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[dLMN8R]

Im sceptical about their ability to follow through on this project. Broken Age was massively overfunded if you look at the initial target sum, yet they still ran into pretty big problems during development, asking for additional funds. The finished game wasnt very long either, and act 2 was very half-assed, with a lot of recycling and padding going on. I mean, if this is the game that 3,5 million dollars bought, what the hell would that initial 400 000 dollar target have given us?

Couple that with the Spacebase df 9 disaster, and I have serious worries that this game is eventually going to get stuck in development hell, or be extremely bare bones when it releases. I get the feeling that they were hoping (maybe even assuming) to massively overshoot their initial funding target for this project given their history with KS, giving them enough leeway to actually deliver on the game. That didnt happen, and I suppose we are about to find out what kind of game they can actually deliver when they dont get overfunded and dont have the breathing room that they have grown accustomed to.

If Double Fine got $400,000 for their Adventure game, they would have made a very small-scale game probably in Flash.

What if they stuck to their original plan once they got $3.3 million? I'm sure everyone would have been super duper happy about that.

Spacebase DF-9 was a different story entirely. It wasn't crowd funding. They went into Early Access expecting Early Access to fund continued development. It didn't, so they stopped.


Double Fine has never failed to deliver on a crowd-funding campaign.

But Broken age is already pretty small, and not that ambitious in point and click standards. I mean you can always say " just imagine it smaller!", but what does that mean when the released product with 9x the budget of the original pitch itself turned out very modest?

My fear is that they simply didnt do a very good job with the planning and development of Broken Age and overpromised with their initial pitch. The additional money saved their asses that time, and they just assumed that they will get the same leeway this time.

Broken Age is not a small game. It's a 12-15 hour adventure game of similar scope (or bigger) to games like Full Throttle and others.

Maybe you didn't like it, but it wasn't small.

 

[PaulloDEC]

But Broken age is already pretty small, and not that ambitious in point and click standards. I mean you can always say " just imagine it smaller!", but what does that mean when the released product with 9x the budget of the original pitch itself turned out very modest?

My fear is that they simply didnt do a very good job with the planning and development of Broken Age and overpromised with their initial pitch. The additional money saved their asses that time, and they just assumed that they will get the same leeway this time.

Where are you getting this "the additional money saved their asses" thing from?

Getting additional money is why Broken Age was troubled in the first place. When the budget grows, so does the scope. The original budget guaranteed a manageable scope, but the final budget had grown so far beyond what anyone was expecting that the scope grew out of control.

The final game may have been conservative from a gameplay perspective, but a huge amount of time and money went into creating an entirely new engine, committing to a bespoke and time-consuming art style, doing an insane amount of complex animation, etc.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Broken Age is not a small game. It's a 12-15 hour adventure game of similar scope (or bigger) to games like Full Throttle and others.

Maybe you didn't like it, but it wasn't small.

Full Throttle is so short I often wonder if people played it when they said that Broken Age was too short compared to Lucasarts titles. Broken Age is probably longer than Day of The Tentacle as well, the only really long Schafer game that he made for Lucas is Grim Fandango.

 

[Phoenix Fang]

I saw not one black person in that video. Shame.

 

[B-Genius]

What splendid news to wake up to on one's birthday!

Congrats to DoubleFine. What an age we live in...

 

[BeauRoger]

Where are you getting this "the additional money saved their asses" thing from?

Getting additional money is why Broken Age was troubled in the first place. When the budget grows, so does the scope. The original budget guaranteed a manageable scope, but the final budget had grown so far beyond what anyone was expecting that the scope grew out of control.

The final game may have been conservative from a gameplay perspective, but a huge amount of time and money went into creating an entirely new engine, committing to a bespoke and time-consuming art style, doing an insane amount of complex animation, etc.

By additional money i meant the extra 3,2 million they got. Yes, it might be an unfounded concern on my part, and maybe it is exactly as you say; the scale grew accordingly to the new budget perfectly, and it wasnt that the original pitch simply was overly optimistic given that they obviously always intended to deliver something of substance. I suppose that its just a nagging suspicion, given that they returned later on in the project to ask for even more money. To me, that just looked like poor planning/execution.

 

[dangeROSS]

Very cool news! Congrats to Doublefine.

 

[SavoyPrime]

Huzzah, Psychonauts is the only Double Fine game that I don't think is terrible so I hope this is as charming and inventive as the first game.

It's the only Double Fine game I've ever been interested in. So glad the sequel is finally happening.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

Great to hear. This thread is already being hit by concern that's been played out for at least 3 years.

