Company News Avadon: A Case Study In Storytelling

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Avadon: The Black Fortress; Spiderweb Software

Spiderweb's Jeff Vogel took the opportunity to speak at the Casual Connect convention about storytelling in videogames by example of his most successful game, Avadon.

If you end up at Casual Connect and talking to actual grown-up business people, I suggest you do what I did: Have a firm, manly handshake. Make eye contact. Say "monetize" and "ARPU" as much as possible. And then pee yourself.

Here it is:

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I always thought Jeff had a deep, gruff, manly voice. Oh well...

Also, where is the announcement for Avadon 2? It's like 3 months before the date at which he usually releases the Mac version of his games.

 

[sea]

A few decent points in there and he is obviously charismatic, but his constant "I don't really know what I'm talking about!" admission really kind of... well, yeah, hurt his integrity. I mean, "good" stories are ones that resonate with audiences? That's a good metric but it's also a pretty obvious one. I was expecting a lot of insight but all I got was "stories make certain players enjoy your game more." And I could almost feel the apathy in the room when he told the audience that his games weren't free-to-play or based on micotransactions.

 

[Rivmusique]

watch from 23 minutes onward, I skipped through quickly and found that. DA:O: The Gold Standard.

 

[Infinitron]

He got punked by that Star Control 2 fan

 

[Mother Russia]

He's lost weight.

 

[Mother Russia]

HOLY MOLEY!! According to the slide on 19:37 on the YouTube vid, Vogel has made AT LEAST 3.5 MILLION dollars (US) from this game...at least*. It could even be upto almost twice that, since the figures there are a couple months old AND don't take into account sales from his own website and other sources. And all because he got his game onto Steam...

WOW!!! Keep in mind prior to getting on steam ,he stated (last year or the year before that) he earns around $250,000/- per game on average. No fucking way he wants to get into Bioware now and earn $100,000/- per year when he can earn millions every 2 years with his own games, plus the steady stream of daily revenue he gets from consistent sales of his games on steam and iOs. And he doesn't have to answer to any dumbfuck boss or see publishers rape his 'vision'.

In B4 Vaultdweller trying to get AOD into steam...

*Figures are pre-tax and assume his game sells for $10 on steam and steam keeps 30% of revenue. I know shit about steam so I could be wrong.

 

[Infinitron]

If that's true he's kinda pathetic. It took him fucking years to put his games on Steam. And even now he makes dumb rationalizations about his pricing scheme instead of admitting he fucked up.

 

[Mother Russia]

Infinitron True, he admits it took him 3 attempts/games to put it on steam. But he preserved, and finally did it and is now raping the rewards. Keep in mind this is only the first game to earn this much, he plans for a trilogy of Avadons. So he could be looking at around $10 million when it's said and done.

How many here will ever earn that much in their entire lives? How many here will even have $1 million in their bank accounts/investments in the course of their lives?

His kids will be able to go into any career/college they want, and then have enough capital to even start respectable businesses when they are old enough.

Really, call Vogel what you will but he deserves respect for succeeding at life (fiscally at least) by following his dream and making a career out of his passion.

Most important, this will encourage more turn based indie crpg devs, and that is not a bad thing at all. If the KoTC guy got this many sales, we could have had 10 more KoTC type games from him, with far better graphics since he would have much more money to spend on art/animation, yet the same tactical gameplay.

 

[l3loodAngel]

HOLY MOLEY!! According to the slide on 19:37 on the YouTube vid, Vogel has made AT LEAST 3.5 MILLION dollars (US) from this game...at least*. It could even be upto almost twice that, since the figures there are a couple months old AND don't take into account sales from his own website and other sources. And all because he got his game onto Steam...

WOW!!! Keep in mind prior to getting on steam ,he stated (last year or the year before that) he earns around $250,000/- per game on average. No fucking way he wants to get into Bioware now and earn $100,000/- per year when he can earn millions every 2 years with his own games, plus the steady stream of daily revenue he gets from consistent sales of his games on steam and iOs. And he doesn't have to answer to any dumbfuck boss or see publishers rape his 'vision'.

In B4 Vaultdweller trying to get AOD into steam...

*Figures are pre-tax and assume his game sells for $10 on steam and steam keeps 30% of revenue. I know shit about steam so I could be wrong.

50k * 10 (price per copy)= 500k * 0.3 (steam share) = 350k...

 

[Metro]

...to speak at the Casual Connect convention...

'nuff said.

I played Avadon for eight hours or so until I couldn't take it anymore. From what I recall the story was as shallow and boring as the combat and character progression.

 

[Mother Russia]

HOLY MOLEY!! According to the slide on 19:37 on the YouTube vid, Vogel has made AT LEAST 3.5 MILLION dollars (US) from this game...at least*. It could even be upto almost twice that, since the figures there are a couple months old AND don't take into account sales from his own website and other sources. And all because he got his game onto Steam...

WOW!!! Keep in mind prior to getting on steam ,he stated (last year or the year before that) he earns around $250,000/- per game on average. No fucking way he wants to get into Bioware now and earn $100,000/- per year when he can earn millions every 2 years with his own games, plus the steady stream of daily revenue he gets from consistent sales of his games on steam and iOs. And he doesn't have to answer to any dumbfuck boss or see publishers rape his 'vision'.

In B4 Vaultdweller trying to get AOD into steam...

*Figures are pre-tax and assume his game sells for $10 on steam and steam keeps 30% of revenue. I know shit about steam so I could be wrong.

