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SiN episodes already cancelled

Published on 20th December 2006 by Brett Thomas

The problems with Episodic content come to light - SIN has been cancelled.

It's been a little while since anyone heard much about SiN. The first episode, Emergence, was heralded as a great start to the concept of episodic gaming - it was a good length for the money, and it left you wanting to see a bit more of the series. Well, too bad on that last part - there won't be any more.

It appears that developer Ritual is having some issues. Staff departures have crippled the studio's current plans, and caused it to cancel the series. The recent leaving of the Studio Director has been the final straw in a series of turnovers including SiN's project manager and QA lead. All in all, the changes have amounted to the end of the line for SiN, killing the first ever true episodic installment video game.

Now, the loss of SiN is not exactly going to throw a shroud of mourning over the entire video game industry. However, it does speak about the perils of episodic content. Those interested in pushing through the game for some level of story arc resolution are now going to be left forever wondering about the fate of the busty bad girl whom they were introduced to for the low price of $20.

Developer issues are far from unheard of, so the cancellation of SiN episodes 2-9 raises an important question: Would you buy a game that was only 11% done for 40% of the price, knowing that it would never be finished?

Tell us your thoughts on the demise of SiN and the future of episodic content in general in our forums.

30 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

quack 20th December 2006, 17:11

Damn! :(

M4RTIN 20th December 2006, 17:13

i did think the other week its been a long time between number 1 coming out. it only works for valve because of the size of the half life franchise.

Tim S 20th December 2006, 17:25

Tulatin 20th December 2006, 17:31

WHAT...THE...****!?

I paid into the franchise to start on these "9 Episodes" and now they shitcan it after one? That's total ********. Anybody up for petitioning for a refund on Ep 1?

Gunsmith 20th December 2006, 17:46

DANG!, i actually liked that!

steveo_mcg 20th December 2006, 18:10

i only payed about £9 for it quite recently for about 5 hours, so not terrible value better than some worse than others. The point i'm going to make and i'm sure others will also is i wouldn't have bought it were it not for the promise of more! Suppose thats bindi vindicated, can't remember the post but he was saying that he wouldn't buy episodic games for this very reason (words to that effect), whilst i disagreed at the time i think i may have changed my mind. Still like most i'll still be buying hl2 ep2 and lets just hope valve doesn't go belly up!

aggies11 20th December 2006, 18:23

The idea I guess is: Pay xxx$ for the chance that they will be able to use that money and finish the rest of the game (episodes)

Or not play the game at all.

Remember, if Sin wasn't episodic, then these same problems would have meant the cancellation of the full game, and we would have seen nothing.

The episodic model is *only* interesting if it helps get games made that otherwise wouldn't.

Obviously it still couldn't help ritual.

Aggies

Bindibadgi 20th December 2006, 18:44

Oh surprise, surprise. Time to collect on everyone who though Valve would pull through.

Next for the chop: Half life episodes.

Good job I didn't invest in it then.

Morpheon 20th December 2006, 18:48

They could have at least sold the franchise for few dollars!!! Damn instead of just leaving us all hanging.

to hell with episodic content.....half-life ep 2 is taking sooo long that I would rather them just put more effort to HL3 than drag out this HL2.1

Great idea, poorly managed all around.

steveo_mcg 20th December 2006, 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Oh surprise, surprise. Time to collect on everyone who though Valve would pull through.

Its not really valve though is it. Its ritual who have given up. And hopefully hl episodes will survive long enough to set up hl3

Bindibadgi 20th December 2006, 19:02

Yes, but Valve also pimped it as Episodic content in line with their HL2 series and it's also only available on Steam.

Da Dego 20th December 2006, 19:05

I believe back when we first covered episodic content, both bindi and I said "no thanks" for this very reason - either give me a game or don't, but I'm not paying for part of one.

Unfortunately, this was all-too-well written on the wall. Figure that by the time this completed, if it was $20 per ep, that's $180 on one game that I had to wait forever to get to the conclusion of. Nah, I'll buy my full game, thanks. :)

Just wait until EA really gets their heads around how to exploit episodic content...now that they see you can make money and then collapse a project before it goes into the red...

stephen2002 20th December 2006, 19:54

This is exactly why I was planning to wait for most/all of the episodes to be released before I played any of them. Oh well, stuff happens to otherwise good games. Beyond Good and Evil for instance was supposed to be a three game series, just like Prince of Persia, but it died after 1 game. Really good game and you wouldn't know there was going to be a continuation of the story unless you watched the end credits all of the way to the finish.

AtomicBanana 20th December 2006, 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Yes, but Valve also pimped it as Episodic content in line with their HL2 series and it's also only available on Steam.

No, it's also on the shelves as well: http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/productpage.asp?productcode=RM02778&title=sin_episode_1_-_emergence_(dvd_rom)

Valve had little to do with Sin episodes, and I fail to see how this will have any bearing on the half life episodes. This could have happened to ritual regardless of how they chose to present thier game.

mattthegamer463 20th December 2006, 21:35

I disagree with what most of you are saying. If the game is good enough, who cares its still a great play, regardless of the unfinished storyline. Half Life 2 has had me dying for more since 2004 and I would not be totally destroyed if it was canceled after episode 2. I would be mad though. Very mad. Thing is if you don't support the developers now by buying their episodes they won't have enough money to finish the series. So I say buy them, they're great regardless.

