@saltkillzsnails: One of the reasons is that they use feedback from released episodes for guidance when making subsequent episodes. Did the players seem to be more interested in character X than character Y? Which paths did most players take? Even comments are sometimes taken into account.

The broad arc of the story has been written in advance, but details can be altered on the fly using the episodic format.

@etphonehome: Sure, but what you're saying, whether or not you realize it, is that you want each Telltale episode to contain a lot more content, but (presumably) for the same price and produced in the same period of time. You can't have more choice without more content. In particular, every time you add a choice with significant long-term consequences, you are increasing the quantity of content required enormously. (See: combinatorial explosion.)

So if you're going to provide a suggestion, it really ought to contain a concrete proposal for how it's implemented. I mean, I could suggest to the government that they lower taxes, but it isn't really much use unless it includes a plan for how the revenue shortfall is made up, or how it would somehow pay for itself etc. So what's your concrete proposal for how to incorporate greater player choice into Telltale's games?

As an aside: if you ever want to become a pro game designer, or even to understand the mechanisms and trade-offs of game design (e.g. if you wanted to be an informed game journalist), I strongly recommend trying to create a "choose your own adventure"-style game. ("If you choose to attack the knight, turn to 120, otherwise flee down the path by turning to 47".) It will give you very clear insights into the depth vs breadth problem that is inherent in most game design.

@etphonehome: Sounds good, man. What's your suggestion on how they solve the depth vs breadth problem inherent in these kinds of games? Maybe they should just put twice as much content into every episode for the same price by doubling their staff and paying everyone half wages?