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[Culise]

feel free to complain to half the devs/publishers that called them episodes then.

And released multiple pay-for episodes rather than just one.  F'rex, Commander Keen was 6 episodes in total...no, looking it up, they actually did 7.  Mea culpa.  Same source (Just wiki, skimming the Id Software lists) says Doom was 3, plus one that could legitimately be considered an expansion pack.  I can't actually think of an episodic shareware game that had one shareware episode and one pay-for episode.  Even if you didn't need to pay for the first episode, the rest were delivered episodically in the sense that you bought ongoing episodes as separate purchases. 

[Nick K]

feel free to complain to half the devs/publishers that called them episodes then.

And released multiple pay-for episodes rather than just one.  F'rex, Commander Keen was 6 episodes in total...no, looking it up, they actually did 7.  Mea culpa.  Same source (Just wiki, skimming the Id Software lists) says Doom was 3, plus one that could legitimately be considered an expansion pack.  I can't actually think of an episodic shareware game that had one shareware episode and one pay-for episode.  Even if you didn't need to pay for the first episode, the rest were delivered episodically in the sense that you bought ongoing episodes as separate purchases.

Doom was sold as a full game with 3 chapters, the first of which was available for free as the shareware version. You didn't pay separately for chapters 2 & 3.

[Culise]

Ah, OK.  I was under the impression that that was exactly what you did.  Color me corrected, then. ^_^

[Rolan7]

Someone mentioned that point-and-clicks didn't tend to be episodic, and that's true.  A lot of them did have free demos but that's different.

[puke]

Ah, OK.  I was under the impression that that was exactly what you did.  Color me corrected, then. ^_^

Uh... yeah... I'm pretty sure that *IS* exactly what you did. 

It was probably so widely pirated though, that some people never knew you were supposed to pay for it.

[Darkmere]

No, it was not. Paying once got you episodes 2 and 3 both.

[puke]

Oh, I misunderstood what Culise was saying.  I thought you were arguing that the whole game was free.

Yes, you paid once and got all the episodes.

Until Ultimate Doom came out with one more episode, then you had to buy it all over again.

[Mech#4]

Looking at the first Commander Keen's ordering info page, buying each Episode, about 15 levels each I think, cost about $15 US while buying the whole series "Invasion of the Vorticons" cost $30 which also included a hint book, cheat codes, latest versions as well as several other games that I assume were demos.

Apogee did a lot of the Shareware system of games. "Monster Bash" was shareware for the first episode but you could order the next two episodes by paying for each, I believe.

I liked the shareware games, because you got a game for free, but the ordering was really annoying because mailing to and receiving post from America from Australia was out of the question in the early 90s.

I do think that for companies like Apogee, which developed games according to the "1 episode shareware, 2 others order" system, it impacted the quality of the games in the later episodes due to dragging the premise on for longer then it needed to be. A lot of the variety was in the shareware episode while the later episodes had more repeated content.

Spoiler:  Further, but not necessary. (click to show/hide)

 "Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure" was like this in my mind. The first episode includes a large variety of levels from underground crystal caves to techno cities to haunted forests. The episodes 2 and 3 lack a lot of the variety.

[Reelya]

feel free to complain to half the devs/publishers that called them episodes then.

That's just being silly. "episodic delivery" is a compound term. It's meaning is that you buy the game in installments. It's a payment model. episodic delivery is a model based on the difference between weekly TV and cinema. Episodic games release many game sections per year, rather than one game every 2-3 years, and you choose which episodes you want to buy, or you get a subscription which delivers you the episodes as they are released. It's exactly the same as having either one big movie release every few years for your favorite franchise vs watching one episode per week on TV.

Many games call their sections "episodes" (heh, semantics and all that), that doesn't mean the same thing at all. They're delivered to you for a one-off payment that delivers all "episodes" to you in one hit, which is the opposite of the episodic delivery payment model, where you get ongoing access for a subscription.

I do think that for companies like Apogee, which developed games according to the "1 episode shareware, 2 others order" system, it impacted the quality of the games in the later episodes due to dragging the premise on for longer then it needed to be. A lot of the variety was in the shareware episode while the later episodes had more repeated content.

Well, you'd already hooked that person to buy at that point, and the word of mouth was all around just the shareware version, since the vast majority of players only had that version. It meant that the quality of the full version wasn't what was selling the game, and after the demo the company was best off churning out shitty levels for the full version, then focusing on what would sell more games - an awesome next shareware demo game.

I think the modern idea of episodic delivery was only really possible once graphics became good enough that you could keep the same look going for a long time and not have people screaming about the shitty out of date pixel art. That wasn't really possible with 80's / 90's gaming especially when screen resolutions started to increase exponentially around the mid 90's. Right now we have 1920x1080 and most people probably aren't going to care about anything more than that for quite some time.

[Sinistar]

BLAM! CRASH! WE CUT THIS CONVERSATION WITH SOME EXCITING COMMERCIALS!


Shelter weekend over at GamersGate. Don't know much about those games, but apparently they are quite cool? Also, in the same deal, Pid and Blue Flamingo.

There's also Bandai-Namco weekend. For all those who didn't yet get Dark Souls 1.

Also, 1C sale. Mainly Men of War and King's Bounty stuff, but also some other games.

Like Konung 3. I think I've seen those two before and now I'm really tempted to get the 3rd because Slavic mythology + Guild + Civilization + ARPG + wacky UI and bad translation sounds like double fun. Tempted to get the 2nd one too, with prices so low and because I like having all part of the series, but apparently it's kinda worse and the 1st one is also not there so eh.

[Reelya]

So what's the deal with GamersGate, can you redeem them on steam or what?

[Sinistar]

Depends entirely on the game. Some games you just download from GG and that's it. Others, you just get a Steam key. Some have some other DRM like SecuROM but I honestly don't remember if I bought any of those in the past so I can't comment on that.

Info on the right side of game preview tells you exactly which game has what so it's not a blind purchase though.

[umiman]

So what's the deal with GamersGate, can you redeem them on steam or what?

They're a legitimate site. Steam compatibility depends on the game and it should be in the description.

[Neyvn]

Hey anyone having problems with Steam? I can't buy or even access my inventory...
I just get a long arse loading time to a blank window. Can't even access the Webbrowser or App version of steam...

[Arx]

Hey anyone having problems with Steam? I can't buy or even access my inventory...
I just get a long arse loading time to a blank window. Can't even access the Webbrowser or App version of steam...

Yeah, I can't load my inventory either.