Narvi 20th December 2006, 21:41

Seriously, the game sucked. I can't really care very much.

steveo_mcg 20th December 2006, 22:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Narvi
Seriously, the game sucked. I can't really care very much.

I quite enjoyed it, not terribly different from most fps but nor are most fps. The little play arena actually seen more time than the episode, so in that the respect the game has been worth while

Bindibadgi 21st December 2006, 00:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtomicBanana
No, it's also on the shelves as well: http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/productpage.asp?productcode=RM02778&title=sin_episode_1_-_emergence_(dvd_rom)

Valve had little to do with Sin episodes, and I fail to see how this will have any bearing on the half life episodes. This could have happened to ritual regardless of how they chose to present thier game.

Fairy nuff. But still, this is oh-so-a-typical of what I imagined Episodic content to be: a nickel and diming effort that means they can give up whenever they feel like and still make some cash.

ch424 21st December 2006, 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by A friend on msn
left forever wondering about the fate of the busty bad girl

Hilariousity 21st December 2006, 00:42

So what sin is gone? does anyone but two fanboys who read this care? probably not... The sin episodes were a series that were doomed from the very begining and even if ritual was still alive and well The sin series would today and forever shall be known as Half Life's runt little brother, not worthy of any attention whatsoever. Oh and I am really getting tired of finding good game reviews for crappy games just because they are on steam. I bought defcon everybody dies after reading the review on here, and let me just say the game sucks!

DougEdey 21st December 2006, 07:09

The reason HL2 can do episodes is because it has had two VERY successful (recent) games, the parent company gets volumes of money from licenses on the engine and it has good development times.

SiN has non of the above.

Vergil_117 21st December 2006, 07:23

The original SiN was fun... episodes wasn't. Basicly I always found myself taking on hordes of the same solider model and then a different model for the next hour and then repeat with a different model solider not much improvement eh, there there was the weapons or therfor lack of ... half the game if spend really searching for ammo for these slow to reload weapons. The original SiN had gameplay this game had hordes of soliders you can stand and shoot at for hours. SiN episodes might have been fun a decade ago when these kind of games were released. When I first played the game I thought instally some idiot mapper for sven coop made it, with how many badly placed hordes of soliders there are in the game.

Cthippo 21st December 2006, 08:17

By the sound of it, and there may be more to thins than we know, the root problem is that their people all quit. People are treating this like a failure fr an entire business model when in fact it appears to be one company changing strategy due to personnell issues. If anything I think episodic content and subscription models are going to become more, not less common. Is that a good thing? I'm honestly not sure.

whisperwolf 21st December 2006, 09:46

The whole concept of episodic content just bugs me but then I can't stand watching a tv series over 22 weeks either. I'll buy the dvd and watch it over a shorter period of time. I play games mostly for the story, I know I'm strange like that, and the thought of having to wait through the constant delays inherent with the gaming industry just makes me quake with horror.

AtomicBanana 21st December 2006, 13:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Fairy nuff. But still, this is oh-so-a-typical of what I imagined Episodic content to be: a nickel and diming effort that means they can give up whenever they feel like and still make some cash.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand your point of view. Just in this case I think you were highlighting this as a failure of the entire episodic model when IMO, it's not.

It's such a shame, because I really wanted to see what became of all the data they collected from the first episode - I thought it was a very clever idea. For example, collect data on what people tried to use, or spent a long time looking at. In theory, they could then look at that data and try to figure out why lots of players were trying to use said item, and make it do something - A cool example of a game quickly morphing to a customers demands, something that'd only be possible with the episodic model.

TheSaladMan 21st December 2006, 13:38

It's a shame, I liked the first ep, even if they re-used alot of Half Life 2 models and textures.

Funnily enough, I was just the other day listening to 3dRealms' CEO Scott Miller talking about why episodic content is doomed to fail in the long run.

Bladestorm 21st December 2006, 14:52

Aww :/ bought it, quite enjoyed it, probably would have bought the next one..

Not as good as Episode 1 though.

Veles 22nd December 2006, 02:43

I think I'm gonna have to agree with Bindi and co now, while I didn't think eposodic content was a great idea I though I'd give it the benefit of the doubt, I really enjoyed the first SiN episode so I'm pretty annoyed they're not making more.

Also, although I really liked HL2: Ep 1, it just was a bit forgettable, it was like HL2 and Ep1 had merged together and I actually forgot for a bit that they made it.

I think with episodic content, you really need to churn them out very quickly for it to work. I wouldn't have minded so much if they could've churned out a good episode after a couple of months, but if you have to wait longer than that between episodes then you should just make it into a whole game and be done with it.

Aankhen 22nd December 2006, 07:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattthegamer463
I disagree with what most of you are saying. If the game is good enough, who cares its still a great play, regardless of the unfinished storyline.

I would definitely feel cheated if that were the case. Then again, I'm compulsive about these things: I can't enter a story midway, and once I'm in it, I can't leave it without knowing how it ends either. :|

MrBionic 22nd December 2006, 23:05

Oh well, me thinks. This game didn't really look that great to me, although I never tried it out so I can't say for sure.