Lombardi: "We chose the wrong word in 'episode'"

[DigiQ8]

Valve's Doug Lombardi has admitted that Valve may chose the wrong word 'Episode' for the Half Life 2 run of games.

"The notion of the word 'episode' conjures up this idea of television where you get something new every week. And people say 'we thought that episodic meant we were going to get something new every six months or every year',



I think a lot of folks in the games industry saw the same problem that we did with Half Life 2 in that making a 20-hour game with rich graphics, story etc. is a really expensive proposition both in time and money.



And some have started making games about the same length as Episode II, but they haven't changed what they call it, and they haven't change the price.



In a way you're charging people $50 but they're only getting $18 worth out of it - that's not necessarily the best way to go. But if you look at something like Portal, it's a five hour game and although I haven't done a qualified study, the number of people I've spoken to that finished the game feels like a much higher percent.

Stay tuned for the full interview on the weekend on CVG.com.

[Marler]

Interesting......

[<RJMC>]

they should have keep the name "aftermath" and so on instead of "episode"

[Druckles]

I think Episode works. It certainly feels like an episode. And I'd never expect the word Episode to imply anything to do with TV episodes, but I would if they imply it themselves.

[Mech Man]

Originally Posted by

they should have keep the name "aftermath" and so on instead of "episode"

I agree , i think it made the game feel more... Whole , somehow. It made the game seem a bit better than it actually turned out to be.

[leib10]

It's an episode when you consider how long HL2 was. When you don't consider it, they seem like full-length games within the story arc of a series.

[Lobster]

I'm pretty bias as a Half-Life fanboy, so I dont think my view counts, but I have loved the episodes so far, I think the main restriction of the naming process so far, is that Episode 3 will still carry the name Half-Life 2 - Episode 3, so it implies that a major lengthy release would be next in line if the franchise continues, which I dont think is what valve wants to do, I see half-life after episode 3 as being of a similar scale, but without the name episode, I wouldnt be surprised if they did this with portal to, thats my guess anyway.

The word episode does draw attention to the fact they are short, but then so are alot of similar titles these days, it does make the product more polished in the end, a good example is Max Payne 2, it was a short game, but it was amazingly solid.

Alot of developers shy away from long titles now because the higher you climb the harder you fall, if you spend 3-4 years on a single release that then flops, you pretty much screwed your company, its easy to say "well people should make sure their game is good then" but its impossible to tell on a project like that how things will end up at release, we have countless examples of games that were destined for greatness, only to run out of development time and force the game out of the door, only to have it forgotten within months.

[Asuka]

I dont think Episode was a good word but expansion is even worse. Its nether. So i think they should have just called it Half-Life 3 Part 1,2,3. lol.

[bigdeezy23]

excuse me, but Valve themselves were the ones who told us that the intervals between these episodic releases would be relatively fast. they were the ones who said it would be like one a year or whatever (or maybe even shorter, i can't remember), and when they had to delay the releases, the endearing concept of Half-Life "episodes" kinda went out the window. just admit it takes you a long ass time to do some great work and put out great quality, and we'll just buy your stuff when it comes out. i certainly don't hold my breath over any proposed Valve schedules.

[Laivasse]

Doug doesn't half talk a lot of shit sometimes. The episodic contnt route was a bit of a failure in terms of speedy delivery, but don't pretend after the fact that it was a problem with semantics... We were given the impression (by Valve!) that the development cycle would be much shorter than it turned out to be, and that isn't a problem with the words that were chosen, it's a problem with the business model that was chosen and the way it was implemented.

The fact that Valve's episodes surpass some other companies' titles in terms of length and quality is neither here nor there. There have always been short standalone games and length has never been a direct guarantee of quality. That doesn't mean that creating short, dense games is the best and only way to go about developing, nor does it mean you should point to another company and say 'they make shorter, inferior games to our episodes, so we're still vindicated.' Lowering your standards is never the answer.

I don't think the episodic content route was the best choice, but I'm moderately happy with the way it went. Episode 1 and 2 are great games. However, I don't think they even come close - nor will an episodic release ever come close - to changing the face of gaming in the way that HL2 did. In any case what's done is done and we still have a bunch of great Valve games at the end of it all. It's just that we're nearly 5 years on from HL2 now and it doesn't feel like we're close to seeing another paradigm shift which brings it to the next level.

What's annoying is being told 'people got the wrong idea when we said "Episodes."' I don't buy that Doug, I think YOU had the wrong idea when YOU said 'episodes', since you had an unrealistic idea of your development turnaround time. And I still think he has the wrong idea if he's now claiming that shorter one-offs like Episode 2 and Portal are the way to go instead of big-project standalones like HL2. They might create a nice revenue stream and satiate the fans throughout the life of your game engine, but if you never decide to branch out and risk a bunch of money and time on a huge new 20-hour project, you'll never make the next 'HL2'.

[m00b]

I feel I should get each episode for half the price of a normal game, because episodes are too short IMHO. They can't deliver in time so maybe episodic isn't a way too go. Maybe they should spend more time and deliver complete and proper games.

[Avoidist]

In my eyes their next Half-Life 2 was Portal, it was their masterpiece of innovation whose only downside was its length, which was in truth necessary in order to not drag the game out.

If you chopped Half-Life 2 into 3 bits, say [Start - BME entrance], [BME - NP teleport], [Kliener's Lab - End], I feel the only one that would stand in quality to Episode 1 and 2 would be [Kliener's Lab - End] as the others had long, desolate sequences such as parts of Water Hazard, Highway 17 and Sandtraps, where that sense of urgency and good pacing dropped away and the fun went with it. The game in general lacks that fine layer of polish that the episodes possess.

Not that I'm attempting to justify all of what Doug is saying, I'm just saying that there is good reason for long development times and the corresponding change in development strategy.

[Samon]

I'm with Avoidist.

[Avoidist]

Huzzah!

[Absinthe]

I'm with Laivasse.