Chris Avellone on Crowd-funding at Montreal International Game Summit

GamesIndustry has a pretty good article transcription of Chris Avellone’s talk on crowd-funded games at Montreal International Game Summit. While Obsidian’s co-founder didn’t really say anything new, going by the transcript, it paints a pretty clear and comprehensive picture on his thoughts on crowd-funding and his recent experience with it:

Moving on to Baldur’s Gate homage Project Eternity, Avellone said the game has a lot in common with the old Infinity Engine games it was inspired by. However, the strategy has changed in number of ways. The Infinity Engine games were based on the Dungeons & Dragons universe, which meant there was only so much the developers could do to create lasting changes on the license. With Project Eternity, Avellone said the team is trying to create a franchise so it still has to be careful to leave things open for the future, but it is their franchise to shape as they decide best.

“We recognize that there are certain things we cannot do with a smaller team on these role playing games, and that’s fine,” Avellone said. “Because the entire game is not going to be voice acted, we need to approach the dialog as a reader would, as if they’re going to be reading these games instead of listening to these games.”

Eliminating the resource costs associated with customized animation and voice acting has also opened the writers up to create more sprawling dialogue trees, something Avellone said wasn’t always possible with titles like Fallout: New Vegas.

“About two years ago, I would have said that trying to pitch an isometric role playing game was a pretty hard sell,” Avellone admits. But thinks are changing. Words like “old school,” “isometric,” and “windows-focused” weren’t very sexy for publishers. However, now that Kickstarter has shown there’s a market for such titles, Avellone said publishers have been much more open to the idea. They know they won’t get the next Call of Duty out of it, but these types of games can still provide a strong return and bolster a portfolio, Avellone promised.