Brütal Legend Creator Wants to Self-Publish Games

[vansau]

Brütal Legend Creator Wants to Self-Publish Games

Tim Schafer has two new goals for Double Fine: make more money and then start publishing its own games.

Tim Schafer is just full of news this week. Yesterday, the head of Double Fine <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102090-Activision-Fires-Back-Over-Schafer-Name-Calling>angered Activision when he called CEO Bobby Kotick <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102062-Psychonauts-Creator-Calls-Bobby-Kotick-Names>names (which he <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102093-Schafer-Claims-Kotick-Comments-Were-an-Accident>subsequently regretted uttering). Today, it's been revealed that Schafer would like to eventually eschew publishers altogether and have Double Fine put out its own titles.

Delivering the keynote opening speech of the Develop Conference in Brighton, Schafer stated that Double Fine will (some day) try to self-publish games. "I always think about self-publishing - that would be an awesome thing to do. The second we have more money we're going to do that."

For the moment, Double Fine is still working with publishers and won't be getting rid of them any time soon. The studio has <a href=http://www.develop-online.net/news/35376/Schafer-Four-titles-are-underway>four new games in development and is simultaneously working with different publishers to put them out.

It's not exactly surprising that Schafer would like to stop working with publishers, based on how badly <a href=http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2910>Majesco botched Psychonauts's release and the recent drama with Activision and <a href=http://www.amazon.com/Brutal-Legend-Xbox-360/dp/B000XJNTPG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1279214204&sr=8-2>Brütal Legend. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the developer to raise enough money to start putting out its own games without any outside help.

Source: <a href=http://www.develop-online.net/news/35379/Schafer-Double-Fine-will-self-publish#after_ad>Develop

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[The Austin]

I would totally support him.

Brutal Legend was one of my favorite games of the current console generation.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

I'm for it. I have yet to actually play his games, but I see him more as a symbol anyway.
EDIT: As long as he releases stuff on steam too.

 

[Scrubbed account]

Sounds good. He'd probably do better that way.

 

[The Night Shade]

Great i hope he can

 

[MortalForNow]

If this means that more people can be exposed to his games, I'm glad to see the step taken in this direction. Hopefully the sales for his next game will be as strong as the following that people have when his name is mentioned. Best of luck to Tim regarding this matter.

 

[WilliamRLBaker]

Id support it...but only if he made a psychonauts sequel that games ending screamed continuation.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

I'm all for that. Schafer makes awesome games and big publisher's awesome seem to wanna fuck his shit up and if he got to do it himself things will probably be much better. Go team Schafer and Double Fine.

 

[Randomologist]

Good luck to them. Hopefully this would mean that their games are less likely to be rushed out in an unfinished state, instead of vomiting up something crap for Christmas and then relying on patching it with DLC. But this is indeed mere hope.

 

[Blue Musician]

Interesting, good luck with this project.

 

[hudsonzero]

i would happily invest in double fine

 

[Jumplion]

I would totally support him.

Brutal Legend was one of my favorite games of the current console generation.

I second this motion, it would be great for Double Fine to get out of this mess of publishers that's cursed them and go on to publish their games themselves.

 

[tautologico]

It would be easier if they developed for the PC and used digital distribution.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Tim, Tim...what have we said about the "Molyneux Syndrome"?

Just take things slowly. We don't want you getting burnt out.

 

[tautologico]

This is what every single fucking developer should do. Cut out the unnecessary middle man. Well, in a perfect world.

I can dream, can't I?

This is like saying bands don't need record companies or writers don't need publishers/editors. It's tempting to think like that at first, but when you look at it, it doesn't make much sense.

All the "middlemen" in these cases are far from "unnecessary". Marketing, distribution, packaging, manufacturing, a lot of stuff needs to be done for the product to reach the public after the creator makes it. Digital distribution improves the situation, but doesn't solve it completely: marketing is still though, there are contracts to be made with the digital distributors, and so on.

The creator has 2 options:

1) he can do this all himself. Easy when going digital, very very hard for retail, but one way or another he'll have to spend time he could be using to create things instead of managing.

2) hire someone to do this. This is basically the middleman.

Some creators may choose 1, but many don't want to bother with the business side of things. Which is entirely understandable, people become creators because they don't want to do business, if they wanted to do business they would be executives.

 

[josh797]

you know,guys, you could just call him tim shafer. i think everyone know who he is, and hes way more known for psychonauts than brutal legend anyway.

 

[Jared]

Heh...Well, with how he spoke on activision he may have no choice..but, He did make some cool games s oI hope he can do it