Psychonauts developer Double Fine announced on Wednesday a $400,000 Kickstarter campaign that aims to crowdfund development of an "honest to goodness adventure game" led by designer Tim Schafer.
It's a surprising move for an established studio with major releases under its belt to turn to crowdfunding, but Double Fine said an old-school adventure game doesn't exactly make traditional publishers run for their checkbooks.
Before games like Brutal Legend and Psychonauts, Schafer, founder of San Francisco, CA-based Double Fine, was known for LucasArts adventure games such as Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango.
He's not the only adventure game talent at the studio these days. Fellow ex-LucasArts adventure game guru Ron Gilbert, creator of Monkey Island, is also at Double Fine.
"With this project, we're taking that door off its hinges and inviting you into the world of Double Fine Productions, the first major studio to fully finance their next game with a Kickstarter campaign and develop it in the public eye," the Kickstarter page reads.
If the studio can raise $400,000 for the project, development will go forward and Double Fine gets the funds. If the campaign misses its target, Double Fine gets none of the money pledged. Surplus funds would go towards further development of the game and towards a planned documentary, filmed by 2 Player Productions.
"Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community," the campaign description states. "They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision."
"It's the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can't afford. At least, not until now."
The game is slated to release this October. All backers will receive Steam codes for the game's beta, and are eligible for rewards. Mac and iOS versions are also a possibility if the campaign raises enough funding.
[Update: After just eight hours, Double Fine reached that $400,000 funding goal, and continued to receive more pledges from supporters. The Kickstarter campaign has so far received more than $650,000 in pledges, and will continue for 33 more days.]
Kickstarter has a number of successful campaigns for games. While this is the first I have seen with a goal of $400k it is just one more successful project. That does not mean this is not an incredibly awesome and possibly one of a kind experience.
I have to admit when I am wrong. I read this and said NO WAY this will happen...... Well I stand corrected, they will reach their goal by tomorrow..... I guess this is the untapped raw power of the masses at work. :)
Wow, that goal was reached quickly. And still 33 days left, too. While undoubtedly, this momentum won't keep up for the full length of time, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with a million or two by March 14.
I wonder if publishers are paying attention to this sort of thing to challenge their perception of what sells and what doesn't?
Ha. I was just thinking yesterday while reading the offer from Minecraft to fund Psychonauts 2 that it would be better for Double Fine if they did a Kickstarter Crowd-sourcing campaign. Good for them!
This implications of this are staggering... that talented developers with a "cache of goodwill" can effectively leverage their street-cred to break free from the bonds of the publishing paradigm. Potentially switching the driving force behind the project away from "pure profit" towards something more akin to "crowd demand" for a particular product, supported by an aggregate of crowd-sourced micro-funders like those found on kickstarter.
Dan Porter you couldn't have said it better. This is more than a Kickstarter project. It's a statement. The implications are going to be felt far and wide in this industry. Well done to Double Fine for taking point on this. It is true, not everyone could do this but it's great to see someone who can, actually do it. I hope they reach over 2mil. The bigger the amount the bigger the raise of the finger to this franchise infested, creatively stagnant, numbers driven industry. I wish I had more money to spend on making this voice even louder. But somehow I think by the end of the deadline the voice will be pretty loud anyway.
Yes an no. It's great, don't get me wrong. But is it repeatable? More to the point: is it repeatable by someone who doesn't have a bit of a cult following?
Publishers should be quaking in their boots. If more studios do this, and raise this much, or a bunch of studios team together to make multiple games... we can do this!
I think it's awesome that Tim and co. are getting this kind of support from their fans, but let's not kid ourselves - this means absolutely nothing in regard to the development of big budget, AAA games like Uncharted, Gran Turismo, Halo, etc. It's also not at all clear that this is a sustainable development model for a large number of games or whether people are just responding to the novelty of it.
As a fan of adventure games and of the previous work by these guys, I'm happy to see how well this has worked out, but I don't think there are many broad lessons that we can draw about game funding/publishing in general from what is, at the moment, an interesting one-off.
Adam, I would have to agree with you. It is way to early to call this as a new viable business model, but it sure feels good to see fan support like this.
When I checked last night, less than 40,000 people had donated....not exactly stellar sales numbers for a game, so your point about Pyschonauts doesn't make sense.
Just checked the Kickstarter site and DF is close to $900,000 with 33 days to go. Congrats DF!!
But DF is in a unique situation, they are an established game developer with a proven history of creating great games. Check out the other video games projects on Kickstarter. Just about all of the other games have less than $10,000 in pledges.
If you are an indie and have an ORIGINAL game concept, Kickstarter may not be the way to go. You'll have to disclose your game idea to the public (no NDA) in hopes of convincing potential backers for pledges. Another developer may like your idea so much that they'll just come out with their own version before you can finish yours.
This is no game changer for those that cant get funding through traditional means. Double fine is a known entity with a track record of success. Im surprised they didn't ask for way more, they probably would have got it. For them this is like free money.
The universe is so much cooler now that this is a thing!!
If I were a publisher, I would be nervous.
Although it would be fun to see.
That was kind of gross, but I am still excited.
Awesome !
I wonder if publishers are paying attention to this sort of thing to challenge their perception of what sells and what doesn't?
We both sort of got our wishes.
http://www.indiegamethemovie.com/
To be a fly on the wall as Bioware makes ME 3 or Naughty Dog makes Uncharted 3 would be awesome.
Should have been more specific.
Wow. Bravo DF. Nicely done. Glad to see the good guys in the industry can still move the needle :)
Marx's ghost is probably dancing somewhere.
As a fan of adventure games and of the previous work by these guys, I'm happy to see how well this has worked out, but I don't think there are many broad lessons that we can draw about game funding/publishing in general from what is, at the moment, an interesting one-off.
But this brings up a question: if DF can get this kind of cash so quickly and has this many devoted fans, why didn't Psychonauts sell better?
But DF is in a unique situation, they are an established game developer with a proven history of creating great games. Check out the other video games projects on Kickstarter. Just about all of the other games have less than $10,000 in pledges.
If you are an indie and have an ORIGINAL game concept, Kickstarter may not be the way to go. You'll have to disclose your game idea to the public (no NDA) in hopes of convincing potential backers for pledges. Another developer may like your idea so much that they'll just come out with their own version before you can finish yours.