Thu, Feb 09, 2012 | 12:53 GMT
Double Fine Kickstarter project beats $400,000 in eight hours
Tim Schafer’s Double Fine has achieved $400,000 Kickstarter funding for a secret new game, amassing the total from eager gamers in just a few hours.
Double Fine launched a Kickstarter campaign with a $400,000 goal to fund “a classic point-and-click adventure utilizing modern touch technology” earlier today.
The amount was reached in around eight hours.
Developer Greg Rice expressed delight at the success of the scheme on Twitter: “You people are the greatest people in the world. Party time!”
“This has been an incredible night, thanks to you crazy people,” Schafer said.
The studio boss added that all extra funds will go into shipping the game on platforms other than PC, adding more music and extra “awesomeness”.
“Let’s keep funding this thing until it becomes a monster,” he said. “All the money goes into making the game and documentary better.”
Schafer described the Kickstarter campaign as a “Thunderdome”, in which publisher disinterest in adventure games will do battle with fan demand for them.
“Think it will work? I hope so, because I would rather work directly for the fans than for anyone else,” Schafer wrote.
“If the Double Fine Kickstarter Adventure is a success, it could open the doors for all sorts of new funding possibilities, and all kinds of new games that could never happen in the old system. So basically I’m just talking about changing the entire world forever for the better. And getting a game out of it.”
Double Fine has teamed up with 2 Player Productions, the filmmakers behind a crowd source-funded Minecraft documentary as well as Penny Arcade: The Series, to ensure fans get more out of the proces than a finished game. The entire development process will be documented and shared exclusively with its financial backers via monthly updates.
You can get on board this scheme for just $15, but the campaign also offers some amazing opportunities for those with a little more cash in their pockets. As well as a number of bonuses available through Kickstarter, Schafer listed a couple of enormous rewards – from dinner with Schafer and the development team for $15,000, through $50,000 to be a character in the game, to $150,000 for one of only four remaining unopened copies of classic Schafer adventure, Day of the Tentacle. Also: an undoctored photo of Ron Gilbert smiling for just $35,000.
In interviews over the last few years, Schafer has made his dissatisfaction with publisher-funded development clear; his decision to leap into crowd-sourcing may have been at least partially motivated by enthusiastic response to a suggestion that Mojang boss Markus “Notch” Persson fund the constantly demanded sequel to Psychonauts. The Minecraft creator has personally pledged $10,000 to the initiative.
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Posted in: Adventure, Charity, indie
Tags: 2 Player Productions, crowdsourcing, double fine, Kickstarter, Psychonauts 2, Tim Schafer
25 comments
#1
DSB
09/02/12, 2:44 am
To be fair, the company’s logo was always in the Psychonauts style.
I think it’s a lot more likely to be Full Throttle. Psychonauts is a platformer, and I don’t think it has any roots as a point and click adventure.
I think you’re looking at motorcycle/racing gear, rather than Raz gear.
#2
Brenna Hillier
09/02/12, 2:48 am
Was it? Balls. Updated to remove my wild speculation. Thanks.
#3
DSB
09/02/12, 2:50 am
The site says Day of the Tentacle was his first lead, but I’ve never heard that before. Full Throttle was definitely his baby though.
#4
Colin Gallacher
09/02/12, 2:53 am
“I think it’s a lot more likely to be Full Throttle. Psychonauts is a platformer, and I don’t think it has any roots as a point and click adventure.”
Along the lines of what I was saying on Twitter. I just can’t see Psychonauts shifting to something completely different after the almost public outcry for a sequel.
If it is Full Throttle…Wouldn’t LucasArts still own the rights?
#5
DSB
09/02/12, 2:58 am
@4 True, but then again, why would they want to hold onto a license for a 1996 adventure game, especially after wasting all that money on the sequel?
I’m not sure it would be worth buying either though. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did something entirely new.
But in terms of the gear that the Double Fine mascot(s) are wearing, I’m thinking motorcycles more than Raz. Although really it looks like old pilot gear.
#6
Colin Gallacher
09/02/12, 3:09 am
@5
“why would they want to hold onto a license for a 1996 adventure game, especially after wasting all that money on the sequel?”
