History Main / OneGameForThePriceOfTwo

Novels, films, and television shows also do not cost $40-60 an installment. (Though [[BetterOnDVD TV seasons]] do, and ''hardback'' editions of novels can come pretty close sometimes...)

Compare the OldSaveBonus, where you need to interact with a separate game (generally of the same company) to unlock certain content, which is usually not central to gameplay but may be necessary for HundredPercentCompletion. Also compare SocializationBonus, where it's the same game for everybody, but you still need to "connect" with someone else to unlock ... something.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfHearts'' has a twist. One version has prerendered FMVs for its cutscenes while another version has hand drawn anime for its cutscenes.

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.

!!Examples of one game with multiple versions

!!Other

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' was released as two games, each of which told a relatively self-contained story that also paralleled and linked to the other. There was also an Old Save Bonus in the second that let you keep the money you'd deposited into the lucky cat in the Kuzunoha Detective Agency (Important for an unlockable), and what you'd selected for Tatsuya's name and in-battle nickname. ...

* ''ShiningForceIII'' followed one overarching story from the viewpoints of three different protagonists, and each protagonist had his own game. You had to play all three to see the beginning, middle and end of the plot. This led to much confusion in the west, given that only the first game was given an English version.

!!Examples of single games released in multiple parts

* TheSims games are an especially outstanding example: one game for the price of ''eight'' (''nine'' for ''The Sims 2''). Both the original have many "expansion packs" which are all the hefty price of a full game, though they can't be played independently.
* Sega originally planned to release ''SonicTheHedgehog 3'' and ''Sonic and Knuckles'' as a single, mammoth game. However, time constraints and the manufacturing costs made that impossible, so Sega dropped the ability to play as Knuckles and released the levels they had (Angel Island through Launch Base Zones) as ''SonicTheHedgehog 3''. Later, the remaining levels (Mushroom Hill through Doomsday) were released as a second game, ''Sonic and Knuckles''. The latter game featured unique "Lock-On Technology", which allowed the games to be combined and played as they were originally intended. To be fair, ''Sonic and Knuckles'' also allowed the player to use Knuckles in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'', something that would not have been possible had the game been released as a single cart, so it wasn't a total loss. It also contained about a zillion Special Stage levels that could be played independent of the main game by attaching something other than Sonic 2 or 3, although that ''was'' possible to include without lock-on.
** You could even write down the password given out after the special stage and use it when you locked-on ''Sonic The Hedgehog'', making the game just packed with special stages (this feature was called ''BlueSphere'' when ''Sonic Mega Collection'' came out, where the game was an actual unlockable.)
* The ''[[DotHack .hack]]'' games are the most guilty of this. They are ''literally'' one game split across three or four parts, each full-priced, and with an incomplete story unless one buys the whole series. If you bought them at retail price in the US, it took 200 bucks to finish the first group and 120 to finish the second.
** And that isn't the half of it. CrackIsCheaper if you want the full story of .hack.
*** Even worse is that about half of .hack's story [[NoExportForYou hasn't even made it out of Japan]] as BanDai has yet to license some of that material for release elsewhere and the fact that the fourth game, ''Quarantine'', tends to be the most expensive product in the series with its used copies being the only ones not cheaper than its original retail price, online or offline.
* ''Shin Megami Tensei: DigitalDevilSaga'' exists as a two-part game, with the second game continuing the story directly from the ending of the first.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Boktai}}'' series was also going to do the whole intergame Password deal but just changed it to mere stat boosts, depending on what you did in the previous game (which was not included in Lunar Knights, being that ''Boktai 3'' never made it here). Odd considering the fact that the password contains a whole lot of information about your game, from your name to how many enemies you felled, even to which weapon you liked to use the most.
* ''VideoGame/{{Syberia}}'' was originally to be one standard adventure game. Due to a rushed timetable, it was released as two separate games that had identical gameplay and graphics, AND were half the length of an ordinary point-and-click adventure.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' was released as two games, each of which told a relatively self-contained story that also paralleled and linked to the other. There was also an Old Save Bonus in the second that let you keep the money you'd deposited into the lucky cat in the Kuzunoha Detective Agency (Important for an unlockable), and what you'd selected for Tatsuya's name and in-battle nickname. ... Unfortunately, the first game never came to the US due to concerns about its use of guns and largely high-school-age mains in a time shortly after the Columbine shootings and the Old Save Bonus was similarly removed from the one that did come to the US.
** Ironically, the PSP remakes... Had the first game released in English, and the second game unreleased.
* Variation in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages]]'' and ''Oracle of Seasons'', which are two totally different games that connect together to merge the two plots into one and provide an extra final boss and a "[[MultipleEndings true ending]]". So really, more like Two Connected Games For The Price Of Two.
