GIGA (which was the name of a defunct satellite radio company that was formed as a subsidiary of satellite television company) and download games and news updated.
The games would be made available for download during a certain time and date. During that time, players could connect to the St. GIGA service to download the game and play it. Most games, once downloaded, could be played without connecting to St. GIGA.
It seems that the market is not yet sufficiently convenient for the digital-only. In fact, broadband speed is not quite ready for all-digital downloads yet, as even in Britain and other obscure places, it could take several days to download a single video game. And when considering the expected size of next generation games, which could be around the 50GB mark which Blu-Ray discs offer, the online infrastructure needs to improve significantly before this is possible.
Nowadays it is not a simple affair as before when you want to play a game. In fact, it becomes increasingly unusual to go to a game store, buy a game and then play it. Now many games are free up-front, but bombard players with an endless array of in-game purchases, some of which are impossible to avoid if you want to complete the game.
Many freemium games often ask players to share the game via social network in order to attract more and more players and have a sufficiently large community of gamers. The goal of these games is to attract players into an endless cycle of paying for rewards that run out, leaving players with the urge to open their wallet again.
Some companies are trying to find a new way of promoting games that escape the trend. Because freemium games are out of control on the App store, Apple has begun highlighting non-freemium games in a new section of the App Store, “Pay Once & Play”. The company describes the section as “great games with no in-app purchases”. In-App purchase lets you sell a variety of items directly within your free or paid app, including premium content, virtual goods, and subscriptions. “Pay Once & Play” are games that charge players once upfront, and then never bug them for more money again. Personally, I think it’s great that Apple has chosen to highlight developers whose games don’t constantly nag players to pay more money to win. I think it’s a good sign as it shows an interest in promoting quality game experiences that don’t follow typical freemium trends.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Digital_distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.GIGA
http://pocketfullofapps.com/2015/02/14/pay-once-and-play-apple-highlights-games-with-no-in-app-purchases.html
https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/
http://pocketfullofapps.com/2015/02/23/effects-of-dlc-and-freemium-micro-transactions.html
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There is no doubt on the current success of such a business model. As mentioned in the article, episodic video games like “Walking dead”, developed by Telltale Games, are really profitable and sound really promising in the future. According to me the main advantage, is that developers can gather feedbacks from the gamers and can greatly improve the quality of the product. However, this does not especially lead to Eldorado … For instance, Telltale Games has also some failures. For instance, the game “Bone” ended after the half of development (two on the four episodes). So, customers paid two times 20€ to get the half of a game …
I will try to address, in this comment, three issues that developers are facing, which are the pricing, the timing and the piracy that can harm this current strategy of developer. Besides, I will mainly take the point of view of the customers which are obviously the main persons to convince in term of price, timing and are sometimes downloading illegally.
Regarding the pricing, the fact that developers propose an addition of little purchases sounds attractive. However, if you aggregate all the prices for the whole game, it can be much more expansive than a classic game where you just have to pay one time. According to me, this has a perverse effect. Indeed, if they have a general point of view, customers could think that they are being fooled by this pricing strategy. Besides, when you buy your first game, the developers manages to create frustration by ending the first part with a really important event in the scenario. Thus, it forces people to purchase the sequel. Consequently, I think that this frustration can lead to a refusal of buying the game. So, if I could give a suggestion to developers, is to handle the frustration of the users carefully because it can be annoying and upsetting on a long-term.
The timing is crucial when developers carry out an episodic game, much more than a classic game where the timing is only important for the investors and the shareholders. Indeed, with the frustration created, as mentioned above, developers knows that people will be impatient to know the following content. In other words, the pressure on the developers is much more present.
Finally, I raise the question: “Does episodic games are a good solution against piracy?”
According to me, I don’t see any difference with a classic game, and in some cases (i.e. if the customer are frustrated), it can be worst. Besides, by seeing that, on the whole, an episodic game is on average more expansive than a classic game, customers have a bigger economic incentive to download it illegally.
