Ambiguous Name: One Game For The Price Of Two

It was brought up in this Image Pickin thread that there's a confusion whenever the trope's about "two games that give bonuses whenever they area played together" and "two games which need to be played together in order to see the full story".

Because of this, there has been debate whenever the Oracle games count as an example.

Oracle games being The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games.

Yes. The thing is that having to play two (or more) games to see the full story is pretty common for sequels, prequels, and so forth. The trope title strikes me as a Take That!; there's no objective way to declare whether two games are really two games in a series, or actually one big game split into two.

For instance, common examples include Sonic 3 And Knuckles and the two Zelda Oracle games - but arguably, either of the two Oracle games is as big as Links Awakening, and either of the Sonic games is as big as Sonic The Hedgehog 2.

On the other hand, "two games that give bonus content if played/installed together" is clearly and objectively definable.

The way I see it, this trope has nothing whatsoever to do with big games split into multiple parts (thats Episodic Game). The third paragraph of the description, which suggests that it is, is misuse.

This trope is supposed to be things like Pokemon where the games are otherwise the same except for some minor details like what mons you can collect. The Oracle games are definitely not in that category. Even the example says they're "two totally different games."

Come to think of it... there is no reason for this trope to be limited to video games. It is known from Word of God that several movies were split in two during development (e.g. Kill Bill, Harry Potter 7, The Hobbit). I would expect us to have a page for that, but I can't find it right now.

So I think we have two tropes here, neither of which should have the current name. One is "split during development", a subtrope of Executive Meddling, and I'm sure detractors will call it a money grab. The second is "two games give bonus content if you combine them", which would be a video-game trope only, for technical reasons; and yes, there are numerous examples of this.

(edit) Oh yes, and the third trope would be "multiple mostly-identical versions of the same product", such as Pokemon.

edited 29th Aug '13 4:26:09 AM by Spark9

The trope for works being split seems to be Episodic Game. Which is a really ill page.

^ I wouldn't necessarily call movies a Sub-Trope of Executive Meddling.

I agree that this is a poor and unnecessarily Take That! of a name.

We can clearly and objectively define e.g. Pokemon-like examples (same game with cosmetic differences between versions). We can't objectively lump this with the rest of the usage, especially with outliers like Sonic And Knucles or the Zelda Oracle games.

I wonder how many examples there are of "the same game with a few cosmetic differences", but clearly neither Sonic nor Zelda fits that.

About one-third of the page, I think. Pokemon is the Trope Codifier and all....

Another problem is that since we have Episodic Game now, group number two on this page needs to be given the Spanish Inquisition treatment.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:14:31 AM by Stratadrake

I don't think there is a problem with this page at all.

Last paragraph:

"There are three sections to this article: Examples of one game in multiple concurrent versions, examples of one story being split over multiple games, and examples of this phenomenon outside of games and gaming media."

Sonic and Zelda both fit, just not that particular facet. It is not inherently problematic for one trope to describe more than one phenomenon. If that ambiguity is causing some other quantifiable problem, fine, but please give evidence or otherwise make a solid case of some kind that a change should be made.

Perhaps that last paragraph could be refined if it is unclear, and perhaps appear earlier in the article.

edited 29th Aug '13 11:22:03 AM by rodneyAnonymous

That description sounds to me like this trope is about a marketing device, where you try to convince people to buy two games, by several different means.

The issue is that "one story being split over multiple games" is Episodic Game, and that none of the three here really cover "two games that give bonus content if you install them both".

Just merge with Episodic Game. This name fails Clear, Concise, and Witty and there's already a neutral, non-bitchy trope about the same thing.

edited 29th Aug '13 4:12:43 PM by MikuruFan

Examples of Episodic Game need to be scrubbed from the page (after checking that they are listed on EG), this is SOP for subtropes.

^ This page, as a whole, can't be merged with Episodic Game. That is the wrong solution.

@10: A second trip to TRS for the exact same reason implicitly means that whatever solution was implemented the first time just didn't work.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:21:29 PM by Stratadrake

So the definition of Episodic Game is that they are cheap and short, I guess.

They are not AAA productions, true....

x3 Sometimes Trope Repair Shop work just dies. MacGuffin Girl suffered the same thing thrice.

I think a split of the trope or separating examples into appropriate tropes are good.

The definition is confusing.

It appears to be: two games are launched at the same time and are the same but whit some differences,you can trade things of one game to another,you can use two games together to unlock something new,or the story is divided by more than one game.

And i could still have missed something!

One idea could make each definition a different trope and use the old page as index.

but that just a idea.

edited 29th Aug '13 6:45:27 PM by spyro4

I think it would be two small to be an index.

Then just a disambiguation page. But still there more tropes that fit the theme but are not part of this page.

edited 29th Aug '13 6:48:26 PM by spyro4

Either way, sticking two tropes in one is a bad idea.

If the tropes are similar (e.g. thematically), then we call that page a Super-Trope. Otherwise....

^note (I'll also confess that the name of this page is a pet peeve that needs to go die in a fire.)

edited 29th Aug '13 11:14:23 PM by Stratadrake

The claim in @10 is that this trope is essentially a marketing ploy that can take several forms.

Also, @10, it is prefectly possible for people to make TRS threads repeatedly because the trope is A but they see B.

I guess the more inherent question is whether the marketing ploy ought to be split among the various mechanisms.

As a marketing format, I don't think the Pokemon model has ever been about "buy both games" (which is what the name clearly implies, and also the case with an Episodic Game). It's about "pick your side, and trade/connect with somebody who has the counterpart". Pretty sure that several Pokemon game boxes clearly state that each version is essentially the same except minor differences.

Additionally, there's nothing preventing a game from having only one version but uses the player's system ID to randomly vary certain kinds of content to make them exclusive to some players or others. I can only think of two examples and they are fairly minor (in The World Ends With You, one shop stocks a rare pin that's one of six, which one they have is dependent on the individual game; and in the Pokemon Dream World, you're given some damage-reducing berries to start off your berry farming but only one of seventeen; you have to trade with other players for the rest) but it follows the Pokemon model in spirit (connect with somebody who has it), minus actual version counterparts.

In which case we could probably benefit from a page for Version-Exclusive Content or something.

edited 30th Aug '13 9:52:27 AM by Stratadrake

Actually, the pin depends, IIRC, on the individual system, so you could just put your game chip into someone else's DS and have a chance of getting another pin.

One question about this trope: I've often seen it used as an inherently negative "unnecessary cash grab" trope. Is it really? If not, how to avoid that?