** Originally, a third ''Oracle'' game was planned to complete a Triforce analogy, but connecting the games together proved too difficult and they scaled the number back to two.
*** Didn't stop them from giving out a code at the end of the "true ending" that could be used on the other game again giving you nothing but a few more items and another go for the same ending.
*** They were pretty much screwed by the math. There are two possible orders for playing two games, but six for three games.
* ''VideoGame/{{Shenmue}}'' was originally going to be many chapters long, but the games that were released, ''Shenmue'' and ''Shenmue II'', gave you chapters 1 and 3, 4 and 5 (chapter 2 was supposed to chronicle's Ryu's adventures on the boat ride between games). ''Shenmue II'' allowed you an OldSaveBonus if you transferred a save from the original game, but unless you were prepared, all of your ready money from the first game would be irrevocably stripped from you unless you swapped it all for capsule toys very, very quickly. GuideDangIt.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' series' first two games were supposed to be the same installment. It just got worse when it was noted that it would only be a trilogy instead of six installments.
* To some controversy, BlizzardEntertainment announced that ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' will be one game for, some cynics say, the price of ''three''. More accurately, the initial release will contain the Terran single-player campaign, supposedly long enough to surpass the original ''[=StarCraft=]''. This release will also include full multiplayer capability for all three factions. The first ExpansionPack will be the Zerg single-player campaign (again, intended to be about as long as the original ''VideoGame/{{StarCraft|I}}'' by itself,) supposedly including new units for all factions and "RPGElements." The second expansion pack will be the Protoss single-player campaign, also including new units for all factions and "diplomatic elements." A single main story will run through all three installments, requiring players to buy the other packs if they want to finish the story or play their favorite race outside of multiplayer. Blizzard have claimed they are doing this to get the initial release out quicker, as well as to tell the story properly; others find this difficult to believe. As of the moment, Blizzard has claimed that the second and third games are considered [[ExpansionPack expansion packs]] and will likely be priced as such.
** Complaints about this have lowered a lot since the game's release, as their talk about the size of the campaign turned out to be true.
* ''FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'' deserves special mention. The game itself sells for 800 Wii Points (i.e., $8 U.S.), but that only includes the first three "chapters". if you want to actually play the ''entire'' game, you'll end up spending $37 total for the other ten installments. So it's more like "One Game For The Price Of Almost One But Seperated Into A Bunch Of Cliffhangers".
** Although The After Years and Final Fantasy IV are being released as a PSP compilation, so this game inverts it as well. Two games for the price of one.
* The ''GranTurismo'' Prologue games (4 and 5) were essentially extended demos of the perpetually delayed full games. Mercifully, they were priced accordingly and also featured additional bonus content.
* Inherent in the release of the episodic expansions to ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. Valve was originally going to work on ''Half-Life 3'' next, but decided to release lots of small episodes in sequence instead of waiting several years for another game, keeping up the momentum of consumer interest.
** However, this led to Valve suffering from HypeBacklash due to the [[VaporWare release schedules getting more and more drawn out]].
** It has been pointed out that episodic releases would work great, if Valve weren't perfectionists that had to get every little thing ''just'' right.
** On the other side, knowing that trend you could say it is working out great. We have 2/3rds of a game that otherwise wouldn't have been playable until our (if in your twenties) grandchildren were gamers.
* ''VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend'' and ''Underworld''. Both are rather short, with a {{Cliffhanger}} between. Then there's the ExpansionPack to ''Underworld''.
** An ''XBox360 exclusive'' expansion pack, no less. Marvelous.
* ''Tokimeki Memorial Pocket'', the UpdatedRerelease of ''[[TokimekiMemorial Tokimeki Memorial : Forever With You]]'' on Game Boy Color, has two versions : the Sports one, subtitled "Koutei no Photograph" (Campus' Photograph), and the Culture one, subtitled "Komorebi no Melody" (Melody of the Sunlight Filtering Through The Tree). They're the same game, aside from the fact the cast is divided in half between the two versions (including the three new characters), the clubs are divided between the two versions depending their nature (Sport-type or Culture-type), and an additional club visiting sequence in the prologue. As far as the character repartition go :
** [[TheAce Shiori]], [[AloofBigBrother Rei]], [[CrashIntoHello Miharu]], and [[BromanticFoil Yoshio]] are in both versions ;
** [[CuteSportsClubManager Saki]], [[CloudCuckooLander Yukari]], [[{{Bokukko}} Nozomi]] and [[FriendToAllLivingThings Megumi]], along with new characters [[EagleLand Patricia]] and [[TheRival Naomi]], are in the Sports Version ;
** [[GratuitousEnglish Ayako]], [[{{Kawaiiko}} Yumi]], [[{{Meganekko}} Mio]], [[AlphaBitch Mira]], [[LateForSchool Yuko]], [[MadScientist Yuina]], along with new character [[ForGreatJustice Kyoko]], are in the Culture Version.
* ''Videogame/{{Deathspank}}'' was a single game that was very obviously split into two parts (the "sequel" was announced and released ''two months'' after the first installment) so that EA could charge people $30 for a downloadable title (the industry standard averages at about $10; $15 for high-profile games.)
* The contents of the 2004 PC and PS2 compilation ''Atari Anthology'' was split into two different volume ''Atari Greatest Hits'' compilations - featuring arcade games and 30 something 2600 games each - for the DS (they even came out at different times, Volume 1 in late 2010, and Volume 2 in early 2011), despite the fact that 2600 games take up only, at most, ''8KB of memory'' (most only came in around 2KB), and the faithful arcade ports aren't very space consuming either.
** The 18 arcade games split amongst the two DS games are the same as featured in ''Atari Anthology'', but there are about a dozen 2600 games that appear only on the DS games, like the previously unreleased prototype of the 2600 version of ''Tempest''.