Sources:
http://venturebeat.com/community/2010/01/29/on-the-contrary-episodic-gaming-is-a-failure/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_video_game
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It seems that episodic games are a good way to reduce digital priacy for two reasons.
First, one of the most used justifications for piracy is the high price of games. This argument is not valid in the case of episodic games because they are actually quite cheap.
Second, producers can “make each download so it only works with the authentic, paid for game.” But there is more: there is a possibility of implementing additional anti-piracy into each new version. The firms that have tried to do so have witnessed bigger sales after each new episode was launched. This was due to the fact that gamers with a pirate copy had to buy the real product.
Ironically, we could conclude that piracy has in fact made episodic games a more attractive model in the games industry.
However, the benefits of episodic games are not shared equally (in my opinion) because the only winners are the producers (as the players have to pay a bigger price for the “pack of episodes” than they would for a normal game).
Source: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_7.html
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Episodic gaming does sound promising to developers for all those reasons and I would like to add or develop a few to the list.
In terms of the balance of cost and revenue developers do benefit from such business model strategy. They usually will spread the storyline over multiple games, using the same characters, locations,… which will result in cuts in the “ traditional” developing costs. As said in the blog post the provision of games in shorter episodes usually speeds the release times in comparison with a full game, which leads to a more consistent revenue stream for developers. And finally with the release episode-by-episode they could charge more in total for what is in fact a game divided in shorter games. If I may take the example of “Life is Strange” the full game costs 19,99€ whereas each episode is about 4,99€. As there are 5 episodes the total amount if bought individually would be 24,95€ which is clearly more expensive than the option to buy the whole game upfront. I do have to say, that based on those numbers the benefits of the consumers seem less appealing and that’s why developers need to be careful with the pricing especially when the production of a hit game is less than assured in such a competitive market.
If I focus on the piracy issue it seems that episodic games could be an interesting tool. In fact console games are written in proprietary languages and consoles have chips to recognize pirated copies but with PC games it is not the case particularly when bought online as you could always forge an activation key,… In that regard episodic games could have an answer for instance by making sure that each download of further episode only works with a genuine, paid for first game.
Another issue when talking about piracy is the price. It is the number one reason why people would download games illegally. With episodic games the individual price of an episode is less important than that of a full game so it might reduce to temptation to hack to game instead of paying for it.
REFERENCES:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1747/why_bother_with_episodic_games.php?print=1
http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_7.html
http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/08/22/21/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1827/analyze_this_the_current_state_of_.php?print=1
https://www.ipdigit.eu/2015/03/business-models-for-digital-goods-video-games-episodic-games/
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The business model of episodic games sounds indeed very promising. By introducing this type of games release, it attracts new audiences; gamers who are willing to try the game but want to be able to stop at anytime and not to spend to much money. Indeed, if those gamers buy few episodes, they will pay less than the price of the entire game. However, if the game is thrilling, they will keep buying new episodes week after week and ended up to pay the full game. It also attracts gamers who do not want to wait for the last episode to be released to start playing to the games. If you take for instance “Resident Evil Revelations 2”, this game will be divided into four episodes that will come out weekly. So you can buy each episode for 5.99$ or wait until the last one is released to buy the season for 24.99$. So the price is quite similar to buy each episode at a time or to buy the season at the end. Which is not entirely the case, as it is mentioned the entire version will contain additional content and extras. Indeed, the games developers still work on the first episodes after releasing. Thus, by waiting for the full game you get a product more accomplished.
