Expanding the Spiderweb franchises.

[Vicheron]

Has Jeff ever considered trying to expand his franchises to other mediums?

 

I think Geneforge holds the most promise. A Geneforge comic or animated series would be really great. Maybe he should try to pitch the idea to an animation studio.

[*i]

While I can't speak for Jeff, the usual answer he has given on these sorts of things is that it is a tradeoff between the time spent and the likelihood of gain. Granted, Jeff has a few other things than his games going on such as his book, but the games are his niche and reliable source of income. Considering he's one guy whose income lives or dies by the success of his work, he has not been prone to deviate from the proven formula too much.

[Lilith]

If somebody came up to Jeff tomorrow and offered him $100,000 for the rights to make a Geneforge cartoon, I doubt he'd say no. But unless that happens...

[Vicheron]

Jeff should at least pitch the idea to a comic book company.

[Alorael at Large]

If you were a studio, would you take Jeff up on the offer? His fanbase is small enough that you'd have to get pretty much everyone to pay for your thing when you made it. Doesn't Geneforge have universal appeal? Maybe, but ideas are a dime a dozen, and licensing an existing one usually makes sense when you're either tapping into a large market that Spiderweb doesn't have or burning to execute an idea that struck you, which isn't true if Jeff is pitching the idea.

 

Then there's the fact that even the pitch takes time and effort for very low returns. No, I can see why Jeff has no interest.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't even think that Jeff would demand a big profit up front. If a reputable studio approached Jeff and offered him any reasonable profits, he'd probably be quite pleased as long as the contract checked out. New artists would be dicier; a nobody is much more likely to end up doing nothing with the rights and leaving Jeff unable to do anything else with them.

[Death Knight]

Honestly, i can see someone making a movie/animated thing on the geneforge series, but were talking in a while. At least 10 years when someone really thinks over the idea decides on doing it. Things such as that usually happen when were all gone, and at that point we wont get to see it anyway.

[Alorael at Large]

Why would someone take 10 years to think over the idea? I'd imagine it's more likely to happen when the games are newer, more people play them, and more people are likely to find them inspiring.

 

—Alorael, who also doesn't plan on being dead in 10 years. He's reasonably hopeful that no one else on Spiderweb will be. Everyone can get to see the hypothetical Geneforge animated film in a decade!

[VCH]

Death Knight meant we will have moved on to other things not necessarily related to Spidweb in any way. You know, living and what not.

[Actaeon]

With Alorael's tenth Spiderweb anniversary coming up in a few weeks and yours a few weeks past? Not necessarily.

[Alorael at Large]

May I have moved on in ten years? Sure, but I'm not going to count on it. I've enjoyed CRPGs for a long time, and I've enjoyed Spiderweb's RPGs almost as long. I don't see that changing.

 

Even with less history behind it, you can't really live your life with the anticipation of all your beliefs being transitory. They may be, but you can't know which ones and it's more satisfying to plan based on what you might know than based on rejecting all self-knowledge.

 

—Alorael, who anticipates quite a few things changing in his life over the next ten years. Some are quite predictable. Others will undoubtedly be entirely unforeseen. And he'll probably still like RPGs, salmon, and sneering superciliously at the plebeian masses.

[Student of Trinity]

A scenario I can sadly imagine is that Jeff gets rich and retires. His recent posts give the impression that he may be doing quite a lot better financially now than formerly. Maybe he'll keep on piling up the millions just for the heck of it, but I could also see him deciding to pack it in once he's gotten enough of a pile. Or at least deciding to take a hiatus for a while and try something else for a change, once he has enough of a financial cushion built up. He clearly loves some parts of what he does, but his remarks about cockroach tenacity suggest that some parts of the business are pretty grim.

 

Alternatively he might just invest more in outsourcing some of the tedious parts of his game-making, and try one or two more bold experiments in new types of game. At the moment he's got a clear interest in upgrading his existing library enough to make it appeal to the much larger audience he is now reaching. But if that pays off, he may have time and security enough in a couple of years to go in new directions.

[Randomizer]

Jeff's got two little girls that some day will be a huge drain on him financially. Until he builds up his savings we are safe.

[Earth]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Jeff's got two little girls that some day will be a huge drain on him financially. Until he builds up his savings we are safe.

we better hope that it'll be a quite long time.

[Aran]

Jeff earning enough would also mean he can afford more risky innovations that may result in excellent games even if they don't sell as well - eg. Blades stuff.

[Alorael at Large]

I'm not sure he'd make Blades, though. Given Jeff's lack of involvement in or rapport with the Blades community, really, he'd be doing the work to make the scenario creator without the fun of designing anything himself. It's pure programming work, and I get the impression that he doesn't enjoy that enough. There's still nothing in it for him, except maybe some publicity.

 

—Alorael, who thinks that given a huge bankroll Jeff would be more likely to splurge on graphics and then, maybe, one day when he can roll in a bathtub full of money, he might consider trying daring game design.

[Erebus the Black]

1. Exile/Avernum/Nethergate board game, if OOTS can do it so can we.

2. Avernum web comic: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8344646&postcount=1 (sorta)