Jeff Vogel Soapbox Thread

[Infinitron]

Chances for Avernum 3 happening? Not so high, I suppose?

Why wouldn't it. What else does he have to do?

He is taking his sweet time with Avadon 3, though.

 

[felipepepe]

His last four RPGs, all of them well past any initial rush of sales, describe a clear downward trend in both unit sales and dollars earned.

Bullshit, he went from 51k sales in 2013 to 7k in 2015 because he decided to fucking double the price of his game. Can't do that and not expect a major sales impact.

Besides, with such poorly explained data slide he can show that and say fucking anything, from "Indieapocalypse!!!1" to "we can now survive by having a devoted fanbase" to "FANS BETRAY YOU WHEN YOU DOUBLE PRICES!"

Thing is, he shows $20 as the price for Avernum 2 on the slide, but Steam shows he already sold it for $4 on the Steam Winter Sale. And still got stuck at 7k units, while all other games sold at least 50k. Seems to me he shot himself in the foot and decreased his player base. He may have made roughly the same monies as Avadon 2, but there are 51k potential buyers for Avadon 3, and only 7k potential buyers for Avernum 3...

 

[pippin]

IIRC he said he would remake Avernum 3. Don't know about the other games though, but I think he did the current remakes to balance the fact that the first trilogy wasn't available on Steam,but the second, that is Avernum 4 to 6, was.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I bet he still earns above average early income than most Americans when it's all said and done.

Having an 8 to 5 job is also though, and often much more stressful.

Such a little Bitch.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Why wouldn't it.

but there are 51k potential buyers for Avadon 3, and only 7k potential buyers for Avernum 3...

 

[Pope Amole II]

Too bad he's a fucking liar:

http://steamspy.com/app/112100

And yeah, as far as we can tell at the moment, steamspy numbers are trustworthy. Not to mention that Avadon 1 was initially making a slaughter on the handheld platforms (which was the reason that actually propelled Avadon 1 on steam - it was a different era back then, where they didn't accept trash like they do now). And, obviously, this is not accounted for here.

He's just playing the victim card here, nothing to see, move along.

 

[Mustawd]

Too bad he's a fucking liar:

http://steamspy.com/app/112100

And yeah, as far as we can tell at the moment, steamspy numbers are trustworthy. Not to mention that Avadon 1 was initially making a slaughter on the handheld platforms (which was the reason that actually propelled Avadon 1 on steam - it was a different era back then, where they didn't accept trash like they do now). And, obviously, this is not accounted for here.

He's just playing the victim card here, nothing to see, move along.

He might be using figures that are net of Steam's cut. Regardless, I agree with his main points. Indies can have it tough; even when times of feast are here. The famine inevitably returns.

Don't think there's anything in what he said that I disagree with. If anything it sounds like you agree with him as well. It's not like his initial success was sustainable; regardless of the accuracy or completeness of his sales figures.

 

[LESS T_T]

Too bad he's a fucking liar:

http://steamspy.com/app/112100

Maybe he didn't count bundled copies.

 

[felipepepe]

He didn't, the slide is called "Steam Sales Figures". But yeah, sleazy move.

Regardless, I agree with his main points. Indies can have it tough; even when times of feast are here.

I would say it's the opposite. Jeff Vogel was king when he had zero rivals, he was basically the only indie RPG dev around. But now he's going against the likes of AoD, Underrail, Grimrock, Voidspire Tactics, NEO Scavenger, KotC, Telepath Tactics, Undertale, Sunless Sea, SitS, Paper Sorcerer, FTL and countless others...

Remember that the Codex loved Vogel and Geneforge and Nethergate in the mid 2000's, when it was one of the few RPGs around - indie or AAA. Now no one gives a fuck, there's so many other games to play.

If anything, I'd say Jeff should be thanking the heavens everyday that he can still survive in 2016 against 5 billion indie devs by making the same games he did in 1994 when he was basically alone.

 

[Mustawd]

Wait wait...he literally has said that supply affects the amount of success indies have. How is that inconsistent with what you're saying? In other words, A profitable market exists...new market entrants are here...price per product goes down as the demand curve shifts.


I still don't see why people are shitting on his main points. He's 100% right. Life is good when you are a big fish in a small pond, but not as good when that pond gets crowded.