Now let’s analyze the right timing. With episodic games, one think important is patience. Waiting can be a good as well as a bad thing. If the gamers are left with a cliff-hanger it keeps the gamers excited and ready to wait for the next episode. But, a gamer that is not hooked enough at the game after the first episodes, the effect of waiting will make them renounce to play the following episodes. This case illustrates the way I am as I have to face waiting time when watching a TV show. Indeed, at the beginning, I am excited every week to watch the following episode, but if I wait too long I forget what happened last time and my excitement decreases quite rapidly with time. Nevertheless, if you choose like The Walking Dead the right strategy, you get all the benefits of an episodic game such as building excitement, keeping the consumer’s attention and allowing them to obsess over the fate of the game and their favorite characters. For my point of view, the ideal delay to release the next episode is one week. More than a week decreases the excitement and at the end you will give up the season.
References:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/10/resident-evil-revelations-2-will-be-an-episodic-experience
http://femhype.com/2015/03/20/the-waiting-game-whats-the-best-model-for-episodic-releases/
http://www.goodgamers.us/2015/01/30/gr8-db8-should-more-games-be-episodic/
http://trends.cmf-fmc.ca/blog/mobile_games_the_advantages_of_the_episodic_model
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To be honest, as a old school gamer, I didn’t know the concept of episodic games. I had vaguely heard about Walking Dead and Game of Throne games but without being informed of episodic released.
At the beginning of the article I was quite sceptical for two reasons. Firstly because for me the main pleasure in a game is to know that I get value for the money and that I will have many hours of gaming. As an example, I often buy FIFA games, one out of two and for 60€ I play during 2 years as many hours as I want. Secondly, I know that many games maily count on the online gaming as League of Legends on PC or Call of Duty on Playstation or Xbox. I find difficult to combine online gaming with episodic released because gamers want to play with as much as other gamers and episodic games limited this.
But now I see some advantages to that business model. Indeed, I know how addictive are series and generate a demand.
To be successful this business model need to surf on the digital economy (to reach more customers at every released). To attract more customers they also need to find the right timing and ofcourse the right pricing. Such a concept could be disruptful and developers have to find a routination in order to make things easier and to create a massive demand. Concerning the pricing it is more crucial than for classic video games because for a classic game if the price is too high for the quality, buyers only know it after purchase and it’s not crucial for developers. But for episodic games, developers need to set the right price such as earning enough money per game and such as giving incentives to buy the following games.
Concerning digital piracy, I am not an expert but it seems harder to download freely a video game than a song. So I guess those games are quite resistant to digital piracy. But episodic games available online are more touched by this phenomenon than homing games. And games available on PC are already touched by piracy. It’s a real issue for developers and they try to responds with differents methods (PS Jailbreak, continuous new features, console modifications, etc…). Episodic games may discourage piracy, indeed a lower price barrier and numerous released may increase legal purchase.
A real issue for episodic games is their platform. They must be easy to accees and intuitive but also secured against digital piracy. Buyers must fastly have access to the video games.
Finally, I think that this business model could be promising and a solution against digital piracy.
Soucres:
-http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/game-thrones-video-game-series-arriving-2014/
-http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a352906/software-piracy-the-greatest-threat-to-the-gaming-industry.html#~p8pnnkYLBTXbjP
-http://www.gamesradar.com/a-brief-history-of-video-game-piracy/?page=2
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Nowadays, the gaming industry is quite different from what it used to be. We moved from a traditional business model, where you have 3 entities interacting around the game: The developers that will design the game, the publisher which is the company that invests in the game and the retailer which is the physical store that would actually sell the game. The industry, developed afterwards to an online and subscriber-based business model (for example World of Warcraft) where you have to pay monthly tuition to play the game. And finally the gaming industry introduced the episodic content business model where games are delivered in episodes and a single game is split into multiple distinct parts and each part sold as a separate game at a reduced price.