* Creator/{{Nintendo}}, in the days of the Famicom Disk System, released each of their ''Famicom Mukashi Banashi'', ''Famicom Tantei Club'' and ''Time Twist'' games on two disks sold separately. Some of these were rereleased on the SuperFamicom and GameBoyAdvance, with the halves joined together.
** Creator/DataEast followed Nintendo's example, releasing ''[[VisualNovel/JakeHunter Tantei Jinguji Saburo: Kiken na Futari]]'' in two parts for the the Famicom Disk System.

* ''Resident Evil Outbreak'' was reportedly designed to be a single game with more continuity between scenarios. Instead it was split into two parts (Outbreak and Outbreak: File 2), each with a number of scenarios that don't have a real established timeline. Both games have a number of assets on the disk that indicate evidence of scenarios fans never got to play (although mediocre sales of the sequel lead to the lack of a third installment).
* The ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series is somewhat guilty of this, with both Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift ending on cliffhangers. This is, however, inverted with the release of Continuum Shift:Extend, which is not only half the price of a regular game, but contains all the DLC characters, new story modes, and a condensed retelling of the Calamity Trigger storyline.
* On some game retail sites, ''Kaptain Brawe'' is divided into two "episodes" which are sold separately.
* The PCEngine port of ''RType'' was originally split into separate Hu Card games, ''R-Type I'' and ''R-Type II'', but the American TurboGrafx16 version kept the game on a single card. The full game was later released in Japan on the Super CD-ROM as ''R-Type Complete''.
!!Examples outside of games and gaming
!!!Film
* ''Film/HarryPotter'''s [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows 7th book's]] movie version spans two movies. (in this case to avert CompressedAdaptation)
* The 4th book of ''TheTwilightSaga'' is also getting this treatment.
* It has been announced that the film adaptation of ''Mockingjay'', the third book of the ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' trilogy, will be released in two parts.
* ''Film/TheHobbit'' movie adaptation was originally slated to be broken up into two movies. It will now be a trilogy, incorporating story elements from some of Tolkien's many appendixes/anthologies.
* The sequel to ''IndependenceDay‎'' will be getting this treatment, with ''ID Forever Part I'' and ''Part II''.

!!!Literature
* SMBC's take on [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1624 Science publishing]].
* The final book of the ''WheelOfTime'' series ended up being ''three'' books. To be fair, fans of the series, who are aware of just how many KudzuPlot threads were left dangling by Book 11 (namely, all of them), weren't surprised by the idea that they can't all be wrapped up in 1,000, and Robert Jordan's notes for the final book called for it to be 2,000 pages long just to cover everything. His widow and the new author (BrandonSanderson)sensibly broke this mammoth up into three volumes.
* Similarly, the final book of ''MemorySorrowAndThorn'' was so big they couldn't bind it as a single paperback- it was released in two books.
* RobertStanek's ''Ruin Mist'' series is the literary variant. It comes in four different versions - the adult version, the children's version and two different alternate histories. Each version is deceptively marketed as a completely different series, which the books in each having completely different titles, yet the difference between them is minimal at best.