 

[Doktor Best]

You cant really compare all of those games to his, and some of them arent even rpgs. Underrail is very alike, and i cant say its really better than his Avernum remakes. In some points it is, in others it is inferior.

Vogel needs a change of tapestry badly though, a new setting and a new graphics engine would do wonders to his games i think.

 

[Gondolin]

Remember that the Codex loved Vogel and Geneforge and Nethergate in the mid 2000's, when it was one of the few RPGs around - indie or AAA. Now no one gives a fuck, there's so many other games to play.

The Codex loved Vogel because the Geneforge and Avernum series were pretty good. Then Vogel made Avadon, as well as a couple of blog posts expressing his admiration for Mass Effect and other such crap, and the relationship turned into relationshit.

 

[Mustawd]

Vogel needs to keep doing what he's doing and remake all the Geneforge games, so I can overpay for them

Seriously though, the man is creatively tapped. He's basically admitted as much himself.

 

[Doktor Best]

Remember that the Codex loved Vogel and Geneforge and Nethergate in the mid 2000's, when it was one of the few RPGs around - indie or AAA. Now no one gives a fuck, there's so many other games to play.

The Codex loved Vogel because the Geneforge and Avernum series were pretty good. Then Vogel made Avadon, as well as a couple of blog posts expressing his admiration for Mass Effect and other such crap, and the relationship turned into relationshit.

Avadon is worse than his other games, but after the initial slur it turned into a decent game.

Vogel needs to keep doing what he's doing and remake all the Geneforge games, so I can overpay for them

Seriously though, the man is creatively tapped. He's basically admitted as much himself.

And thats why he must get out of his fantasy comfort zone.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm shitting on his points because for all effects and purposes, he still has it pretty damn good.

He's creativity bankrupt, still uses 90's production values, is competing against dozens of way better RPGs, has doubled the price of its game, abandoned bundles and still makes good money.

Compare it with a game like The Quest, which had some renown from its cellphone users, tries something different, sells for $9.99 and only sold 4k copies on Steam.

 

[Tacgnol]

Another issue with Jeff, he just can't help but insult his own fanbase.

He's reliant on customer loyalty, but he treats his customers like shit.

And thats why he must get out of his fantasy comfort zone.

He needs to do something similar to Geneforge again. A fresh take on normal fantasy conventions.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Maybe he didn't count bundled copies.

Then why are the bundled copies mentioned in the parenthesis? Here, let me remind you:

Actually, this fucking thing makes zero fucking sense. OK, so we have Avadon 1 with heavy bundle interest. I'm not sure what exactly he means. Percentage of bundle copies in the sales, I guess. So Avadon 1 costs 10 bucks, sells 60 thousands, nets 300k. That sounds about right.

But then we have Avadon 2. It sells 10k copies less which is a 20% loss, but suddenly the profits have sunken in thrice. 300%! And, with less bundle interest, that means that the bigger part of those sales should've had the fuller price. That number just doesn't make sense - even if steam & taxes take out the half away, 50k copies should net you 250k, not 100.

Another thing is that all these numbers are inconsistent with the steamspy. Which means that this entire chart is carefully doctored to depict whatever it needs to depict. Or, to put it simply, that it's bullshit.

 

[Mustawd]

I'm shitting on his points because for all effects and purposes, he still has it pretty damn good.

How is that relevant? The points are:

A. When indies first made it big it was relatively "easy" to make a lot of money
B: A flood of indies has made it difficult to get visibility. In addition, it has also lowered the price of games due to over-supply.


You think he's playing the victim? Fine, I can get that his doom and gloom play can be a bit over the top and annoying. But his points are completely valid. If not, I'd love to hear why.

EDIT: His own personal examples can be pretty meh, but from a market standpoint it's completely on target.

 

[Tacgnol]

Also as others have said, he's still making a decent existence off of those sales.

 

[Doktor Best]

Another issue with Jeff, he just can't help but insult his own fanbase.

He's reliant on customer loyalty, but he treats his customers like shit.

