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stonebro: That's a pretty loose definition of "episodic". Seems more like "games that end on a so far unresolved cliffhanger with vague intentions of following up" to me. Then I can mention lots too.
Whenever a whole story is told in several parts (in other words: episodes) the game can safely be called episodic. That is the case with all games I mentioned. Heck, most of them even have 'Episode X' in their title! So I don't think my definition is loose, it's spot on.

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stonebro: I think the episodic format makes a lot of sense for a small developer to seek to "exploit" their consumer base's trust to get an advance on profits to improve cash flow, and I encourage people I know to buy into that trust.
That's certainly a call you can make for yourself. However, being an avid gamer since the early 80s I have been burned too many times by too many companies to put any trust into them at all. And if you read the thread more carefully you will see I am not the only one who dislikes buying trust. I'd prefer to buy a (finished) game.

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stonebro: Of course, I expect an episodic game to come at a lower price point than a full retail release. Telltale have hit a good price point. I actually consider their games fairly cheap, at less than half of "accepted" retail price ($50-$60) for a "season" of one of their episodic games (pre-order price). Seeing as how they're expanding the episodic model to yet more games and licenses, it seems enough consumers agree with me.
Wow, you are way out of touch with today's market prices. Let me quote prices for some new AAA games:

Battlefield 4 28.79 €, Batman Arkham Origins 18.00 €, The Night of the Rabbit Premium Edition (PC + Mac) 15.99 €, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 15.59 €, Watch Dogs (Pre-Order) 33.99 €

And we are talking about physical products with free shipping here.

If we consider the fact that Telltale delivers only downloads and the production quality of their games does not even come close to AAA games they should charge 5-7 € at best. Converted and rounded up that's around 10$. 25$ is overpriced. I'm not saying 25$ is unreasonable but compared to what you can get for that money it is simply too much.

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stonebro: I don't understand why people get worked up about this stuff. It's a valid model that can be good for everybody when executed right, so there's no need to blankly refuse a game just because it comes in whatever number of episodes.
You are missing the fact that even when a developer is usually reliable there is never a guarantee. The company could go bankrupt or be bought up. Or key people on a project could leave the company. Or die of lung cancer (RIP Dani). And then the rest of the episodes either turn up missing or suffer from a massive quality drop.

When anything goes wrong it's always the customer who gets screwed. That's why from my point of view episodic games simply do not exist until they are finished. And only then am I going to decide whether the asked price of admission is worth it or not.

And that is just as much a legitimate opinion on episodic games as yours, whether you understand it or not.

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Leroux: I never knew A Vampyre Story was an episodic game ... Haven't played it yet. Wasn't there two Bone games, or is The Great Cow Race just an "expansion" to the first game? Still unfinished though, in any case.
Yes, when the developer ran out of money Vampyre Story was split into 2 parts to enable the developer to finish the game with the money from the first part. Even though the game was quite fun it wasn't marketed very well and didn't see sufficient sales. As a result the second part was never finished and buyers ended up with an incomplete game.

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Leroux: EDIT: Apparantly Winter Voices returned and was eventually completed, but only re-sold on Steam, screwing everyone who had bought the first episodes from other stores?
That's exactly the kind of screwing I was talking about.
Post edited December 28, 2013 by Geralt_of_Rivia
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cannard: "Procedurally generated..." - meaning "we were too lazy to actually design levels so we had our random level generator do it for us!"
Programming a random level generator is actually a lot harder than just making a level by hand. On the other hand, once they have it working, all they need to do is add more assets to the generator to produce more levels. What's unfortunate is the time it takes to create a decent generator, of which they could probably finish all the levels in the entire game within a smaller time period.
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Not so much a bullet point, but when there is a female in revealing clothing on the front cover I tend to just skip the title.

With regards to bullet points, This game features masterful/epic/the best "insert attribute" of the entire genre. I think that's quite a large claim that is often times is unfounded.
Post edited December 28, 2013 by elendiel7
Skipping over genre preferences and the fact that I never buy anything by EA or Ubisoft (and no, I don't pirate them either), here's shite off the top of my head:

1) "By the people who gave us X"
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If, say, a game was advertised as being from the same people who gave us The Witcher 2 or Divinity: Dragon Commander, I would become more interested in a heartbeat. However, the strategy is misused more often than not. An extra special mention for everything by David Cage.

