BioWare - Embraces Episodic Content

CVG has posted a quote from Ray Muzyka from an upcoming interview in their magazine in which the BioWare CEO embraces episodic content for their upcoming titles:

"...we have big plans afoot at BioWare for post-release and episodic content for upcoming cool BioWare games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Jade Empire: Special Edition and other upcoming BioWare titles, both on console and PC", BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka divulged in an interview with CVG which we'll be publishing shortly.

Speaking further about online initiatives, Muzyka said, "There have been a lot of innovations in the PC space in online games - World of Warcraft and other MMOs continue to expand the business and we're excited about joining that world ourselves with the upcoming title we're developing down with our great team at BioWare Austin [BioWare's in-development MMORPG] - and digital distribution and episodic content".

There are some interesting comments from David Gaider on the RPG Codex forums where we spotted this news item.  Asked hypothetically about the sort of episodic content that might be made for Dragon Age, here's his response:

It's a bit early to say for sure. I suspect it would be on the level of a self-contained chapter or adventure -- not a single quest, but more like a module. But that's just speculation on my part. The big difference between the downloadable content and a commercial expansion, as I see it, is the size and the amount of time it takes to get out.

We can make an expansion that takes 6 months to a year to put out, and while that has a lot of content all at once it might not get out while the game is still on a lot of people's hard drives. Making the contect smaller (and thus cheaper) means it can come out more quickly and more regularly. As long as the price is comparitively reasonable and we're offering something decent, I'm not sure I see a problem with it. If we did put out uber-items or mini-quests or something just to capitalize on a successful game -- yeah, I do see how that would seem pretty opportunistic. If we do that, we'll deserve whatever reaction awaits, I suppose.

Head over to read the entire conversation.