In the rising cost of production now we are seeing developers trying to generate new ways to create the next big thing. Halo is now going the way of Half-Life 2 and Sam and Max with episodic content. I think this new development method is designed to spread production cost, and take advantage of casual gamers who lack large amounts of time. Break the game experience up and dish it out in small doses. Seems smart enough, will it become the future of big franchises?
Another process now being employed is also aimed at spreading development cost and consuming people into a larger experience. That would be the Trilogy. Mass Effect and Too Human have already promised to be the first part of three part experience. This in some ways is interesting in the effect that the first process seems to mimick tv and this one seems to mimck movies as many films such as lord of the rings X-men Matrix, Spiderman have been signing up three films at a time. Will we be getting more trilogys?
Now we are all familiar with MMORPGs but how about a Handheld MMORPG? Maple Story looks to be the first for the DS it looks like a side-scrolling action rpg sort of reminds me of Jump Superstars. Quirky and fun looking enough to have mass appeal, but will people want the MMO experience on a handheld? If it explodes into the next big thing, we may see a whole lot more, how about Pokemon or Animal Crossing as a MMO?
While it seems games are getting bigger, some are getting smaller and cheaper with cheap fun mini games likes of Wii Sports/Play, yet it seems 3rd parties have yet to adopt this concept, with the almost assured success of Wii Health/music will next year see an explosion of this type of content? Even the idea that the VC can be used to download small new games through the internet too. Also I don't see Nintendo as the only company with this logic, Sony and Microsoft have their own version of VC, and Sony has games like FLOW, and Calling all Cars, the developer of Calling all cars also developed God Of War 2 and seems to feel drained from the massive game making experience and relieved to be working on smaller projects, this could be a trend to develop across all systems.
I'm sure no one trend will dominate the market but it will be interesting which ones see success, either way they all seem to be motivated by cost, as this is a business model as much as a entertainment product, I just hope in the end us gamers win.