 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Great to hear.

 

[vocab]

I saw not one black person in that video. Shame.

Because you know, that's a important discussion to have in celebration of this long awaited sequel getting funded.

 

[Catvoca]

Very glad to see it happening, I didn't back it but I'm really looking forward to the final product. I'm more excited for another Documentary though, Double Fine adventure was incredible!

Sometimes I feel bad for the company, they are so open in the way they communicate with fans through the documentary stuff and blogposts yet there is so much skepticism and negativity towards Tim and the whole team. Hope it doesn't affect them too much.

 

[El Aleph]

Sometimes I feel bad for the company, they are so open in the way they communicate with fans through the documentary stuff and blogposts yet there is so much skepticism and negativity towards Tim and the whole team. Hope it doesn't affect them too much.

That's what happens when you have reactionary morons spreading misinformation and propaganda. But, you know, those people slandering Tim care about ethics in journalism!

 

[Goldenroad]

Very happy for them, but does anyone feel like that took a lot longer than one would expect? I'm sure they will have no problem securing the necessary funding to make the game amazing, but I don't know, I thought it would get funded faster.

I didn't back it because I don't back kickstarters, but this is one that I'm really happy to see made it.

 

[El Aleph]

Very happy for them, but does anyone feel like that took a lot longer than one would expect? I'm sure they will have no problem securing the necessary funding to make the game amazing, but I don't know, I thought it would get funded faster.

I didn't back it because I don't back kickstarters, but this is one that I'm really happy to see made it.

To be fair, funding slowed down to a trickle during the holiday season and then regained momentum after the holidays were over:

http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/17604/

 

[More_Badass]

By additional money i meant the extra 3,2 million they got. Yes, it might be an unfounded concern on my part, and maybe it is exactly as you say; the scale grew accordingly to the new budget perfectly, and it wasnt that the original pitch simply was overly optimistic given that they obviously always intended to deliver something of substance. I suppose that its just a nagging suspicion, given that they returned later on in the project to ask for even more money. To me, that just looked like poor planning/execution.

When was that? There have only been two DF Kickstarters: Broken Age and Massive Chalice

 

[overcast]

Incredibly happy that this game is being made. Never thought it would happen.

Congrats Double Fine team, hopefully they can live up to the billing.

 

[PaulloDEC]

By additional money i meant the extra 3,2 million they got. Yes, it might be an unfounded concern on my part, and maybe it is exactly as you say; the scale grew accordingly to the new budget perfectly, and it wasnt that the original pitch simply was overly optimistic given that they obviously always intended to deliver something of substance. I suppose that its just a nagging suspicion, given that they returned later on in the project to ask for even more money. To me, that just looked like poor planning/execution.

I mean, there was poor planning in the sense that they didn't plan for a scenario where they got many times as much money as they were asking for. But that's not really something they could've been reasonably expected to predict.

When was that? There have only been two DF Kickstarters: Broken Age and Massive Chalice

Yeah, that didn't happen. What happened was that they chose to split the game into two chapters and start selling the first chapter to the general public to help fund completion of the second chapter.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Congrats to them.

 

[BeauRoger]

When was that? There have only been two DF Kickstarters: Broken Age and Massive Chalice

Happened during the development of Broken Age. In the end they decided to sell the first half early to fund the second half. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/03/broken-age-needs-more-money-tries-steam-early-access/

 

[tim.mbp]

We did it! Hope to see it in 3 years.

 

[El Aleph]

When was that? There have only been two DF Kickstarters: Broken Age and Massive Chalice

It's an article of faith among Gamergaters that Broken Age required two Kickstarter campaigns, even though that's patently false.

On the other hand, it makes it very easy to immediately spot a moron:

 

[KiteGr]

Any stretch goals?

 

[dLMN8R]

Double Fine never once asked backers to contribute more money for any crowd funding campaign. It's not surprising that such an accusation is coming from GamerGate.

 

[Fireblend]

Happened during the development of Broken Age. In the end they decided to sell the first half early to fund the second half. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/03/broken-age-needs-more-money-tries-steam-early-access/

Selling something they developed is hardly "asking fans for money again", specially since those fans already owned that first half... not sure what your argument is here.

 

[Maximo]

Love Psychonauts like looooooved Psychonauts but I didn't put a cent towards the Kickstarter and don't plan to buy the game until impressions come out from players. I am truly happy this is funded but I don't trust Double Fines use of money nor do I back games that haven't proved themselves.

