How about selling a game in episodes?

[Purgatorium]

Got this from manga industry.

How about selling a game in episodes?

Say I got a $20 shooter/adventure game with 100 levels. I sell the "first episode" with 20 levels for 5 bucks. One month later I sell the second episode, and so forth.

Will this strategy work with the consumers? :D Or piss them off? :eek:

[ManuelFLara]

It has its pros and cons a well as the typical distribution method (full version for $20):

PROS:

You start earning money a lot faster (when you just have 25% of the game)
You "release something" more often, so you have a reason to appear in download/new sites from time to time (time between release of episodes).
Since you'd already have an episode-based architecture, it'd be easier to keep releasing episodes as add-ons after the "original game" has been released, or just spit the game in more han 4 episodes of 5$
People spend as much as they want to play. If they play the demo and want to play a little more, pay $5 more. If after that chapter they want to keep playing, they keep paying


CONS:

Some people won't be appealed to buy a non-complete game
Not every kind of game allows for an episode-based distribution method
People have to perform the transaction several times to give you the $20, so they have several opportunities to "lose interest", not just one
You wouldn't make as much money selling 4 x $5 products than one $20. Every e-commerce provider has a minimum commission. For example Plimus' is $0.75. so selling 4 episodes you'll be charged a $3 commission, while selling a $20 game it's only $2, which is 50% more. Yeah, just a buck, but it makes a difference in the long run. On the other hand, you could sell single episodes for $6 each and then packs of 4 for $20, to avoid this.
You may need a robust network architecture (see below).


In order to make the user experience against the episode scheme as painless as possible I think it's highly recommendable to have built in autoupdate(download episodes) capabilities as well as an in-game purchasing mechanism (like Reflexive). That way the user doesn't even have to leave the game to either download new episodes or pay for them. You could even, although that can be dangerous, store the CC# and personal data somewhere on its hard disk, encrypted, in order to avoid having to enter it each time the customer wants a new episode. Like how Xbox Live! content buying works. I have friends who never ever buy on the Internet because they don't trust it, but they do buy Xbox content since it's so painless and transparent for the customer.

[James C. Smith]

How about selling a game in episodes?
Would that be anything like episodic content (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=4322)? (in other words, there is already at least one similar topic in this forum)

[Omega]

Yeah, but that was a week or two ago. Maybe the indie scene changed since then? :D

[Purgatorium]

From this forum FAQ "....Expressing your opinion or (honest) criticism, asking for more information or sharing your views on the topic."

My post "Thank you" and "Manuel post is very helpful" has been deleted, why? :confused:

[Ricardo C]

Were they separate posts? If so, they might have been deleted to reduce clutter in the thread. Sometimes it's better to edit an existing post to add a new comment (if it doesn't mess up the flow of the discussion), rather than post again and again.

[NothingLikeit]

well I did bring it up two weeks ago but have since forgotten about it... but the theoretical problem that I came up with was the cost. As has been said you'll lose more money with episodes if you do it through an ecommerce site. My other issue was volume and value. I personally thought 15 levels for 5 dollars was good but some did not. Personally I'm going to try a more traditional approach to my games first and then give episodes a try.

[ManuelFLara]

other issue was volume and value. I personally thought 15 levels for 5 dollars was good but some did not.
Of course it all depends on what is a level. If a level is like, I don't know, a Big Kahuna Reef level, yeah 15 for $5 seems like little value to me. On the other hand, 15 different levels for Zuma, heck I'd buy them for $10! Ok, it's just because I like it a lot, but you know games with content-based levels can work well with the episode thing. Orbz, Space Tripper*, BreakQuest... games where you can see each level IS different, has some work behind, and has not been made in 10 minutes with a level editor, as the other hundred the game has.

*BTW, PomPom guys, when are you going to release your next game? I though it was coming soon! Keeping on topic, a Space Tripper add-on with more levels would ROCK!

[soniCron]

...PomPom guys, when are you going to release your next game? As soon as the patents have been filed. :p

[ErikH2000]

Here's a recent example of an episodic game (http://www.adventuregamers.com/newsitem.php?id=1062). We won't know if it works or not until they've gone out of business or become insanely successful, but it looks like a solid idea. Telltale is selling the first episode of an adventure game for $20 and it plays 4-6 hours. It seems obvious that you'd be in a much better position to sell episodic content if your game was heavily dependant on story.

Regarding the problem with billing small amounts for episodes. If you can commit to releasing episodes on a regular basis, then you can sell a subscription for a larger annual fee. This is what I've done with my game and people seem to be going for it. From the people that buy the full game, about half also buy the annual subscription. Maybe automatic billing at smaller intervals would also work, but I haven't tried it, and don't know if it's a turn-off for customers. Actually, a lot of people don't have credit cards and it's an ordeal for them to make any kind of online purchase, so the annual fee probably works better for me.

-Erik