The first season of Dispatch recently proved there's something to be said for episodic releases in video games. Releasing two episodes weekly for four weeks helped the superhero narrative game gain momentum, as Dispatch garnered over two million players – and while the business model may have worked, developer AdHoc Studios doesn't advise it.
CEO Michael Choung explains why to Knowledge, providing some background to his team's decision. "Everyone was telling us not to do it. We had internal debates about it, but the story was always structured that way," he describes.
"A lot of the reasons for it we're now seeing the results of. There would just be a longer time period for it to be covered,” he says. "TV has been doing it for 70 years. We knew that it gives a 'The train is leaving the station, but not just yet – I can still make it' kind of feeling across weeks, and people catch on."
He notes that week-on-week, playership "kept doubling" as more saw Dispatch and decided to dive in – but he's unequivocally clear: this is not an advisable way to put out a game. "It's insane to do. From every metric, from a production perspective, no one should do this," he states. "If you think episodic alone is going to be the thing that dictates success for you, then good luck!"
AdHoc features several devs from Telltale Games, including Choung himself, giving them quite a bit of combined knowledge on digital stories and fragmented shipping. The difference maker is the same as ever: good storytelling.
"If the creative is strong, you can cut it up however you like, and it probably is going to make it through, even if it's a poor decision," he muses. "If we'd said, 'We're just going to release the whole thing,' it probably would have done OK. But it probably wouldn't have been as big as this. From a production perspective, we released four times. We were basically a live-service game for a month."
Dispatch's success shows a way forward for a struggling AA narrative genre