Anyway can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

[morningbus]

By additional money i meant the extra 3,2 million they got. Yes, it might be an unfounded concern on my part, and maybe it is exactly as you say; the scale grew accordingly to the new budget perfectly, and it wasnt that the original pitch simply was overly optimistic given that they obviously always intended to deliver something of substance. I suppose that its just a nagging suspicion, given that they returned later on in the project to ask for even more money. To me, that just looked like poor planning/execution.

Happened during the development of Broken Age. In the end they decided to sell the first half early to fund the second half. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/03/broken-age-needs-more-money-tries-steam-early-access/

Layout a timeline of events as you think they happened.

This will come in handy for when you try and pull a Berenstain Bears alternate reality defense.

 

[BeauRoger]

Layout a timeline of events as you think they happened.

This will come in handy for when you try and pull a Berenstain Bears alternate reality defense.

I think you are confusing things here. I was, speculating about the scaling of their project, and if the initial pitch was even doable at 400.000 given what they accomplished with 3,5 million, plus the additional money needed from splitting the game in half. As i said, its perfectly possible that they had some micro game planned at 400k that was perfectly doable at that price and still was meaningful/substantial given that small budget. But given what we recieved, a 3-5 hour first half and about a 7 hour heavily recycled second half, i was speculating about the possibility that the 400k version of the game was always extremely optimistic on their part, if they wanted anything resembling a modern take on a classic point n click adventure. Now with psychonauts 2, which didnt recieve a massive overfund, i was wondering how realistically they have budgeted the game. It might of course be that they are spot on, as I said in the post you quoted. But as they did, at the very least, miscalculate during the Broken Age project, im wondering if the lack of overfunding in on this project might put them in a tight spot later on in development. Im not exactly sure what definitive argument you think i was making.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

wait

wait

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait

gamergate is all about bringing games back to their roots.

i mean that is their manifesto (regardless of what they actually think that means).

so now they bitch about a game that brought gaming back to its roots?

 

[PaulloDEC]

I think you are confusing things here. I was, speculating about the scaling of their project, and if the initial pitch was even doable at 400.000 given what they accomplished with 3,5 million, plus the additional money needed from splitting the game in half. As i said, its perfectly possible that they had some micro game planned at 400k that was perfectly doable at that price and still was meaningful/substantial given that small budget. But given what we recieved, a 3-5 hour first half and about a 7 hour heavily recycled second half, i was speculating about the possibility that the 400k version of the game was always extremely optimistic on their part, if they wanted anything resembling a modern take on a classic point n click adventure. Now with psychonauts 2, which didnt recieve a massive overfund, i was wondering how realistically they have budgeted the game. It might of course be that they are spot on, as I said in the post you quoted. But as they did, at the very least, miscalculate during the Broken Age project, im wondering if the lack of overfunding in on this project might put them in a tight spot later on in development. Im not exactly sure what definitive argument you think i was making.

The part you're being called on is this:

...given that they returned later on in the project to ask for even more money.

That isn't what happened.

 

[VeeP]

Hey guys, first of all pretty cool to see that P2 is finally getting developed.

But, I wanted to ask, why is this happening now and not years ago? Hell, didn't Notch himself offer around 1 million to develop Psyconauts 2? And Double Fine said it would cost around 15 million or so to develop?

What's changed since then? And apologies if this was discussed before, I didn't have time to look through the whole Psyconauts thread for answers.

 

[Nzyme32]

Great!

Despite being well aware of the dubious nature of Double Fine and crowdfunding since Spacebase, I am still perfectly happy to throw some money at this for even the slightest chance to a sequel to Psychonauts, knowing that this still has the chance of resulting in a poor product or none at all. This and Shenmue 3 are pretty much the only games I would do it for outside of developers I implicitly trust with this sort of thing.

 

[Mugen08]

Happy for all backers! Still have to play the first game at some point. If the sequel turns out great I might look into it later.

 

[BeauRoger]

The part you're being called on is this:



That isn't what happened.

Oh, I see. Yeah, i should have worded that more clearly. Works both ways of course, since it certainly does not say that they started another crowdfunding campaign. Still, it is of very very little consequence on the point i elaborated on in my previous post, which is what i thought was being discussed. But absolutely, lt would have been better to swap that sentance for my following post where i provided a link and clarification to what happened in regards to the money issues. As you probably can see, it doesnt at all affect what i was actually trying to discuss.

 

[Dryk]

Broken Age's inital scope was reaaaally small. The game only exists because Tim wanted to make the documentary and they didn't have a game in production they could film. I think at the inital budget it would've been a few hours long and the production quality would be waaaaay down and probably just an old-school pixel art game. There's a lot of expensive art, animation and engine stuff going on in Broken Age.