The benefits of the episodic game model for developers are important: 1) they can take one storyline and stretch it out over multiple games with lower costs since they use the same technology. 2) Reduce release time since they are providing the story in shorter versions compared to a single release model. 3) Developers can charge more in total compared to the price they would charge if they do a 1 time release. 4) They can finally generate marketing hype since users would be waiting for the next episode to come out (as mentioned in the article) or in a single release users would forget the game in 2 or 3 years. Note that episodic games are also a tool used to fight digital piracy. Indeed, it does that in 2 ways: Piracy is actually developed, since users sometimes find the game too expensive. Thus, by reducing the price of the game with this episodic model, companies are creating lower incentives for user to crack a game and putting effort in doing so or costing them “x” amount of time and money. Thus, users would prefer to avoid these costs when confronted to a low price game. The second way to avoid piracy with this model is by making each download possible only by paying a genuine for each game and thus players would only be able to download the game after paying the fee.
Fighting piracy is actually the reason why this model has been developed. After exposing the two ways in which piracy could be avoided I believe that the main factor being lower prices for users is a promising way to fight piracy and the empirical evidences has shown that with the game: “Operation Flashpoint” where the publisher sold tens of thousands of extra sales after reducing the incentives for piracy. However, after viewing this article I do not agree on the fact that it is a promising model. For a game to be successful it has to be bought a lot but also it has to be attractive for all gamers. Having personally experienced an episodic game I think that this model do not bring a lot of advantages for the gamer: First, as a gamer waiting for the next episode is annoying, secondly, if delivery time is taking too long (for example: Half life) gamers would loose interest in this game and finally if some episodes are alike or too similar the gamers would also have a lack of interest in buying a new episode since it won’t bring a unique experience. Having said that, I believe that the question that should be asked is whether this kind of model would be sustainable in the future or not.
To summarize, the episodic model has been empirically proven that is a good way to fight piracy. However on the long term given the fact that this model does not bring a lot of advantages to the main clients (the gamers) I believe that it’s a big challenge to take into consideration and it could be the reason why this model won’t be as successful and sustainable as first thought.
Reference:
– http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-episodic-releases-for-video-games
– http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Valve-abandon-Half-Lifes-episodic-release-plan
– http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_7.html
– http://www.bruceongames.com/2007/08/22/21/
-https://books.google.be/books?id=rhKGK_c7T70C&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=fight+piracy+with+episodic+game&source=bl&ots=kzJb9d2d8K&sig=GOSomj6NUHo2ZvrZS3EXbsk6AIo&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=FuMXVfncB82d7gaktoDQBQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=piracy&f=false
– http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1747/why_bother_with_episodic_games.php?print=1
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In the video games industry, there exist four kinds : the free-to-play, the premium, the episodic games and the games available with an abonnement. But, recently, we can observe an increasing of the third kind.
The principle of an episodic video game is based on the division of the game in separate episodes. The concept comes from the series on TV. But in this case, the difficulty seems more important. On the TV, the principle works thanks to the importance of protagonists, to spend time with them and live with them during years, the audience wants to know what is coming next. The video games industry tried to apply the same technique but the fundamental concept is not the same, the developers want to develop an addiction to the game and therefore, they create more and more decors, stories and quests. The system has been produced thanks to the innovation of internet platforms that allows an instant access. This system generates several advantages for developers such as more financial security (the developers can see if the first version was appreciated), can take into account the comments of players in order to adapt the second and later episodes, and so attract more gamers and create more innovation. This concept is also born due to the digital piracy and the competition. In the years 2000, the video games were already suffering of piracy. That is the reason why some developers decide to find a new economic model to avoid the piracy : the distribution of one episode after the other, it lets no chance to copy the whole game entirely, one has to wait for the next version in order to advance in the game. But, they have to convince the audience, so they develop the system of platforms too. Indeed, the logic of episodes on consoles worked not optimal. Thus, the developers of consoles created platforms like Xbox Live, Playstation Network or WiiWare. The two conditions seem sufficient. There is still piracy on platforms (some people manage to crack platforms) but the system of episodes and platforms generates less piracy than there was before because it is not possible to copy the disk and terminate the game if all of episodes are not available. Furthermore, it is less interesting to crack the one episode after the other, it asks time for each episode instead of cracking the whole game before.
