Six months to a year and I lose interest
Episodic games can be a mixed bag. While there are many examples of some incredible successes, others fall by the wayside, partially due to the restrictions involved with the model. Take a look at Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect, which questionably went silent after selling the first episode and a Season Pass. Others can’t maintain a set timeframe, like when Life is Strange’s second episode was definitely delayed after the dev team previously announced that it would stick to a six week schedule.
Telltale is pretty notorious for leaving people hanging, like the almost silent November to March wait for the second episode of Tales from the Borderlands. But a perfect example of me losing interest personally is Republique. I mean, I liked the first two episodes, and the concept seems really cool in terms of where the overarching story will go. But the initial episode released in December of 2013 — at this point, I’m just going to wait until “Early 2016” to play it through all the way.
I really wish more developers would give us some sort of timeframe before they offered up the Season Pass — this sort of falls into my “Mystery Box” rants of late. When do episodic games start trying your patience?
