Publisher Square Enix is to make next Hitman game 'fully episodic'

[HEXUS]

Intro and first location pack are $15, subsequent locations will cost $10 each.

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[bridges009]

'cause this has worked really well in the past!

[OilSheikh]

Might as well make me pay for each CGI video and for each part of the dress of a character or he/she will be roaming around naked!

Imagine this happening to an Ace combat game.
You pay for the wings, the fuselage, the engine, the missiles, the machinegun, etc.

[Kanoe]

Marketing Meeting: "How can we get out our unfinished game quicker and start making money from it sooner?"

[shaithis]

To be fair, the "Resident Evil: Revelation" games did this approach and it didn't put me off them.

It's a bit like 90s shareware!

[azrael-]

So, there'll be Hitman Episode 1 and Episode 2 and ...then nothing. Sounds vaguely familiar.

Love the pricing as well, but that has already been aptly commented above.

[Netvyper]

Might as well make me pay for each CGI video and for each part of the dress of a character or he/she will be roaming around naked!

Imagine this happening to an Ace combat game.
You pay for the wings, the fuselage, the engine, the missiles, the machinegun, etc.

There's my new business idea - hyper realistic air-combat. Scaled down to 1:100,000 - so each missile costs you £5, £2 for refuel & servicing after each sortie. I just hope you have a 'training accident' and have to pay me £500 for a new virtual plane!

[Animus404]

So £65 for the UK I expect.

[OniDooM]

Some publishers don't learn.

[SciFi]

Personally I think it's a good idea. Pay £15 play though the first few missions, get distracted by another game and never buy the rest..

I would be £20 better off than normal :-)

[.havoc]

[Otherhand]

Marketing Meeting: "How can we get out our unfinished game quicker and start making money from it sooner?"

- A ton of mostly free press for an entire year

- Never having to worry about your game releasing against another one and losing

- Customers hop in whenever they're got the money spare

- Lower bar of commitment to customers, who will get into it thinking they can "just buy episode 1 and see how it goes" but will overwhelmingly stick with it just to see what happened

As much as I'd like to think I'd be more principled if I had their jobs, I'm not sure anyone deserves to be doing their jobs if they can look at the benefits to the company and not do it too.

[eiamhere69]

The reason they are doing this is to distance themselves from "early access" comments.

They gone out of their way previously to state it was not early access, despite the fact it very clearly was.

They lost me a while back, I'be been a fan / supporter since the beginning (of Hitman at least)

[=assassin=]

I've never been a fan of episodic games, since alot of the time the wait for the next episode is either far too long or it just simply never gets finished. I think I'll give this one a miss, unless they do ever complete it, and then it *might* be worth getting all in one go.

[abaxas]

Ironically we need blame the 'gamers' for this.

People are demanding better and better visuals, which sadly cost money. If we all had intel 4600 iGPUs games could be produced much cheaper.

[rjs675]

I'm sceptical about this episodic approach but hopefully they can do it well, otherwise waiting for it all to be released is probably better!