!!!Music
* The album ''Crystal Heart in the Fountain'' by the Japanese progressive metal band Marge Litch was released as a double CD, despite containing music that could easily have fit on a single disc. This was presumably for conceptual continuity; disc one was a 21-minute “suite,” while disc two consisted of discrete songs that were not thematically connected to the suite.

!!!Television
* The third book in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', ''A Storm of Swords'', will be split into two seasons for ''Series/GameOfThrones''.

* Inherent in the release of the episodic expansions to ''HalfLife 2''. Valve was originally going to work on HalfLife 3 next, but decided to release lots of small episodes in sequence instead of waiting several years for another game, keeping up the momentum of consumer interest.

* The SNES port of ''FinalFight'' was released in two editions: the original release only had two of the three characters from the arcade game (Cody and Haggar), while the second edition (titled ''Final Fight Guy'') brought back Guy by removing Cody. There are a few other minor changes between the original release and the ''Guy'' edition (such as new power-ups and new difficulty settings that alter the enemy placement), but for the most parts they're the same port with one character changed for another. You need both versions to have the full roster and you'll still be missing the CoOpMultiplayer mode and the Industrial Area stage with Rolento from the arcade game.

* In the second ''DragonQuestMonsters'' game, your choice of game (''Cobi's Journey'' or ''Tara's Adventure'') was also your choice of PurelyAestheticGender. While the two games had virtually identical main storylines, the real differences came to play in the PlayableEpilogue, when they opened up two completely different new areas to explore. Both versions needed to trade in order to unlock the final world.

* The now-defunct company Smilesoft is probably the KING of this trope: All of their monster-collection [=RPG=]s had two versions. The ''{{Telefang}}'' series came in Speed and Power versions, each focusing on {{Mons}} with that attribute, ''Bugsite'' had Alpha and Beta versions ([[IncrediblyLamePun Though they're equally buggy hahaha]]) and the ''Dino Device'' games came in Dragon and Phoenix versions.

* ''TombRaider Legend'' and ''Underworld''. Both are rather short, with a {{Cliffhanger}} between. Then there's the ExpansionPack to ''Underworld''.

* ''HarryPotter'''s [[DeathlyHallows 7th book's]] movie version spans two movies. (in this case to avert CompressedAdaptation)

* The ''BlazBlue'' series is somewhat guilty of this, with both Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift ending on cliffhangers. This is, however, inverted with the release of Continuum Shift:Extend, which is not only half the price of a regular game, but contains all the DLC characters, new story modes, and a condensed retelling of the Calamity Trigger storyline.

* The ''BlazBlue'' series is somewhat guilty of this, with both Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift ending on cliffhangers. This is, however, inverted with the release of Continuum Shift:Extend, which is not only half the price of a regular game, but contains all the DLC characters, new story modes, and a condensed retelling of the Calamity Trigger storyline.

* Non-game-example: SMBC's take on [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1624 Science publishing]].
* Similar to the ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' situation: the final book of the ''WheelOfTime'' series has been announced to actually be ''three'' books. To be fair, fans of the series, who are aware of just ''how'' many KudzuPlot threads were left dangling by Book 11 (namely, umm, all of them), aren't surprised by the idea that they can't all be wrapped up in only 1,000 pages.
** Not so much not surprised as sighing in relief. The first two books are about 1,000 pages each, and still had to have a large number of plotlines ended suddenly, or just forgotten about, in order for the final book of the three to finish the story. To fit this in one book would have murdered the ending.

* ''TheMatchGameHollywoodSquaresHour'' (NBC, 1983) was in essence the CBS ''MatchGame'' with a tweaked ''[[TheHollywoodSquares Hollywood Squares]]'' as a side game. It ran nine months.

* ''The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour'' (NBC, 1983) was in essence the CBS ''MatchGame'' with a tweaked ''[[TheHollywoodSquares Hollywood Squares]]'' as a side game. It ran nine months.

* ''The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour'' (NBC, 1983) was in essence the CBS ''MatchGame'' with a tweaked ''[[TheHollywoodSquares Hollywood Squares]] as a side game. It ran nine months.

* ''VideoGame/{{Robopon}}'' did this, though the first set of games had onyl oen released in the US.

* ''{{Robopon}}'', shamelessly trying to ape ''Pokémon'', pulled this.