That said in the documentary it's pretty clear that once Tim got writing the script he just kept going until he was done with not a whole lot of regard to how long it would take to implement. It's possible that he would've restrained himself better if they had a smaller budget but who knows.

wait

wait

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait

gamergate is all about bringing games back to their roots.

i mean that is their manifesto (regardless of what they actually think that means).

so now they bitch about a game that brought gaming back to its roots?

Tim Schafer said they smell once and they've never forgiven him

 

[sixteen-bit]

congrats to them getting funded!

 

[HYDE]

I am really happy this is being made, me and my kids have some extremely fond moments if the first one.

 

[doemaaan]

game on bebe. game on 💪.

 

[LudicrousSpeed]

But Broken age is already pretty small, and not that ambitious in point and click standards. I mean you can always say " just imagine it smaller!", but what does that mean when the released product with 9x the budget of the original pitch itself turned out very modest?

My fear is that they simply didnt do a very good job with the planning and development of Broken Age and overpromised with their initial pitch. The additional money saved their asses that time, and they just assumed that they will get the same leeway this time.

Broken Age had voice acting, which was not in the original plans. Broken Age's visuals and animation much outpaced what the original plan was, which (I could swear) was for it to be much more visually along the lines of Maniac Mansion and the first Monkey Island.

Literally, $400k was going to get you a very short and basic new Tim Schaefer-led adventure game with little in the way of bells or whistles.

 

[Massa]

Hey guys, first of all pretty cool to see that P2 is finally getting developed.

But, I wanted to ask, why is this happening now and not years ago? Hell, didn't Notch himself offer around 1 million to develop Psyconauts 2? And Double Fine said it would cost around 15 million or so to develop?

What's changed since then? And apologies if this was discussed before, I didn't have time to look through the whole Psyconauts thread for answers.

Just read their Fig page, it's pretty well explained.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/psychonauts-2

 

[Stumpokapow]

Now with psychonauts 2, which didnt recieve a massive overfund, i was wondering how realistically they have budgeted the game.

First, the crowdfunding is ongoing, so you actually don't know how much it'll be overfunded.

Second, as you were told earlier in the thread, crowdfunding is a small portion of the overall budget, which is $10-13 million at minimum. So even if the crowdfunding was $5 million (i.e. significantly overfunded), the overall budget would be only barely greater than it is now.

Great!

Despite being well aware of the dubious nature of Double Fine and crowdfunding since Spacebase

Spacebase wasn't crowdfunded.

 

[Maple-Tech]

Did they have any funding troubles with Massive Chalice?

 

[Grisby]

The first is like, number one on my xbox shame list that I still need to play. Hear terrible things about a meat circus though.

Gonna have to see if I can dl from my 360 list as I got it as an original when xbox was still doing that shit.

 

[RiverBed]

n/m

 

[NoFaceNico]

Is this fig.co owned or co-owned by Double Fine or Schafer himself? I find it weird that a funding site (with the URL registered 5 years ago) only has two other games and Double Fine chose to go with it.

Here is the Whois:

Technically, he sits on their "advisory board" and the CEO is a former Double Fine dev.

He was a big part of making Fig and has stated in at least one interview that all future Double Fine crowdfunding projects will only use Fig.

 

[DXLelouch153]

this calls for another playthrough right after i finally play KOTOR I and II

 

[Armaly]

The first is like, number one on my xbox shame list that I still need to play. Hear terrible things about a meat circus though.

Gonna have to see if I can dl from my 360 list as I got it as an original when xbox was still doing that shit.

I managed the meat circus on keyboard. You should be fine.

 

[kingwingin]

The first is like, number one on my xbox shame list that I still need to play. Hear terrible things about a meat circus though.

Gonna have to see if I can dl from my 360 list as I got it as an original when xbox was still doing that shit.

got the game near christmas and the meat circus pissed me off much, took a long break and just beat it an hour ago. feels good to finally play and beat it tho. Bring on the sequel!

 

[RiverBed]

This smells... And that youtube video didn't make it better.
$500 a share?! Da fuq are you smoking? But I'm guessing everyone that funded it did so with the mentality "here is scrap money for the game...if it releases".

It's shady that they are running their own crowd funding platform...

 

[morningbus]

This smells... And that youtube video didn't make it better.
$500 a share?! Da fuq are you smoking? But I'm guessing everyone that funded it did so with the mentality "here is scrap money for the game...if it releases".

It's shady that they are running their own crowd funding platform...

Yo heads up: your other thread got locked so maybe you should learn about this thing first.