50k * 10 (price per copy)= 500k * 0.3 (steam share) = 350k...

It's 500k, not 50k. Also, you multiply by 0.7 to get Vogel's share, assuming Steam takes away 30%. 0.3 would be steams share.

Why can't you into comprehension and math?

 

[Nim]

Andhaira o_O Numbers are at 19:12 and they are 40k steam and 10k itunes, assuming 7$ per unit we get 350k$, not 3,5 millions.

Not that I get why anyone would want to look at Vogels game in regard to storytelling. Maybe in regards to the absence of storytelling would work.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

$7 per copy might still be generous, I've bought it for $3.99 on a Steam sale for example. Anyway, for an 3-man Indie game with a developement time of a year or something it's a big success either way.

 

[Nim]

I dunno if you could call it a big success if he actually got less than 7$ on average. We would have to know what his sales numbers where before when he sold his games at I think 25$ ? And then we have no idea how much Avadon would have made him at that price. Lots of conjecture.

 

[sea]

If that's true he's kinda pathetic. It took him fucking years to put his games on Steam. And even now he makes dumb rationalizations about his pricing scheme instead of admitting he fucked up.

Getting on Steam is ridiculously difficult for indies. Only the biggest, most popular, top-rated games actually get selected. It's not a surprise his previous ones were denied - even in indie circles, Jeff's games are pretty unknown.

Not that I get why anyone would want to look at Vogels game in regard to storytelling. Maybe in regards to the absence of storytelling would work.

I think Avadon actually has a pretty good premise, setting and plot (in fact, all of Jeff's games do). The problem is the generic aesthetic on top of the political stuff and the massive amounts of filler in between plot points... plus boring gameplay. If he hadn't just done a find/replace on goblins -> wretches etc. for all the more aesthetic elements it would have worked really well.

 

[Infinitron]

Getting on Steam is ridiculously difficult for indies. Only the biggest, most popular, top-rated games actually get selected. It's not a surprise his previous ones were denied - even in indie circles, Jeff's games are pretty unknown.

But do we know that's what happened? From what I recall, he was rather dismissive of Steam and its pricing schemes for a long time...up until the point that he wasn't.

 

[Nim]

Not that I get why anyone would want to look at Vogels game in regard to storytelling. Maybe in regards to the absence of storytelling would work.

I think Avadon actually has a pretty good premise, setting and plot (in fact, all of Jeff's games do)

All his games have a good plot ? Really ? Maybe I don't get what plot means, so could you f.ex. tell me the plot of G5 ?

 

[Mother Russia]

Andhaira o_O Numbers are at 19:12 and they are 40k steam and 10k itunes, assuming 7$ per unit we get 350k$, not 3,5 millions.

Not that I get why anyone would want to look at Vogels game in regard to storytelling. Maybe in regards to the absence of storytelling would work.

Shit, i read 40,000 as 400,000. Stupid font.

Apologies to Bloodangel, my bad. :brofist:

Hmm, well 350K just from steam and ipad alone is not that bad when you add in the 250k he makes from his own website and shit. He has basically at least doubled his income.

 

[Davaris]

Getting on Steam is ridiculously difficult for indies. Only the biggest, most popular, top-rated games actually get selected. It's not a surprise his previous ones were denied - even in indie circles, Jeff's games are pretty unknown.

But do we know that's what happened? From what I recall, he was rather dismissive of Steam and its pricing schemes for a long time...up until the point that he wasn't.

He started taking professional advice and everything changed.

 

[l3loodAngel]

$7 per copy might still be generous, I've bought it for $3.99 on a Steam sale for example. Anyway, for an 3-man Indie game with a developement time of a year or something it's a big success either way.

Well he sells a portion of his games from his site( I heard it's 20$) and that means that it evens out eventually.

 

[Nim]

$7 per copy might still be generous, I've bought it for $3.99 on a Steam sale for example. Anyway, for an 3-man Indie game with a developement time of a year or something it's a big success either way.

Well he sells a portion of his games from his site( I heard it's 20$) and that means that it evens out eventually.

Except why would you buy on his site for 20$ when you can buy it on steam for 10$ or even less during sales ? Even his hardcore fans are wavering there.

 

[Mother Russia]

His latest game out and the ones immediately preceding it usually sell for 29.99. However, he offers bundles for his older games at discounts.

 

[Mother Russia]

$7 per copy might still be generous, I've bought it for $3.99 on a Steam sale for example. Anyway, for an 3-man Indie game with a developement time of a year or something it's a big success either way.

Well he sells a portion of his games from his site( I heard it's 20$) and that means that it evens out eventually.

Except why would you buy on his site for 20$ when you can buy it on steam for 10$ or even less during sales ? Even his hardcore fans are wavering there.

That's because he only got onto steam now, with his latest game. Prior to this his only avenue for sales was his website.

Also, Vogel has been selling online since the early 90's, before steam, or heck even Valve, was a twinkle in anyone's eye.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

That's because he only got onto steam now, with his latest game. Prior to this his only avenue for sales was his website.

Also, Vogel has been selling online since the early 90's, before steam, or heck even Valve, was a twinkle in anyone's eye.

However, by now more than just Avadon is on Steam. I've got the entire Geneforge series from Steam for cheap (like 10 bucks or something). Yet, if you hear him talking, it seems that it pays off in the end despite the lower prices per copy.