2) "It's hard" / "Old-school challenge" / some such.
I like games to be challenging, which is why I often go for Hard difficulty these days. I don't even mind games like Hotline Miami or VVVVVV where you die often, because you aren't penalized terribly if you do fail. However, developers need to distinguish between tough but fair challenge and annoying bullshit.

3) "Up to X hours of gameplay"
"Up to" -> you'll likely spend about a quarter of that because you don't want to fuck around for 100% completion. Long games are not an automatic turn-off for me - they do have their time and place - but I take official claims about game length with mountainous piles of salt.

4) "Cinematic"
Fuck off.

5) "Be anything you want to be"
You don't need to tell me that. I play video games partly because they enable me to do things and visit worlds that I otherwise cannot, and therefore you game that allows me to choose from eight races, ten character classes and fifteen backgrounds is about as restricting to me as the racing simulator where I am an aspiring racing driver with ten quid and my mom's old Ford Escort.

6) "Multiplayer"
Again, not an automatic turn-off, but I prefer singleplayer games on the vast majority of occasions.

7) "Funny" / "includes writing by comedian X" / such
It's up for me to decide if the game is funny, alright?

8) "Person X's game Y" (i.e. John Romero's Daikatana, American McGee's Alice, Clive Barker's Undying and Tom Clancy's pretty much everyfuckingthing)
I think this is pretty self-explanatory.

9) "Episodic"
Another not-an-immediate-turn-off, but I'll only buy it once you've finished the whole thing or if I'm convinced that you never will (i.e. SiN, Half-Life 2).

10) "Mature"
It's likely everything but.
"Immersive!"

As far as corporate buzzwords go, I hope this one will have run its course very soon. It has become a dirty word ever since Eidos Montreal attached it to their abominable Thiaf reboot.
most f2p/microtranscation.

These can be done well, but its so rare i approach these games with lost cause mentality.
Highlight function
You know, those P'n'C games where items you can interact with are highlighted? (BS1,2 and Gabriel Knight Remakes, I'm looking at you.) The highlight function is basically just a built-in walkthrough that you can't disable. Who wants to play a game that tells you exactly what to do to beat it? Not me.

****** reguired
****** can be replaced with Steam, Uplay, Origin, Rockstar Social Club, Games for Windows Live, Internet Connection, etc etc. I don't want to sign into anything to play a game, and I never play multiplayer games, so why is internet connection required?

A gazillion hours of gameplay
TES is my favorite game series, but sadly, as a full-time college student working two jobs I don't have the patience for games that take hundreds of hours to beat. I'll play games in this category when I retire in 50 years.

Multiplayer
I play games to take a break from the real world, so I do not want the real world to follow me into the games I play. Also, it breaks my immersion when I slay dragons with "hOtbABe69".
Online Broadband Required

Multiplayer

MMO

Achievements

Gamepad required

Putting dubious awards on the cover:
Best Game award winner by Jimbo's Blog

Putting obscure magazine quotes on the cover
"This game kicks righteous ass" says Jimbo's buddy
Post edited May 01, 2014 by VABlitz
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011284mm: ...

Tages, SecureRom, DRM
F2P
Multiplayer centric gameplay
Online connection required
Online activation
Uplay
Also, when the sequel to a game I love has "Streamlined" and "Sequel to LAST YEAR'S bestseller"

Oooooh, rushed, short and dumbed down, where do I sign up! Also "Innovative" - there's no better way for PR speak to let me know the game is "samey" and derivative of the flavor of the month than to yell at me that no, really it isn't!
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AlKim: 10) "Mature"
It's likely everything but.
*edit* And LOL there was a comedian or something I read years ago that pointed out whenever something was rated or intended for a "Mature" audience, it was because it included boobs, swearing, violence and more often than not handled in the LEAST mature way possible.
Post edited May 01, 2014 by Ixamyakxim
"BEST OF E3"- An event meant to conjure good press, where meticulous care is taken to ensure that the people and press are excited for the product. Why should that be included on anything's case?

"WRITTEN BY HOLLYWOOD WRITER ________" Because Hollywood and games are totally inevitably compatible.

'NEW MMO" Deal breaker, for me anyway (I know plenty of people have fun with this sort of thing).

Anything about revitalizing a franchise or the like.

"SEQUEL TO BESTSELLING FRANCHISE" Not the biggest one, but kind of annoying to see the industry dominated by "BESTSELLING SEQUELS TO BEST SELLING SEQUELS!!!"

Any online requirements.

That's about it... for now.