Previously on Non-Virtual Reality...

It's getting pretty late, but there's something I wanna talk about.

Let's talk about Alone in the Dark. This game, developed by Eden Games and published by Atari, is doing something really different. When I heard they were using episodic content, it wasn't a big deal. I kind of just glossed over it, and figured it was another survival horror game, just another Resident Evil ripoff.

And even if I wasn't wrong and this game ends up sucking major donkey butt (which doesn't seem to be the case), AITD might change the way people play games. We like talk about games becoming more cinematic experiences, but did we ever think that eventually we would be able to fast forward and rewind our gaming experiences? That's exactly what Atari is allowing us to do. When you pick up the game, pretty much the whole thing minus the ending is unlocked. Of course, playing through the whole thing is no fun if you start at the end then work your way to the beginning. But it does do some very interesting things for gamers who don't want to commit hours of gaming at a time. Each couple-hour-long "episode" ends in a cliffhanger. This allows gamers to commit just a couple of hours to the game at a time if they choose to, and just go into the next episode if they feel like playing longer.

According to Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's CEO,

...Video gaming has become an exclusive experience. The complexities of some of the newest games have alienated those who used to play games with their entire families.

And he might be right, but this new gameplay mechanism really shows that Nintendo isn't the only company that can change and broaden the appeal of gaming experiences. I honestly think that this game will cause some sort of a shifdt in the gaming market that will eventually lead to broader audience appeal. It's opening up the boundaries of video games. The concept in and of itself, after all, is focused on making gaming something manageable, something you don't have to devote a monstrous amount of time to. This new style of video gaming is more welcoming than that more "hardcore" games, like RPGs, where collecting one item can take the same amount of time as beating one level in a game of any other genre.

I don't think that Alone in the Dark will be the game that revolutionizes the way people play games, nor do I think that it will be the game to make more people play games. I do commend the people over at Eden, though, for doing something differently and taking a risk. If more developers made decisions like these, we could break out of the constraining norms that make the audience of modern gaming such an exclusive one. And besides, I can totally see myself playing by episode. Totally.

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