But there exist two challenges for the companies : How to get the pricing and the timing right ? The principle of episodes makes the price lower than if the customer has to pay the full video game in one shot but he has to pay several times. So a curious customer will try the game easier than if he had to pay the full price. But I think that the developers could apply several prices. Indeed, there are two types of consumers, those who buy the first episode in order to try the game and those who will buy the whole pack of episodes directly even if all of the episodes are not been issued. The company has to apply a low price for the first episode in order to attract people and develop fidelity. But afterwards, when the gamers are in the game, and that they are satisfied and want to continue the game, the company can fix a higher price motivated, for example, by a longer episode than the first one. The payment episode after episode can be compared to a spread payment for a TV or a washing machine. Both help customer to make the purchase despite the fact that the customer could not purchase the product in one shot. It is a good solution for the casual player, he wants to play but not to spend a lot of money. But, in total, these customers pay more than if they had paid in one shot but this option offers them the opportunity to judge the game for a cheap price. The players who chose to pay for the full game, pay less than if they should pay each episode separately. This technique gives the opportunity to customer to make an economy if they purchase in advance the full game and motivates customers to take it. This combination of prices could provide information about the willingness of customer. Thanks to this, the company knows the people who pay directly the full costs and the people who want to try the game.
The timing is the second important element. Most of players want to play directly after the purchase and terminate the game in one shot. So, the developers need to offer fast the second episode. Otherwise, the client may lose patience and turn to other games. I think that the developers have to concept the whole game and to imagine each detail before starting the game (and modify details with comments of players). All episodes should be nearly finished to make the timing shorter. So, the developers have to combine the fanatic customers who will play the game in one shot and the casual players who will play 1 or 2 hours a day.
In function of the timing of the game, the developers can organize the issuing date of the episodes but a certain level of patience is necessary to keep the customers. Indeed, the fact to wait for the next episode increases the excitement and the player can live the release like an event that should be celebrated. The advantage of episodic game is that the gamer can not play all the game in one shot and thus lose the sense of excitement. With the different episodes, the players find pleasure in that waiting. We see the same phenomenon with the sales of new products of Apple. But the waiting can not be too long, so the developers have to find the ideal timing for the release.
Finally, I think that a combination of free-to-play and episodic systems could be imagined. Indeed, we can imagine that the episodes are free of paying. But the customers who pay, will receive the episode a certain amount of time before the others who do not pay. So, it will be possible to create a new sort of premium version, the customers who will have the highest willingness will buy the premium version and will have the opportunity to play before the others. This option can resolve the problem of timing because the company will give the second episode faster for premium version and the free-to-play system could generate an increasing basis of customers. On the other hand, the premium version generates the necessary revenues to continue the development of the game. Furthermore, the advantages of episodic and free-to-play systems are combined and maybe, some customers who liked the first version will buy the others episodes as premium and generate more and more benefits for the company.
But the developers need to be carefull. The biggest problem of series today is the endless story of the serie. This event could be occuring in video games industry.
• http://blog.gamedonia.com/how-to-develop-episodic-games
• http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/3/5373708/forcing-players-to-wait-is-one-of-the-best-weapons-of-the-wolf-among
• http://www.leportaildujeuvideo.fr/articles/le-jeu-video-na-rien-compris-au-format-episodique
• http://trends.cmf-fmc.ca/fr/blog/jeux-mobiles-les-avantages-du-modele-episodique
• http://www.gamergen.com/actualites/analyse-format-episodique-jeux-video-decoupage-chapitre-probleme-retard-259800-1
• http://www.paperblog.fr/2247039/jeu-video-episodique-paradis-ou-chimere/
• http://map.revues.org/642
• http://laruche.com/2008/06/09/identifiction-aosphere-429531
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I don’t really think that free-to-play game will become the standard in the future. Indeed big productions continue to be release the classical way, even though there are more and more freemium games that are being released. This can be explain, in my opinion, by the fact that as stated in one of the two readings, video games are experience goods. If developers started to make big productions freemium, what would happen to them and the costs incurred if they realized people do not like their games, and have no motivation to do in-game purchases? Some games, like “AION”, were originally released as “normal” games, but switched to the free-to-play model afterwards, because they did not have enough success, and developers wanted them to become more attractive, and could afford that, because of all the players that had previously bought the game, even if it they did not like it. So if the system has to change in the future, I think big productions should change to the episodic format rather than the freemium, so that they can release smaller part of their games at once, and adapt if it is not what players expected. Or release in freemium, but for sequels of big productions, so that a big fan base already exists, and developers already know what they like and the way they play.
