My Comments on the Telltale Pilot Program (Warning Long Post)
 

Hey there Telltale.

I know it’s only been less than a month that we’ve heard about “Puzzle Agent” and less than a week since you guys have announced the “Telltale Pilot Project” but there still are some questions I have to ask about this new ‘risk’ you guys are taking episodic gaming. For starters let me just say well done on creating a Pilot program; this shows that you guys have taken the next logical step to episodic gaming (in my opinion at least). This is because you guys are doing exactly what you have always said you’d do: treat your games like a season of a television series.

But to me the most important feature about the Pilot Program is that it gives you guys the ability to become more creative in both the story and design of your games. With this Pilot program you’re able to work on projects that are not quite ‘main stream’ as your previous titles are and also looking into new ideas that would not regularly become games in the first place.
But now this brings up my major question:
How does the Pilot program work/is going to work? I know that this may be considered something along the lines of a magician revealing his secrets, but it still is a question that needs to be asked. Who will you contact to think up these new ideas within and outside of Telltale? Will you allow outsiders that you’ve had no previous working experience with come submit their pitch? How many pilots do you intend to do in the course of a year?

I know these are all big questions, but I think that this is a good thing since it means that you guys are breaking out of a regular format and diving into something new, exciting and (hopefully) fun. Will it work? It’s up to you guys, but I personally think that this step forward is exactly the kind challenge that you guys can face up against without much hassle considering the fact that the company has grown so much in such a short amount of time. Anyway in short I wish you all the best of luck on “Puzzle Agent” and the rest of your planned Pilots in the not so distant future.

Anyway I just wanted to throw these comments out there because I think it's an important topic to discuss and think about especially since video games are a constantly evolving medium that still is in its early stages and therefore still has a lot of untapped potential that hasn't even been thought up yet.

Keep up the awesome work.

Harukuro

I wonder if the pilots will only be available on their own or if, when there are more of them, they might be available as an "assortment", like you get 5 for the price of a season or something.
Could help people decide which story they liked best and buy a season of it if one gets released.

Of course, there isn't even one out yet so... Not an issue right now.

That's how I assumed it would work, at least at the end of the program so it's not a mass amount of money for games you may/may not end up liking.

I think we'll get one every other month or so because they know we wouldn't like it very much if some of TDP was as buggy as 'The Bogey Man'

I would have to agree that a bundle pack would be a good idea for the pilots once more are revealed/developed. Also maybe putting them together on a page on the website devoted just for the pilots wouldn't be a bad idea. But as you already mentioned there aren't enough pilot episodes yet to use any of these methods yet.

Also on an unrelated note: thanks you guys for replying to this topic. When I posted it I was worried if people would think I was overanalyzing or something like that (which I admitedly do from time to time). But still I'm glad that I'm getting to share my thoughts with everyone else. So in short: thanks. :)

PS: (Sorry for the over long post again :p)

Have you read Dashing's posts lately? :p I didn't find your post long at all, really.

MY NAME IS BEING DROPPED.

Also, a bundle or "season style" packaging would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? I mean, the point of the Program is to sell these ideas and see if they get much attention. Selling a bunch of them at once wouldn't give any individualized sales results.

I mean, maybe after awhile they could bundle things together, well after the decision of whether or not they'd continue the property or not has been made. But right away, it seems like it would just hurt the program's stated goal.

The sales data will be pretty interesting to sort out I reckon. A lot of people are going to want to get this one because it's a first in many ways. By the time it gets to the forth or fifth pilot I imagine sales will be lower no matter what people think of the ideas behind it.

I'm wondering what other types of games they'll produce. I'm expecting them all to be story-based, but I'm wondering if they'll experiment with other types of gameplay? I don't really understand programming or the technical side of game creation, but it seems like the Tool was designed to be relatively flexible. They've been playing around with different interfaces, now it seems they're trying more "logic" puzzles as opposed to "use thing with thing" puzzles. How far is Telltale trying to go? What other games are in the works?

*looks down* How, sorry. Here, I'll pick it up.

Well, that depends. If there is an option to vote, they could do it right away. Or, it could be way later down the line when they have enough pilots that made it into a Season, they could sell a download of all pilots so people can decide which they want to get as a season, if any.

I'm not sure a standard poll would do the pilots justice. Purhaps a survey would be a better way to discover what players thought about each individual game, what they liked/disliked, what aspects could be improved on etc. But still I agree with everyone else that giving people an entire seasons worth of games has its risks, but I still think it could possibly work as a bundle pack or even a subscription. But who knows right?

Exactly. And I think this survey should be included in the pilot. It should come up after the player completed the game (or, if he doesn't, when uninstalling it).

I don't think players will like to make a survey right away finished the game. At least I would find that a bad decision.

Sales is a good indicators for starters. After that, if you to know more, you can use a survey. But not right away after finish the piece, please!

I'd imagine forum activity and press coverage would be a deciding factor on whether Telltale decides to order a whole season too.

How Telltale will assess the success (or otherwise) of the pilots is an interesting question.

Sales are an excellent place to start, but initial sales would largely demonstrate interest in the concept itself rather than whether or not people actually enjoyed the game after playing. Ongoing sales might have more to do with reputation and word-of-mouth, so they might be a better indicator of enjoyment (and therefore the likely success of a full season).

A decent model for an "immediately after the fact" survey could be the survey cards that are sometimes handed out by market researchers for new releases in cinemas. The cards ask for brief demographic information and have a couple of basic questions about the film. The researcher hands you the card as you walk in, you can fill out all the demographic info during the previews, then at the end of the film you just tick a few boxes and hand the card back to the researcher as you exit the cinema. The key is to make the feedback process as effortless and unobstrusive as possible for the consumer.

For the pilot program, a single question like "Would you buy another game in this series?" might be ok at the end of the game, but anything longer or more involved than that could be extremely irritating for the player. Additionally, while that question provides a general idea of the response to the game, it doesn't give you any granularity - what did people like about the game, what did they hate? WHY would or wouldn't they buy another installment? This is stuff that you'd probably want to know if you were going to progress the pilot to a full-fledged season.

Maybe a more detailed email survey sent, say, 2 weeks after the game is purchased would be useful and get a decent response. Customers could opt-in at the time of purchase. An analysis of critics' reviews would serve a similar function, although the sample size is obviously going to be smaller, and you can't necessarily slot their opinions into pre-defined questions - the data would probably be more qualitative than quantitative.

I'm sure that whatever Telltale does, they'll refine the feedback process as the pilot program develops. In this context it seems like something that is pretty important to get right.

How do you email a Wiiware or iPod customer...?

Not a clue! I just went on a ramble, it's hardly an action plan. :)

They could add a message at the end of the game, something like "Please check our site and fill in the survey", and just have the survey either on a special page, or just a thread on the forums.

I say they should send a handwritten letter to each customer, instead of a formal survey.

"I LIKE YOU, DO YOU LIKE ME BACK?

CIRCLE ONE

YES NO"

They should release great flocks of white doves, each one trained to fly to a customer's house and coo "Did you like the game?" in Morse code.

The only flaw being nobody under the age of 67 knows Morse Code. So the doves would be better flying to elderly people's houses and morse coding a message like "Did your grandchildren play Puzzle Agent, and if so would they buy another? Tie a green ribbon to one of my feet for yes, red for no."