Maybe im not following his games long enough, but where or when did he do that? I know of one incident about rpgcodex that he said were a bunch of software pirates (which aint that far from the truth to be honest)

But other than that? He seems very cynical in his choice of words, but i think he just doesnt know and doesnt like being the center of public attention, and therefor expresses himself a little awkward. I dont think he means to insult his audience.

And thats why he must get out of his fantasy comfort zone.

He needs to do something similar to Geneforge again. A fresh take on normal fantasy conventions.

Yeah something similar, but not another Geneforge. Not another fucking remake please... And what he did to fantasy with the geneforge series, he could also do to other settings. Maybe even some postapocalyptic setting with a unique spin to it?

 

[Tacgnol]

Another issue with Jeff, he just can't help but insult his own fanbase.

He's reliant on customer loyalty, but he treats his customers like shit.

Maybe im not following his games long enough, but where or when did he do that? I know of one incident about rpgcodex that he said were a bunch of software pirates (which aint that far from the truth to be honest)

But other than that? He seems very cynical in his choice of words, but i think he just doesnt know and doesnt like being the center of public attention, and therefor expresses himself a little awkward. I dont think he means to insult his audience.

I may be remembering wrong, but I seem to remember him writing some pretty scathing posts on his blog in the past about his fanbase. It was probably around the time he went through his Bioware worship phase.

 

[Mustawd]

Another issue with Jeff, he just can't help but insult his own fanbase.

He's reliant on customer loyalty, but he treats his customers like shit.

Maybe im not following his games long enough, but where or when did he do that? I know of one incident about rpgcodex that he said were a bunch of software pirates (which aint that far from the truth to be honest)

But other than that? He seems very cynical in his choice of words, but i think he just doesnt know and doesnt like being the center of public attention, and therefor expresses himself a little awkward. I dont think he means to insult his audience.

I may be remembering wrong, but I seem to remember him writing some pretty scathing posts on his blog in the past about his fanbase. It was probably around the time he went through his Bioware worship phase.

Yeah, pretty sure you just made that up. Mostly, people either don't like his "I'm 40 and life sucks" Emo-ness, the fact that he increased the price of his games, or that he has admitted he doesn't have the creative juices to create anything new.

The dude is really emo as fuck though, as his rant on ios updates shows. But his games are good and he has some good insight about the industry from his vast experience (if slanted a bit on the negative side).

Regardless, most of the bitching about Vogel never seems to have much substance. As the previous 15 posts seem to show. Just a bunch of strawmen with no real arguments.

I mean so what if his games are successful? His points are still relevant to 98% of the industry. If anything, it just shows him going from very successful to normal successful. I guess that gets peoples panties in a bunch. *shrug*

 

[felipepepe]

How is that relevant? The points are:

A. When indies first made it big it was relatively "easy" to make a lot of money
B: A flood of indies has made it difficult to get visibility. In addition, it has also lowered the price of games due to over-supply.

Oh, really? Remember Prelude to Darkness, Amulets & Armor, Nahlakh, Helherron, Dark Disciples, Din's Curse, Depths of Peril, Demise, Devil Whisky and the likes? Plus all the Russian shovelware? Vogel is the ONLY guy from the 90's & early 00's who survived the "easy" era. We have countless more success stories today - and when they hit really big, they sell 500k in two weeks like Stardew Valley. Even as a big fish in a small pound, Vogel never got close to that.

Similarly, how can he say competition lowered the prices when he fucking doubled Avernum 2's sales price and still made roughly the same money?

Vogel is a survivor, I give him that. But I think he has no idea of why that happens, besides the fact he regularly releases games.

 

[LESS T_T]

But then we have Avadon 2. It sells 10k copies less which is a 20% loss, but suddenly the profits have sunken in thrice. 300%! And, with less bundle interest, that means that the bigger part of those sales should've had the fuller price. That number just doesn't make sense - even if steam & taxes take out the half away, 50k copies should net you 250k, not 100.

Well, there's also discount. While Avadon 1 did first 75% discount a year and three months after its release, Avadon 2 did it three months after the release. So it likely affected profits both in short term and long term.

 

[Tacgnol]

Yeah, pretty sure you just made that up.

Nope look at his posts circa 2011. That was when his Bioware phase was in full swing.

At the end of the day he makes good games (most of the time), and I actually find his antics amusing. I just don't think his antics do him any favours sale wise.