Tue, Feb 05, 2013 | 12:43 GMT

Psychonauts 2 needs $18m to happen, Notch backs away from funding

Psychonauts 2 looked like a faint possibility last year, after Minecraft creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson Tweeted Tim Schafer saying that they should band together and make it happen. As it turned out, the game would need $18 million to become a reality. Needless to say, Notch is out.

Persson explained what happened to the proposed tag-team effort in a Reddit thread, “I somewhat naively thought ‘a couple of million’ was two million. I had no doubt in my mind that a Psychonauts 2 would earn that money back easily. Turns out they wanted 18 million dollars, haha.”

While Notch’s studio Mojang made a reported $240 million last year alone, Notch isn’t prepared to stump up that amount of cash readily, but he does enjoy the idea of funding projects once he steps away from development.

He added, “Perhaps in some distant future when I’m no longer trying to make games, I could get into angel investing. I’ve made one private investment into a game so far, at $100K, and it’s frankly a lot more work than I thought.”

Speaking with VG247, Double Fine did confirm that it had more Psychonauts stories to be told and that Tim Schafer always has ideas in mind on where it could go next.

Would you like to see it happen? Let us know below.

Thanks PCGamesN.

13 comment-trail-alt Posted in: Mojang, PC
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13 comments

#2

foofly
05/02/13, 12:55 pm

How about a series of Psychonauts episodes? Small, self contained stories. These could be cheaper to make and without a huge, up front investment. Just a thought.

#3

Len
05/02/13, 2:06 pm

So who is ‘they’? Is he saying Double Fine wanted/needed $18m?

#4

Dave Cook
05/02/13, 2:07 pm

@4 Yes.

#5

Ignatius_Cheese
05/02/13, 2:09 pm

Come on Tim! Get on Kickstarter! $18m? Pah! You could easily make $20m…

#6

Dodg3r
05/02/13, 2:21 pm

@1 haha that sums it up :D

#7

DSB
05/02/13, 2:57 pm

Psychonauts aka the last Double Fine title with truly good gameplay.

Erik Robson who was lead design is at Valve now though.

#8

silkvg247
05/02/13, 2:57 pm

I’d love to know how they came to that number..

#9

NeoSquall
05/02/13, 3:13 pm

@9 Art Development, Level Design, Audio (Sound and voice) Development, a decent Score, Salary for all personnel…

I’d say it’s even cheap for an AAA production.

#10

mreko3230
05/02/13, 3:15 pm

I don’t understand why more developers and publisehrs don’t follow the movie model and have multiple investors in on a game. Most movies have 4-5 investors easy. That being said, if I won the lottery, I would invest the $18 million- I think the game would make that back easily. (as long as that $18 million includes advertising and licensing).

#11

DSB
05/02/13, 3:18 pm

@11 This kinda sheds light on how archaic the games industry is, and how badly independent developers get screwed:

http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/game-changers-chris-taylor/

#12

friendlydave
05/02/13, 3:22 pm

@9 the first Pschonauts had around $15 million budget..

You know..not a big fan of Double Fine games, couldn’t care less for a Psychonauts 2. Iron brigade was the only game I really enjoyed.

#13

TheWulf
05/02/13, 10:26 pm

All that money, Notch, and you can’t spare $18m for something you claimed to believe in? Well, that’s changed my perception of him ever so slightly.

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