Good point, but LucasArts seem to like keeping a hold of anything until the bitter end. One of their wiser choices of the last 5 years was letting Telltale Games develop a new Monkey Island series.
And that’s $52,000 in an hour and ten minutes.
#7
Brenna Hillier
09/02/12, 4:19 am
Hmm, there’s a bit of a debate going on about whether there’s a conflict of interest for games writers contributing to Kickstarter. I believe there’s not, because you don’t get any kind of profit from Kickstarter – it’s like pre-ordering and donating – but here’s my full disclosure anyway: I contributed to this project.
#8
Patrick Garratt
09/02/12, 8:12 am
It’s over $300,000 now.
#9
Hunam
09/02/12, 8:33 am
I’d prefer it if people just literally just threw money in Schafer’s face.
#10
Patrick Garratt
09/02/12, 8:34 am
#11
Patrick Garratt
09/02/12, 8:39 am
I’m sorry, but the notion of writers being corrupted by pledging to this is completely retarded. Sometimes I hate the internet.
#12
mathare92
09/02/12, 9:03 am
All this and the talk about a Mojang funded Psychonauts 2. Tim Schafer must be the happiest chap in the industry right now.
#13
Old MacDonald
09/02/12, 9:05 am
So nobody wants to pay for p&c (and indeed pc) adventure games these days, eh? EH? :p
#14
Patrick Garratt
09/02/12, 10:17 am
It’s over 400k. Madness.
#15
Colin Gallacher
09/02/12, 10:17 am
Incredible that only took just over 8 hours to reach the goal.
#16
Chockster
09/02/12, 10:39 am
Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
(I’m already fuzzy on the outside, so that’s handy.)
#17
b0-0n
09/02/12, 10:57 am
A new adventure game from Double Fine AND you get to have say in it for only 15 dollars? Yes and more please!
#18
Patrick Garratt
09/02/12, 10:58 am
It’s still going. Not long to $500,000, I reckon.
#19
Eregol
09/02/12, 11:34 am
It’d be nice if they took it a step further and either gave the people who donated a share of the profits made (a percentage dictated by the percentage of what they donated to the project) or donated the profits to charity.
#20
Hunam
09/02/12, 1:15 pm
@19
That’s not really the spirit of kickstarter though, if you got profit share etc, you’d just be a regualr investment bussinessmen, kickstarter is basically about giving money to people for some, non monitary return to help them do things that you might care about.
#21
Sini
09/02/12, 1:23 pm
I could go for more old school type adventure games centered around good plot.
It will be hysterical if they reach something like 5 million by the end of 30 days.
#22
ManuOtaku
09/02/12, 1:45 pm
You know personally for me they are a few developers a put alongside nintendo as my favorites ones,for their quality, great ideas, great gameplay, great artistic style,etc, and double fine is just one of them kudos to them, although i cannot support them with this, i hope that anybody that hold on high steem this developer can give their grain of sand to make the mountain, i hope this means more games from them, i love all their games even brutal legend, i love that game being a metal header myself, it was great fun all around; schafer your bizarre fun ideas and views, should came in the most quantity of games available ever possible.
#23
DSB
09/02/12, 1:58 pm
That’s just amazing.
Ten years ago, who would’ve thought that gamers were going to be helping developers get rid of publishers?
Replacing greed with democracy. It doesn’t just help the game get made, it also leaves all the rights in the hands of the developer.
Everyone who contributed should pat themselves on the back.
#24
ManuOtaku
09/02/12, 2:46 pm
#23 i agree and i will like to add, keeping the intended vision of the developers instead of the publishers, this way they dont have any strings attached, their creativity and original vision will remain intact as intended / planned.
#25
freedoms_stain
09/02/12, 3:10 pm
Fantastic effort.
These things can sky rocket, one of my favourite musicians, Ginger (of The Wildhearts) is doing a Pledge Music campaign (http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/gingerwildheart) which reached its target in something like 6 hours and is currently sitting at 510% (with 21 days left) although he has been running his since last year and Double Fine have put a 33 day limit on theirs (no reason why they couldn’t or shouldn’t expand that though as Ginger did when he hit his target so early).
More high profile developers should try this so that they can make their own games free of investor pressure.