JOHN THE OBSCURE ™
By John Ruch
© 2006
Episodes in Bad Video Game Journalism
I already fought my boss battle against bad video game criticism in a previous column, but it’s time to reload the quicksave and fight some more.
Call it Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The problem this time is a developing pattern of journalists being suckered by the new wave of “episodic” video games, calling them cheaper for consumers when they aren’t.
I knew you can’t count on today’s video game writers. I just didn’t know that meant counting, literally. These guys are writing about one of the most technologically complex artforms in history, yet they apparently can’t do basic math.
Most video games are like novels—long, complex things that require many hours’ devotion.1 Even that isn’t enough for fans, and one response has been to issue downloadable short adventures to add to the storyline.
More recently, this has morphed into creating games—either brand new ones or sequels—that are serialized as short downloads, rather than released as one big, store-bought game. It’s kind of like TV, and the format is appropriately called “episodes.”
There are strong pros and cons to this format. On the pro side, fans don’t have to wait years for sequel material, and people who prefer wasting their time in other ways than a 100-hour video game can savor these bite-sized morsels instead. And episodes typically cost $10 or less, compared to $40 to $50 for a full video game.
On the con side, episodes are generally artistically derivative, often lack added-value features like multiplayer play and often have hidden agendas of corporate control of the product and monitoring of its users. And while individual episodes have low price tag, they may cost more than a full game in dollar-per-hour-of-gameplay terms.
That’s the sort of clear, balanced summary you will find nowhere in video game journalism. That includes the august pages of The New York Times.
In a June Times review of the new episodic sequels for the breakthrough game “Half-Life 2,” critic Charles Herold said that the full game is a “pricey epic,” whereas the new episode version is “relatively inexpensive.”
In fact, the episode is relatively more expensive. By Herold’s own numbers reported in the review, the episode costs more in dollar-per-gameplay-hour terms than the full game.
I pointed this out in an e-mail to Herold. His response, in its entirety: “Yeah, I thought about discussing whether it’s a worse deal but I was short on space.”
And yet he had space to say it’s a good deal—something that is flat-out incorrect according to his own reporting!
A similar Crazy Eddie of video game journalism is Chris Kohler at Wired.com. On Oct. 17, he reviewed the new episodic video game “Sam & Max.” Describing the format, he acknowledged that episodes are shorter than full games, but claimed they are “significantly less expensive.”
Kohler then explained that the first “Sam & Max” episode costs $9, and that there will be six episodes total.
What did he did not explain is that if you multiply $9 by six, you get $54. That is more expensive than full games, which top out at $50 on the high end.
Kohler also explained that you can buy a “season” subscription to “Sam & Max” that gets you all the episodes for $35. That is about $5 below normal market pricing for a full game. Note the oddity here: the notorious full-game price is, as Kohler might say, significantly less expensive than the per-episode price.
A bargain? Well, Kohler himself complains that the first episode is extremely short, even by episodic game standards—a mere three hours. That extrapolates to 18 hours of gameplay. Twenty hours is considered a rough video game minimum, and even then would likely draw significant complaints of skimpiness. Forty hours or more is standard.
Bizarrely unable to escape the Blue Light Special mentality, Kohler, in the midst of complaining, still claims that “nine bucks for three hours of gameplay isn’t that bad of a deal.” It’s a terrible deal! It’s $3 per hour! Any decent full-blown game amortizes to no more than $1 per hour, and usually mere pennies.
“Sam & Max” gives you a below-standard amount of entertainment at three times the price. How is that “significantly less expensive”?
Furthermore, the game has no added-value elements, such as multiplayer capability, that make full games an even better deal. Kohler didn’t mention that, either.
Granted, different games have different entertainment values; three minutes of “Half-Life” is better than three years of “Pac-Man.” But these guys are the ones making direct price comparisons that actually say exactly the opposite when you run their own numbers.
What’s going on here? This much touting of such nonsensical claims seems more than coincidence. Of course, it’s impossible for me to say for certain, but my forays in the world of criticism tell me it’s all about money.
For one thing, critics generally don’t spend any of it on the products they review, having acquired them for free, so they couldn’t care less what’s actually a good deal. It is indeed possible that reviewers for the Times and Wired are so out of touch they actually believe that value consists solely of a superficially low price tag. Imagine offering them a ticket to a two-hour movie for $10, or a chance to see the trailer for only $1. “It’s 1/10th the price! What a bargain!” For 1/120th of the product, guys.2
It’s also very likely that the game producers push the supposed “bargain” angle in publicity materials, though I didn’t find any on the sites of the above-mentioned titles. The inanity level smacks of mindless repetition of PR BS. If companies aren’t hyping the format, they should be: episodes clearly produce a higher profit margin with far less expense and effort and far lower consumer expectations—a consumer-capitalist dream come true.2
As I said to Herold in my e-mail re: “Half-Life 2,” “Shorter games look like high-profit moneymakers with low replay value—a short half-life—to me.”
I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more about episodes as bargains. As I warned in my original column, video game criticism is plagued by lapdog fanboys. Well, OK, all criticism is, but this genre is exceptional, and the problems clearly extend to the highest levels of journalism. If a movie critic wrote something similar about supposedly bargain ticket prices, I guarantee you an editor would at least check the math.3
Clearly, we video gamers will have to engage in self-help and go multiplayer on these companies. I propose we establish a video game maximum wage. Let the rallying cry be, “Pay no more than $1 per hour!”
Call it “OnePerOne”—and $1 for all.
