Topic: SiN: Episode Two and rest of the episodes Might be CANNED

[MysterD]

From Slashdot

Future of Ritual, Sin Episodes In Question
Posted by Zonk on Friday December 08, @01:45PM
from the not-as-episodic-as-one-would-want dept.
Games

The Escapist blog is reporting that several key employees have left Ritual. With the ongoing episodic title Sin Episodes up in the air, one has to wonder if any additional installments will follow the somewhat tepidly received first entry. From the article: "After five and a half years as the CEO of Ritual, Steve Nix turned up on the official id Software site as the new Director of Business Development. His reasons for leaving Ritual were not made public. Over two months ago on September 16th, Shawn Ketcherside also left Ritual after nearly six years with the company. He was the lead designer on Sin Episodes: Emergence. Today, former QA lead Michael Russell updated his blog with word that he was also looking for a new job. Last week, Russell had made a post calling out poor QA practices at Sony. He claims that the article was not the reason for his leaving the company."

Well, that's not good for SiN Episodes....

Now, here's more....from Kotaku...

12-15-2006
SiN Episodes Canned?

Is SiN Episodes already done? After making what seemed like a minor splash on the Steam platform with its first episode, the Games For Windows magazine crew sounds down on the future of Ritual Entertainment's episodic title, SiN Episodes, on their weekly podcast.

After congratulting the Sam & Max team on actually publishing their second episode, the editors start rappin' 'bout episodic gaming.

    Jeff: Sin Episode 2...

    Shawn: ...is likely not happening now. A lot of the people from the dev team have left.

    Jeff: At Ritual?

    Shawn: Yeah, they've gone elsewhere. They now work for other people. Some of the key people. One of the lead programmers. That's not a good sign.

    Jeff: That seems like a real world thing that's going to be constantly a problem with any episodic game. How can you possibly ensure to fans or gamers that there are going to be future episodes? At any given point the team might dissolve.

    Shawn: And the jury's out on why that's happening, I've personally been trying to contact the head there, Tom Mustaine, and haven't been able to get too much information. What it seems to imply, obviously, is that Sin Episode 1 didn't do well.

Michael McWhertor

I was really looking forward to Episode Two, given how good Ep One was and how cool the Ep Two trailer looked.

I hope it ain't true. It'd be a damn shame...

[sirean_syan]

Sad? This makes me happy in my own twisted way. Sin was the secondary poster child for episodic gaming. It failed pretty much straight out of the gate. Now that just leaves Half Life.

[Quemaqua]

I'm more or less with Sy, plus there's the additional thing that I think SiN is fucking stupid as a franchise and should be slaughtered before it can infect the minds of any more idiots.  I don't hate the developers, and I don't even hate the original game, I just think it was an idiotic idea to resurrect it and I hated the way they were doing it.

[PyroMenace]

After five and a half years as the CEO of Ritual, Steve Nix turned up on the official id Software site as the new Director of Business Development. His reasons for leaving Ritual were not made public.

Gee, $ whatever $ reason $ could $ it $ have $ been $$$... $$$$... $

[Pugnate]

What are you trying to say?

[PyroMenace]

Moneys wins.

[Pugnate]

I still don't understand.

[Quemaqua]

What is kupo?

[Pugnate]

Is that another word for what Pyro is trying to say?

[Quemaqua]

No, it's just me poking fun at you.  =)

[Pugnate]

That was what I was trying to poke Pyro with.

[MysterD]

Hmmm....
....Am I the only one who here preferred SiN Episode 1: Emergence over Half-Life 2: Episode 1?? 

About episodic gaming, I have no problem w/ the concept and idea of it....if the companies actually release new content every few months that would be approximately 4-6 hours, like what the original plans were for such endeavors w/ HL2 Episodes and SiN Episodes.

How those games took so long per episode, between Episodes 1 and 2 for both games -- especially Sin Ep 2, since it ain't even done yet -- I'll never know....

[MysterD]

What is kupo?