For the factor of success of these games, I’ll use an humoristic, but quite realistic quote that appears in an episode of “South Park” which is about freemium games :
“Entice the player with an easy game loop/Compliment the player with flashy casino slots-like rewards and graphics/Train players to spend the in-game currency/Then offer players the chance to spend real money for that in-game currency/Then make the game about waiting, but let them pay to avoid waiting.” That’s true because people usually don’t like to wait, especially for something, in this case a game, where the original purpose is to have fun. The episode also states that the aim of developers is to find the “whales”, which are the small part of players that are ready to spend a lot of money in the game, which is confirmed by a survey made by SWRVE, which points out the alarming fact that 0,15% of monthly players represent 50% of all in-game purchases ! Another quote: “It’s all about finding the heaviest users and extracting the most amounts of cash from them. That’s how you get addicts to spend $200 for a game that isn’t even worth 40 cents.”
One of the questions was about the possibility that an episodic game helps preventing digital piracy. In my opinion, except if developers find a way to prevent a pirated version of a game to read the data’s of what was done in a previous episode (because in that kind of games, you need to have already played to episode one in order to play episode 2, and so on), it will not change anything. Even the low price strategy will not be effective, because I think that the main reason for piracy is simply to have access to free stuff, so even a 2 dollar price is more expensive than free!
Finally, for the optimal pricing, the example in the reading is quite good. Low prices and setting a price for the “complete package” that makes an user who already bought a stand-alone episode continue to buy stand-alone, resulting in buying more than if he had payed the whole package at first. And the optimal timing should be long enough to create a buzz and expectations about the product, but also short enough to not make the game fall in the indifference, in order to benefit from the hype of the waiting-time.
-http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/nov/07/south-park-freemium-mobile-games
-http://landingpage.swrve.com/rs/swrve/images/swrve-monetization-report-0114.pdf
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As it is stated in this text, episodic games seem to become the new trend in the gaming industry. However, it is very limited because for my part, I think a game as “Walking Dead” is closer to a TV-series in which you can “choose” between different stories. There is no active playing, it’s a narrative game.
As it is stated in this text, episodic games seem to become the new trend in the gaming industry. However, it is very limited because a games as “Walking Dead” and “Life is strange” are closer to a TV-show in which you can “choose” between different stories. There is no active playing, it’s a narrative game. Other episodic games as “Fable 2” are more adventurous and the playing is much more active
Even though it has some success for now, if episodic games stay in the narrative, adventurous category, it won’t outperform some classic racing, fighting and the other very popular game genres.
As for the timing, assuming that episodes are released once every six month or even once a month, the waiting time is too long. To make it work and maintain the customers focused on the story line, episodic games’ developers should release one episode a week during ten weeks for example and restart the next year with a second season. Doing so, I think they would have a lot of success as TV-series have (had) success, as HIMYM and Game of Thrones,…
Now, to answer the question whether episodic games are a promising concept to fight digital piracy, I would answer no. Why? Because honestly, everyone can see that today’s piracy is extremely fast. From the moment a TV-series’ episode is released, it takes no more than a few hours to be able to download it illegally. According to me, episodic games will have the same fate. The higher the popularity of the episodic-game the faster the illegal release.
REFERENCES:
Show lesshttp://venturebeat.com/2009/08/27/episodic-gaming-part-of-the-future/