You’ve probably heard about the sudden potential collaboration between Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer for the creation of Psychonauts 2. Double Fine also hit some awesome luck with their Kickstarter campaign to fund a new point and click adventure game, which hit its goal of $400,000 in about eight hours.
In an interview with Hookshot Inc., however, he expresses that some things just don’t work out the way you’d like them to, and that’s when you have to get creative.
For instance, when Double Fine was working on Brutal Legend, the green light they got from Vivendi turned red when Vivendi and Activision merged. EA picked it up, but Activision sued Double Fine and Double Fine countersued. The strain of the legal drama hindered the game, and EA decided against a sequel. Schafer explains,
The thing is, Double Fine is all about coming up with new, unproven and really creative ideas. It’s a constant battle for us to get those ideas to go through the system, that long spanking machine of people who have to sign off on you. They’re not evil, they’re just trying to protect themselves.
But if publishers won’t support you, who will? If the Kickstarter campaign is any indication, the answer is fans. They’re not the most stable of investors, but they are probably more keyed into what kind of products your company puts out than suits who are removed from the industry. And if they like what they see, they’re going to encourage you to make more of that kind of thing, because if there’s anything legitimately frightening to a gamer, it’s the thought that large companies are going to push indie developers out of the fray.
But if you can’t get a publisher to pick up your game, how are you going to get it into the hands of your fans? There are digital distribution systems like PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam, but Schafer notes:
The indie community is now moving elsewhere; we’re figuring out how to fund and distribute games ourselves, and we’re getting more control over them. Those systems [like PSN and XBLA] as great as they are, they’re still closed. You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can’t do it on these systems. I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch – we can’t afford that! Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that’s where it’s at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That’s where people are going.
If an independent developer is barely scraping together the funds for their game, how can they put out the $40,000 needed to patch it? Not being able to address player concerns or desires through digital distribution systems is a serious hindrance to a game.
Schafer also mentioned that they are looking into mobile and free-to-play, and have been experimenting with Kinect and iOS. Current games that Double Fine has on the shelves include Happy Action Theater on XBLA; Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster for the Xbox 360; Iron Brigade on XBLA; Stacking on PSN, XBLA, and PC; and Costume Quest on PSN, XBLA, and PC.
External Reference: http://geek.pikimal.com
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