Are there video games that do regular updates but use the medium in a similar fashion to a periodical comic strip?
This is the root of a game idea I'm thinking of. Because on one hand, this sounds like you'd need to start playing from the start but if it's done right, on a larger periodic basis, it'd be a new plot.
I just described Halo's online multiplayer experience. Or Call of Duty. But for maps and loot and what not.
@jalcine i feel like kentucky route zero was like this, but not quite so regular. it has 5 parts with interludes, released over the course of 7 years between 2013-2020
@jalcine actually, of all things: Splatoon. Really.
"Endlight" is an indie game where each level can only be played once, and every month the developer releases about as many new levels as days in the month. So it's like a comic strip, one level per day for one year after release.
@jalcine One of the big problems with making games is it costs money to make the game but you get paid only after release. And then that money comes all at once, in a single spike. It's hard to get a "long tail" because gaming culture is such people talk about things only when they're brand new, and then they forget them.
A hard, important problem is how to get people to engage with your work over an extended period, or better, how to get them to pay for it over an extended period.
@jalcine most of the successful solutions to this problem so far have been predatory. Monthly subscriptions where it doesn't make sense, free games that find ways to trick you into paying for game progress…
I spent a long time thinking a subscription kinda thing, subscribe for ongoing content, would be a good solution. But instead that idea got eaten by Netflix-style "subscription" services, where you subscribe to a platform, not a block of content, and there's little reason to pay artists
@jalcine oh, there's also the weird way software gets released on the Playdate. You pay all at once, but they only let you download one game a month. Even if it's 2 years in and there's two years of games already released , they still make you wait in between..which is brilliant. Because if they dumped 20 games on us at once we'd pick at them listlessly, but put it on a drip feed and we'll actually play each one
@jalcine another thing I was thinking involved a game with six doors and once a month push an update to stream which adds the part of the game behind the door
Then sell it as "give me six dollars and every month for six months I'll give you a new small VR game/toy"
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