"Kupo"....

...Isn't that the word used by the moogles (or whatever they are called, been a while since I played FF) in the FF games???

[Xessive]

"Kupo"....

...Isn't that the word used by the moogles (or whatever they are called, been a while since I played FF) in the FF games???

Yeah, they blurt it out randomly.

[MysterD]

Yeah, they blurt it out randomly.

Well, kupo -- I thought so!

[sirean_syan]

Hmmm....
....Am I the only one who here preferred SiN Episode 1: Emergence over Half-Life 2: Episode 1?? 

It's not a matter of preferring it over HL2, it's more of a matter of you being one of the few people who actually thought it was more than a pile of crap.

[Xessive]

I thought that SiN Episodes had potential. Considering the source material, there was a lot of leniency with the concept. They could have taken the story elements and possibly created a great new storyline, or they could have kept the old lame story and focused on great gameplay. However, according to the reviews I read, they fudged it up on both fronts.

[MysterD]

I thought that SiN Episodes had potential. Considering the source material, there was a lot of leniency with the concept. They could have taken the story elements and possibly created a great new storyline, or they could have kept the old lame story and focused on great gameplay. However, according to the reviews I read, they fudged it up on both fronts.

I do like the characters in SiN Episodes and the storyline.

I like the straight forward attitude and action-packed style SiN Episodes actually brought to the table.

Sin Episode 1 Spoilers and Sin Episode Two Trailer Spoilers

(click to show/hide)

Basically, the Jessica character that was often tagging along w/ you (John Blade) gets injected w/ the serum by Alexis and her corp, in which this injection is what happens to be causing mutations.

These mutations are turning characters into huge, ugly, vicious, nasty monsters, which from the trailer in Episode Two, are going to attack the actual city.

[PyroMenace]

I liked the boobs characters too.

[idolminds]

Interview with ex-Ritual dude

But he did express a feeling that the world hadn't been quite as ready for episodic content and digital delivery as they had banked on it being. The problems of being able to sell in stores also came up with him adding "we would have been better off selling it at $35 than $19. At 19 bucks it went straight to the shit bin in many places."

It sent there because it was shit. People paying $35 for it would have made them even more upset/less likely to buy the 2nd episode. Honestly, you can get most brand new excellent titles for $35 a few weeks after release on a sale.

Along with marketing struggles, the team ran into new challenges once they got the first episode out the door. Mustaine explained, "we could have done episode 2 in 6 months, but we'd have needed double the team size just to keep up with the Half-Life 2 engine." As it turns out, hitching their wagon to Valve became as much a curse as blessing. Besides having to merge the code every time the engine was updated, it also drew inevitable comparisons to Half-Life 2. So, the lack of a gravity gun, for instance, stood out as something "missing" from SiN to some gamers. And then there were the distractions. With Original SiN -- the remake of SiN using the Source engine -- up and running, and the pull of doing multiplayer with the new episodic game Mustaine said that it was hard to keep focused on just cranking out the next episode.

Speaks for itself.

[MysterD]

Interview with ex-Ritual dude
 It sent there because it was shit. People paying $35 for it would have made them even more upset/less likely to buy the 2nd episode.

Paying $35 for 4½ hours would be a crime.

I paid $8 for Sin Ep: Emergence. Liked it. Waiting on Ep 2, still....

About them working on Original SiN on the new engine, why?!?!?!? The old SiN works on XP, since it came w/ SiN: Ep 1. Why we need SiN: Source? I still ain't played HL2: Source, yet I own it since it came w/ HL2: Collector's Ed.

What we need is SiN: Ep Two -- and for these Episodes, if they are going to do them as Episodes, to come out SOONER and QUICKER. That was the point of Episodic gaming: to come out w/ new content much quicker. Valve is going through that same problem: not putting out enough new content quick enough.

If they ain't going to put out episodic content fast enough and are going to go through such hurdles, they probably should just make a full game and charge $35-50 for it.