Double Fine Gets Indie Fund Backing For Two More Games

[Andy Chalk]

Double Fine Gets Indie Fund Backing For Two More Games

The Brutal Legend studio is adding two more titles to its catalog of games in development.

As indie studios go, Double Fine Productions is a big one, with 65 employees toiling away on Broken Age and Massive Chalice, both of which were funded through Kickstarter, and Dropchord, a music game being developed in conjunction with Leap Motion and Dracogen. And now that list has grown by two.

"I'm really excited and honored to announce on behalf of Indie Fund that... we will be funding an additional two titles from Double Fine," the Indie Fund's Kellee Santiago announced at the Horizon Indie Game Conference at E3.

The Indie Fund was created [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98792-Indie-Developers-Create-the-Indie-Fund-to-Help-Other-Indie-Developers] by successful indie game developers to provide financial support for other indies who haven't yet hit the big time. Since its founding in 2010, the fund has backed the development of games including Antichamber, QUBE, Monaco and Dear Esther.

It's not publicly known how much money Double Fine received from the Indie Fund but I'd hazard a guess that it's substantially less than the $1 million [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure] it will inevitably bring in with Massive Chalice. Numbers like that could lead one to wonder why the studio needs yet more money to make yet more games when we still haven't seen the first fruits of its non-publisher-funded labors, but it's probably still a bit early for that kind of speculation.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/194277/Double_Fine_receives_Indie_Fund_backing_for_two_new_titles.php]


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[BrotherRool]

EDIT: Sorry for the double post

 

[BrotherRool]

The indie fund recoups it's investment if the indie game is successful and gets a cut of the profits too, so whilst it's odd that the creator of Braid is helping out support Double Fine productions, it's not harmful and will only end up increasing the amount of money they have to invest in other games.

 

[Clankenbeard]

While I haven't seen the final Broken Age product, I have to say that I have been very impressed with the Double Fine approach to making games. The 2 Player documentary has been great to watch and has enlightened me quite a bit about the process of making (this particular type of) video games. This game is way behind schedule because of the massive Kickstarter funding, resulting in an huge change in game scope. But there are only a few people out there complaining.

Keep it coming, Double Fine. I haven't played a game of yours yet that I didn't like.

 

[senobit]

Seems odd to criticize Double Fine for having several games in development at the same time, double fine knows better than most that making a fantastic game is no guarantee of commercial success and having a plan B (and a plan C and D too) seems like common sense.

 

[GothmogII]

I just hope they're not taking too much on their plate. I -do- trust these guys, as do a lot of people, but that's also why it'll be so devastating if they fail. Although, Tim Schafer said as much in the videos, that it is an experiment of sorts and that succeed or fail the documentary is there to show all that.

 

[FancyNick]

Best of luck to them. Thats a bunch of work for a smallish studio

 

[Andy Chalk]

Seems odd to criticize Double Fine for having several games in development at the same time, double fine knows better than most that making a fantastic game is no guarantee of commercial success and having a plan B (and a plan C and D too) seems like common sense.

It's not really a criticism, more a question of, "It this a good idea?" Five games is an awful lot to have on the go for a struggling indie studio; the one advantage DF has, I suppose, is that two of the games are already paid for, so they're a minimal risk. But it's still an unusual situation.

 

[LordMonty]

Cool good people making good games is not a bad thing. Ofc untill proven otherwise, but at the moment i'm a back to Massive Chalice so hope they're as good as there past leads me to believe.

 

[Eric the Orange]

That's cool. They do creative stuff, and have good writing. I'll probably at least try out anything they put out just because it's different.

 

[weirdee]

well, keeping in mind that these games are on separate teams, it's not as if there's any overlap

it's good to see them doing this much after staring at their feet and tossing an occasional short story out

plus, they might have enough money to bring some fresh faces in

 

[4Aces]

One question though. If they have the funds for that many people, why not focus on one or two titles, get them to market, and then use those profits for the next few games? That is how it usually works. This seems to be a case of handout fever, where not have any bankable profits allows them to get the handouts now and make massive profits later (five releases worth). Sure one might fail, but they are not aiming at AAA games here, and are well managed (plenty of insider experience), so they are all likely going to be profitable.

 

[Hithlain]

http://youtu.be/XFX8S9aAgvw?t=32s

All I hear is "MORE AWESOME GAMES"