1 I speak here, as always, of the
vastly superior PC platform, not consoles.
2 Not all mini-games are
rip-offs, at least in sheer price-tag terms. The producers of the outstanding
“Neverwinter Nights” games—one of the great values in gaming history, offering
literally unlimited entertainment—have offered downloadable mini-games for a
couple years. The latest costs $12 and offers 18-20 hours of gameplay. Earlier
ones offered about four to eight hours of play (depending on playing style) for
$6 to $8. Now, the ones I tried sucked, which certainly affects the value. But
you can have that more nuanced discussion once you a) have numbers that make
sense and b) can see they’re not an inherent horrible rip-off.
3 Kohler actually made
the less-is-more argument to me in an e-mail received since this column was
published. I had e-mailed him my criticism (before I had even considered
writing this column) about his value conclusions. He was kind enough to reply
in detail, making several fair and valid points. However, his main thrust was
that he was not claiming “Sam & Max” is a better value, but rather
informing his readers of the breaking news that 9 is a smaller number than 50!
In fairness to us all, here are the relevant passages from his review, his
complete e-mail to me, and my recent response:
Kohler on “Sam & Max”: “Rather
than buy the whole game at once, players purchase individual ‘episodes,’ which
are shorter than a full game but also significantly less expensive....Make It Longer. I know—nine bucks for
three hours of gameplay isn’t that bad of a deal. But I couldn’t help feeling
disappointed at watching the credits roll on the same night that I started the
game.”
Kohler’s e-mail to me [paragraphs
eliminated]: “Thanks for writing. Each episodic download of Sam & Max is
‘significantly less expensive’ than a fully-priced game. The difference between
$50 and $9 is $41, which is pretty significant. I certainly wasn’t trying to
suggest that all six episodes, put together, would be less expensive than a
full game. I think the point where we’re running into trouble is whether one
considers a total of 18 hours of gameplay a bad deal. Certainly, gameplay
length is one factor in determining whether or not one gets his money’s worth
out of a product, but it’s not the only thing. Comparing a puzzle- and
story-based adventure game like Sam & Max to a dungeon crawling,
stat-tweaking, weapon-trading RPG like Neverwinter Nights is treading
dangerously close to apples-and-oranges. Even the very best point-and-click
adventures clock in at under 10 hours, because of the nature of the game
design. Creating elaborate puzzles and dialogue with pinpoint comedy timing
takes a lot of effort for a relatively short slice of gameplay. If the whole run
of Sam & Max does clock in at 18 hours, it’ll be a pretty big adventure
game.”
My response to his response: “I
agree with all of your points, except
that your price comparison is the real case of apples and oranges. Would you
claim that one candy bar for $1 is ‘significantly less expensive’ than a bag of
five candy bars for $5? Obviously the literal price tag is cheaper, but that’s
a meaningless comparison, as you must know; unless you expect players to play
only one episode and be done with it. The only meaningful comparison is
dollar-per-gameplay-hour, and in those terms, ‘Sam & Max’ is patently as or
more expensive than full games (and many other episodic or downloadable
expansion games, for that matter). You are completely correct that there are many
other elements in weighing a game’s value, but you (not I!) chose to make this
dollar comparison yourself, and it’s flat wrong. It also ignores the economic
context of video game production; shorter, downloadable games appear to
maximize company profit while minimizing effort and, in many cases, quality (or
at least added-value features). I know you can do better than cloaking this
massive industry shift under the guise of an artificial bargain.”
One additional thought: Kohler
obviously can do basic math, but
perhaps not home ec. And one explanation: “Adventure game” is a particular and
peculiar subgenre of video games, generally involving intellectual puzzles with
a minimalized (but often cleverly deployed) interface with the game world. It’s
one of the more inventive corners of gaming. Interestingly, it is also often a
battleground of game value debates. Many puzzled players would say the classic
adventure game “Myst” is a good value that took them a lot longer than 10 hours
to get through. But the genre also includes titles like the gorgeous, yet
flimsy and extremely short, “Syberia,” which drew massive complaints about
being a dollar-per-gameplay-hour rip-off. I would disagree with Kohler that
there’s something inherent to adventure game design that keeps them short; many
100+-hour RPGs have just as many ingenious puzzles and timing mechanisms. But
it is a curious genre within which to have this monetary discussion.
Update: The final word from Kohler:
“The only point that I was trying to make is that, rather than put the money
for an entire game at once, players can simply buy the first episode. If they
find themselves bored after a few hours, they can stop there. If I’m positive
I’m gonna like that bag of candy bars, I’ll spend the $5. But if I’m trying it
out for the first time, I’ll pick the less expensive single bar.”
Obviously, this is a very fair
point. It didn’t seem like the point Kohler was trying to make initially, and
I’m not sure it holds true for, say, someone buying the fourth episode—particularly
of “Sam & Max,” which, in my increasingly weird analogy, will end up
costing something like $8 for five $1 candy bars. But the role of episodic
games in appealing to an entirely different market of short-term, experimental
gamers is indeed interesting and significant. I believe we can still say—god
help you and your pocketbook if you do
like the game. I also still fear that this is ultimately another case of
title-driven reviewing masking an enormous industry shift that may or may not
(or, more likely, both will and will not) be good for consumers. Meanwhile, we
can at least see that Kohler is at least open to humoring criticism of himself,
including that involving extended candy metaphors; an encouraging sign that his
thinking is full-game rather than episodic.
Posted Oct. 17, 2006.Updated Oct. 19 and 25, 2006.