Avadon - Released on Steam

Avadon has been released on steam today for $9.99 or €6.99, but has currently a 10% discount to $8.99 or €6.29.
Thanks TheGameSquid.
Jeff has also posted about the release on his blog, explaining Avadon will be dropped to $20 from his site and future releases will probably start at this point. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out; a snip:

I've written a lot about how I think it's important to not price niche games too cheaply, and I stand by that. However, at the same time, Avadon will be only ten bucks on Steam, the cheapest we've ever made our newest game for PC/Mac. Why?

1. Steam felt it was the best price. I went into this trusting their judgment, because they know a lot more about selling Indie games than I do. When you're an Indie and Steam comes knocking, you don't say no.

2. The whole game industry is shifting. These days, a huge proportion of games online are sold for a low price without demos. People buy games on impulse, sight unseen. That way, if they don't like it they aren't out a lot of money.

In these markets, charging $15 or $20 for games, like I want to, isn't feasible. It's too much money to pay for a game you aren't sure about. If someone buys my game for $10 and hates it, I'm a little unhappy. But $20? I don't want to take kids' allowance money that way.

So I'm charging $10 on Steam and for the iPad. By the standards of that market, it's a hefty price, enough for me to earn my living. It's cheap enough to work as an impluse buy. It isn't the $1 or $2 price that I'm still sure would put me out of business.

More information.

I hope this pays off because his games are worth way more than $10.

This is good in many ways for me.
1. I can buy his games again ( I didn't mind pay 20+ per game, just that the jackass iPansy community was getting them cheaper for no reason other than they suck and don't have enough money to pay as much as I do because they spend their extra money on Starbucks, hair product, sandals, and very over-priced, extremely limited functioning, crappy little computers that give them status points will their fellow travelers at Starbucks.
2. Have the games on Steam where I can get and delete at will without a hassle and no waiting till Monday, etc.

So does this make the people that found the $9 AppStore price unfair to PC users a little happier?

Edit: also he sits on #9 of the bestseller list today - maybe not super-grand, but I bet it still means an order of magnitude more sales than he ever had before…

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
So does this make the people that found the $9 AppStore price unfair to PC users a little happier?

Yes, it does. Seems like Valve managed to do what we didn't: talk some sense into the guy.
Proceeding to purchase.

I hope the price on his web page changes because I would rather get it DRM free but am not paying $10 for the privilege.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
I hope the price on his web page changes because I would rather get it DRM free but am not paying $10 for the privilege.

He gives his reason why he is not doing that in the blog - basically it's his fall-back strategy, if he can't be on steam with future games.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
He gives his reason why he is not doing that in the blog - basically it's his fall-back strategy, if he can't be on steam with future games.

I read it, I just disagree with it. If the Steam "experiment" doesn't work out he can just charge $20 for the next game as he plans to anyway. Avadon can always be the cheaper one.

In short I am not paying twice the price and I'm also not buying the Steam version… so I end up doing nothing.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
I read it, I just disagree with it. If the Steam "experiment" doesn't work out he can just charge $20 for the next game as he plans to anyway. Avadon can always be the cheaper one.

In short I am not paying twice the price and I'm also not buying the Steam version… so I end up doing nothing.

I like the game, but it is not great enough that I will try to convince you otherwise

I don't see how this will make people who already paid for it happy. But I think it's the right pricing model - and I have zero doubt it will turn out more successful than a 25$ price tag. I have to say I'm puzzled why most people can't see that - but I guess it's about how you think the human mind works.

I could be wrong, of course - but this impulse-thing is so obviously the way to go with Steam-level exposure.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I don't see how this will make people who already paid for it happy. But I think it's the right pricing model - and I have zero doubt it will turn out more successful than a 25$ price tag. I have to say I'm puzzled why most people can't see that - but I guess it's about how you think the human mind works.

I could be wrong, of course - but this impulse-thing is so obviously the way to go with Steam-level exposure.

On steam/appstore its the right model, I agree. Without steam and the exposure it brings, I think his old model had merit. His problem is trying to combine both… That should be temporary though, if Avadon sells on steam and steam accepts a couple more of his other games, the low price model will win out.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
On steam/appstore its the right model, I agree. Without steam and the exposure it brings, I think his old model had merit. His problem is trying to combine both… That should be temporary though, if Avadon sells on steam and steam accepts a couple more of his other games, the low price model will win out.

Well, I still think we'd be surprised by what a low price can bring - even without major exposure. For new developers without clout, it might not be the best thing - though I'm not convinced even of that.

But my original problem was neither the high PC price nor the low iPad price - but his way of handling the PR related to the difference.

But, I have no desire to go back to that beaten horse.

People obviously like his games - so I wish him well with this new experiment.

Does the steam copy has steam drm ? I.e, if I buy the game on steam; can I take the .exe and run it on mylinux box without steam ?

Originally Posted by you
Does the steam copy has steam drm ? I.e, if I buy the game on steam; can I take the .exe and run it on mylinux box without steam ?

I am sure the exe has Steam DRM on it, that's standard practice. Let me know if it doesn't though.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I could be wrong, of course - but this impulse-thing is so obviously the way to go with Steam-level exposure.

Considering that I am 300+ games in on Steam in just a couple of months I would agree with that.

I would say for me that $5 or less is the point where if I have the slightest interest in something it's probably an instant buy. $10 is about the point I would go if I am moderately interested in something and $15-$20+ I have be really interested and/or pretty sure I know what I am getting into.

I would never even remotely consider Avadon at €20. Oblivion GOTY Deluxe with all 9 or so DLCs, Fallout 3 GOTY with all 5 DLCs, Dragon Age Ultimate with all DLCs, King's Bounty Platinum - all those special editions costed me around €10. Just to give an idea what €10 can buy today gaming-wise. Thus the current price for Avadon on Steam is a lot more realistic imo.

Spiderweb games are mobile friendly and Steam isn't. I'll continue to pay the extra money on his site so I can play these games on the run. Once again today, Steam failed to launch offline today because they prioritize updates over offline capability. Happens ALL THE TIME.