Rapture

The deal of the video game century came out a few days ago, the Orange Box, a fifty dollar expenditure that came with 3 new games and two old but high quality ones. Personally I love it, it's awesome, lots of people have it, they did a really good job. But I want to address mostly the title in it Half-Life 2 Episode 2.

Episodic content is a business model wherein a company saves money/resources on developing new models/engines etc by extending a game's life through smaller installments of a game they have already released. Instead of making new enemies and weapons and updating the entire engine they release new maps with new scripting that provide varied gameplay and scenarios not previously encountered in the first part of the game. They then sell these 'episodes' for smaller amounts of money, but thereby hold the interest of the gaming population and roll in more dough. Of course this seems like a smart move, but there a few problems as I see it. (Tom Sennett and I had a conversation about this so some of this may be his speculation as well.)

1. Episodes need to be released on a timely schedule or their small size is bunk.
Valve has a serious problem with this. Rather than releasing new episodes say, every two months, it took several years to get out both Episode 1 and Episode 2. After long release periods like this, an episode's short length is inexcusable. Valve took their time to develop their engine even further, so that they could integrate longer draw distances, new shaders etc. This is not how episodic content should be working. Valve is still successful because of the massive gaming community they have addicted to their games and the high quality of their episodes, but a startup game would struggle to break in if it only released episodes and only after long periods of time.

2. The initial investment of time and money into making the engine and the first textures/models etc.
Half-Life 2 episodes are bought in such high quantity mainly due to the original adventures. If a company decides to pump out only an episodic model of content, if their first episode does not get picked up by the gaming populace then they will have lost a substantially greater amount than if they had produced a full game. They basically made all the content of a full game, except they were planning on spreading it across months and selling many episodes. If the first episode is unsuccessful and they decide not to make anymore, all they have is the measly sum from the first episode, which might have sold at $20 tops. Other companies sell their one-sot games for $50. Do the math. Case in point: SiN Episodes. The first episode failed to sell. The next one is now not really on the horizon.

3. The difference that grows between the programming team and the art/game design teams.
Unless you have programmers who are very multi-talented, they will only be necessary for the first stage and the first episode. After they code the engine, besides small upkeep tasks an episodic game developer would no longer require the programmers to work on their project. Money would be better spent on modelers and level designers to produce the new content for the episodes. Who then pays the programmers?

My tentative solution to all 3:
Programmers should form consulting companies, separate entities from game developers. The game developers would only have maybe 2 programmers on hand for the sake of integration and upkeep. The game developer would hire these rogue consultation programmers to work hard for a short period to create an engine and the gameplay that is wanted. After schooling the developer's programmers, they would leave the developer to pump out the rest of the content and move on to the next developer. In this relationship, programmers would be the brute force of the gaming world and game developers the creative powerhouses.
Downsides:
Programmers are notoriously good at coming up with cool ideas on the fly and thus adding to the project as a whole. Without a serious interest in the game's outcome, this source of creativity may be diminished.

Another solution:
Game engines are actually fewer than people perceive. Many are adapted across consoles and used for dozens of games. Take the Source engine for example: Steam, the console used to sell games directly to customers, offers a wide variety of first party and third party game releases centered around the engine. Another widely used variant is the Unreal engine; developed for Unreal Tournament games but used in a variety of different game applications. The upcoming CryENGINE2 holds promise for shooters and has been adopted by several developers. The Havok physics engine is well-known and utilized. Other engines exist of course (Doom3, etc.)
What I'm trying to point out is that the tendency is towards engine unification. If a game engine were made, so well documented and expansive and adaptable and flawless, this engine would be priceless and become the standard. The new place for programmers in the video game world would be either to join the engine's developer and work for them or to specialize in implementation of this engine.
Downsides:
Working from the same canvass may produce games that all feel the same.

Anyway, just some thoughts.