f you’ve downloaded Siren: Blood Curse and wondered why the installation process was so tedious, you’re not alone. The game consists of 12 episodes, which can be purchased simultaneously or in three chapters of four episodes. No matter how you buy them, though, each episode has to be downloaded and installed individually—a process that can take nearly an hour. What gives?

“The benefit for allowing this is to allow for players who have limited space on their hard disk drive,” says Tsubasa Inaba, the game’s U.S. producer. “We are aware that a lot of players are complaining about this, and what the DRM enables us to do—thank god—is to keep track of who has purchased this already. Providing they have purchased it once, they have the freedom to go and delete whatever episodes they have already played and do not wish to sit on their hard disk drive. Say they played episode three already, they delete it once because they want space for some other game or what have you, but then they want to revisit that episode. They can always go back to the store and download episode three again whenever they wish. If we stuck to a one through four, five through eight and what have you, they would have been stuck to a larger chunk. So in order to maximize on that flexibility, we’ve kept it to a per-episode structure.”

While the explanation doesn’t make the process any less tedious, it makes sense. The game’s total size is right around the 9 GB mark, which is a large chunk of hard-drive space by nearly any measure. We talked to Inaba about episodic gaming, how the game was tweaked to appeal to American audiences and much more.

Game Informer: Was there any specific reason you decided to release Siren: Blood Curse all at once instead of staggering out episodes on a scheduled basis?

Tsubasa Inaba: This was something that I sat down with marketing, and we discussed this a lot, whether or not to roll it out more like a television show design. That was something we leaned on at one point, but at the same time, having played this so many times and taking it from the users’ perspective, once you get started you’re going to want to play the next episode. And once you’re through with that one, you’re going to want to proceed to the following one. Although the game has been designed very nicely with the episodic sequences and keeping the players hanging each time, it already has the trailer that starts off the episode and there’s another trailer that hints at what happens next. With all that coming to you, the end user is going to want to instantly play the next one. Before we released the game, we did receive feedback from media and users saying, “Are you going to keep us waiting months and months and months for the next batch of episodes?” We realized that was going to be a concern, so we leaned on making all of the episodes available at one time, at the sake of keeping our users happy. [laughs] There was good feedback from our audience, and that seemed like the best decision for us to make.

GI: In Japan, people can buy the game as a Blu-Ray Disc. If hard-drive space is a big concern for consumers, is there any plan to bring the game in that format to the United States?

Inaba: I do not believe so. I believe we’re sticking with the PSN distribution method. We are very happy with how the PSN store has been very successful for us in the U.S. market. In general, we have a very different market trend. Whereas in Japan, the PSN may not be as strong and they have had to lean on BD, for the U.S. market especially, the PSN store has been very great for us. Our users our liking it, and going back to the way that the game has been designed, it fits perfectly on the PSN store as well with its episodic nature, in-game commerce—which takes you directly to the store if you don’t have the episode. And even in the bigger picture, it is broadening the portfolio for the PSN store. Maybe two years ago, people would refer to it as a place to download simple games, whereas now we’re bringing more rich content. We’re giving full PS3 gaming experiences over the PSN. We’re pretty comfortable with where it is now.

GI: So you think Western audiences are getting more and more comfortable with the idea of buying full-fledged games as downloads?

Inaba: I certainly think so. Taking the example of Siren, I’ve been reading a lot of positive feedback in terms of price points as well. By putting it on the PSN store, we’ve been able to minimize cost. In those terms, people have been very positive and are very much appreciating the lower price point. And, of course, not having to go to the store—they don’t even have to get off the sofa.