Mark Rein is at it again

[Jasonps3]

Mark "Controversy" Rein is at it again:

Develop Conference: Mark Rein attacks "broken" episodic gaming model
GamesIndustry.biz staff 17:56 12/07/2006
Epic Games VP talks tough on new distribution model

Epic Games vice president Mark Rein shocked delegates at the Develop Conference in Brighton today when he declared that episodic development models made little sense, saying he thought the concept was a "broken business model".

During his keynote address entitled "Avoiding the pitfalls of the next generation" Rein - whose company develops the Unreal Engine 3 technology popular with next-gen developers - said that he'd heard plenty said about episodic content but very little that actually made sense.

"Customers are supposed to buy half a game... then wait six months for an episode?" he asked rhetorically.

"When I put a game down, I want to try a new one," he said, before going on to claim that episodic games would "inevitably" recycle content, implying that gamers will be bored as a result.

He also felt that episodic games would fail at retail because "you can't buy retail marketing with a wholesale price of $15" and "distribution without marketing is worthless".

Rein's controversial views are seemingly at odds with a lot of his fellow PC developers, including Valve whose Steam model is considered very successful, and his views prompted howls of derision from a number of delegates.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Howls. haha.
I think he raises some good points, and it's good to see someone who is outspokenly in opposition to that model, as it might not be all it's cracked up to be. I agree though when I buy a game I want the whole damn game, not a part of it where I can download the rest later on.

[xbdestroya]

I sort of think a middle-of-the-road approach might be best.

Wasn't it SquareEnix that was advocating something similar to a completed game, broken up into chapters? Where the first chapter is free - essentially a demo of sorts - and where the additional portions of the game can be purchased as long as the player is still enjoying the game? It's sort of episodic, but sort of not.

Anyway we'll see what happens. Obviously this model can't become the whole industry, because there are simply some people who will nto have their consoles hooked up to a broadband connection.

(Not to mention, if if takes off *too* much, hard drives will have to start to act like memory cards with all the content out there. Either that or players will have to tolerate re-downloading titles they want to go back to a year later or whatever.)

[Epix]

Howls. haha.
I think he raises some good points, and it's good to see someone who is outspokenly in opposition to that model, as it might not be all it's cracked up to be. I agree though when I buy a game I want the whole damn game, not a part of it where I can download the rest later on.

I agree, with the exeception of MMORPG's where you're very unlikely to achieve everything the game has to offer before the game expands again.

Basically, I think the concept of episodic content is genre sensitive. It seems well suited for RPG's but not as suited for sports games and such.

[cliffbo]

+rep to Mark Rein. its good to see someone in the industry with some balls. now all we can hope for is that other devs follow suit. Sony are likely to follow the Asian online model which is completely free and makes money with micro payments. by the way its very successful over there... heres hoping.

[Saibo]

Howls. haha.
I think he raises some good points, and it's good to see someone who is outspokenly in opposition to that model, as it might not be all it's cracked up to be. I agree though when I buy a game I want the whole damn game, not a part of it where I can download the rest later on.

Why is everyone so negative about eposidic games? IMO HL2 has been a good way to appoarch the problem, you get a full game, and you can download/buy new chapters as development progresses. The chapter themeselves are "half a game" . Thats one way to appoarch it, now if you look at Shen Mue, its totally eposidic your getting a full game, a full game can have multiple eposide(chapters). Then the following game is another full game,etc repeat.

Doing things the "Shen Mue" way is hella risky though..

[VG Aficionado]

Not really PS3 related, but:

Rein blasts Intel for "killing" PC gaming (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18292)

[sudzy]

The more I read on the whole eposodic game thing the more torn I become. At first I was really geeked about it, now I have some concerns.
I just don't want to be nickle and dimed to death.

[VG Aficionado]

I think I wouldn't want to pay 70 € for a game to find out that 30% or more of its total content will only be available by paying and downloading it off the online platform.

However, if said game launched at half the price or a bit more than half, I wouldn't mind episodic content at a reasonable price as long as I liked the game so far.

[CARTIER90]

VG ^^^, i really doubt that devs would be as 'mean' as that ....surely :), the idea of breaking up a GTA into seperate purchases per area makes me wanna baulk......why not just make fu***n ace ENTIRE games that sell millions as been the case for the past 20 years?....
Perhaps devs have caught on to the great VFM that certain 'long' games bring : so they think 'hell, lets give them the cake one crumb at a time' - this way, we end up paying 300 bucks per slice !.....

[Beenie Man]

Everything is money so...:whip:

[rpgamer_2k5]

They are not going to be breaking up games, instead these packages would be like an expansion pack. If the game is incomplete, broken up in pieces and short then it's likely going to fail in sales.

[Hrama]

I agree. Give me a full game for my money and then expand upon it for there. If a game is only 30% complete, even if sold at a lower price point, it's kind of pointless almost. If you need to buy episodes just to get 100% of a game then that is probably going to amount as a gross overpayment. I'd rather have a complete game from the beginning and then let the developers build it from there.

[Beenie Man]

Lets hope what you guys just speculated doesn't come true.:nono:

[VG Aficionado]

They are not going to be breaking up games, instead these packages would be like an expansion pack. If the game is incomplete, broken up in pieces and short then it's likely going to fail in sales.That's what I'd like to believe. However, I think this is not the case with Alone In The Dark 5. Unless I'm terribly wrong, I've got the feeling I read that they intend to release just about half of the game on the disc and leave it unconcluded (not in the same way as HL2; just worse) by the time you finish it. The other half will be episodic content downloadable upon purchase. If they released this game at the same price as full games, I'd feel ripped off.

Besides, if it turns out to be like that at all, AITD5 will be a failure among gamers that do not play online and/or are not willing to pay for downloadable content whatever the reason is.

We'll see.

[EvilTaru]

Not really PS3 related, but:

Rein blasts Intel for "killing" PC gaming (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18292)

It is a legitimate point, but it's interesting how Rein stayed away from pointing out the real fact that MS has been trying to cannibalize the PC games market with the xbox and now the xbox360.