Broken Age Needs More Money

[Agayek]

Speaking as a software developer, it is incredibly hard! We want to do things right. We want to add loads of cool features. We want to test it properly. But all of that takes time, and developer time costs money.

That's why we have managers. To keep us at least vaguely on time and on budget.

To compound it all, it's incredibly difficult to estimate how long a software project will take. So even with the best management in the world, they tend to run over by at least a little bit.

But this is more than a little bit. I sense someone was a bit over-optimistic with their spec. :/

I'm a software developer myself, I've seen all that

It's just that, apparently, Double Fine doesn't have any good managers.

 

[Angnor]

They did have a rough estimate. In fact they had a very down to earth good budget set up. The project ended up costing, both in time and money, way more than they projected. Thus, actions needed to be taken. I don't see how they could have been more transparent. They've told us every step of the line what they've been doing with the 2pp documentary episode that comes out about once a month. They've talked about the money trouble before, and have solved it other ways (humble bundle and release of brutal legend on steam).

How would you have gone forward if you where them? Copy paste the entire budget, staff salary, and workload onto kickstarter so your regular Joe could try to analyze it?

I've got to be honest, as non-backer, to me this whole thing just seems a little odd. Whatever issues there may have been, it seems fair to question Double Fine's overall competency when see this.

 

[Sutter Cane]

and Schafer made it clear during the kickstarter that if they'd reach certain goals above the initial kickstarter goal he'd add in more features. They reached those goals. The more expensive game is the promised product, and even if you disagree there, honestly is there a better alternative for Double Fine right now. I mean hypothetically you find yourself in a situation where you've already sunk millions into the game and you're going overbudget, what course of action do you take? Or to put it in even a different way, if double fine had been able to raise the money to finish the game on their own without having to split it up, would anyone really care that much? If they had been able to release the game without making a big deal about it going overbudget, even though they had to secure additional funding, would people be freaking out like they are now? Somehow I doubt it.

I covered this in my original post. He is free to add features AFTER he had gotten accomplished the minimum he wanted. The bottom line to me is he promised to deliver this game at a certain budget, received massively more than he requested and as a result he overextended without completing the original game people expected. I am all for him wanting to make a better game, but NOT at the expense of possibly never seeing part 2, since the development of that is dependent on the sales of part 1. If part one is a masterpiece but doesn't sell well, will part two come out? And if it does will people want it after part 1, knowing that part 2 won't be as good? It would be like having a super nice steak for lunch and then having mcdonalds for dinner instead of having the decent chicken that had been promised for both meals.

So what he should have done is create a fully functional game, and then after the game was finished completely scrap a ton of the work they had already done and then re do it in accordance to the more expansive vision? How does that make any sense? Also you've yet to answer the primary question I've asked in both of my posts so far, which is "WHAT SHOULD DOUBLE FINE HAVE DONE IN THE SITUATION THEY ARE CURRENTLY IN?" You've talked a lot about what you think they should have done months ago, but what course of action should they have taken once they realized that they were over-budget and that this course of action was the only way the game potentially gets finished?

 

[veloper]

If such budget overflows are so common, I may yet have a little sympathy for the traditional publishers.

 

[RoonMian]

And people were throwing ***** fits over Planetary Annihilation...

This is hilarious...

 

[crazyarms33]

So what he should have done is create a fully functional game, and then after the game was finished completely scrap a ton of the work they had already done and then re do it in accordance to the more expansive vision? How does that make any sense? Also you've yet to answer the primary question I've asked in both of my posts so far, which is "WHAT SHOULD DOUBLE FINE HAVE DONE IN THE SITUATION THEY ARE CURRENTLY IN?" You've talked a lot about what you think they should have done months ago, but what course of action should they have taken once they realized that they were over-budget and that this course of action was the only way the game potentially gets finished?

It doesn't make a lot of sense, I grant you that, but I figured that since that's how business works, it's how it should have been done. Or instead of going back, he could have budgeted(novel concept) and made a "better" game until it was exhausted. Then released it.

But as to what they should do now? I would like to see is them promise to release the full game at the same quality regardless of how Part 1 sells. They made this mess, they have to live with it even if they lose money.(I'm a stickler for accountability if you couldn't tell.) Punishing the backers and consumers for your own mismanagement strikes me as unreasonable.

What they should do is officially reprimand this guy. He is crazy talented but this is ridiculous and it makes both him and the company look bad in my opinion. They could(and should) promise something down the line to people who backed this project. Whether that be free additional content, discounted game prices on different titles or something else entirely is up to them. But simply acknowledging that they went over budget and saying it's because we overextended ourselves and coming up with a way to fund Part 2 in a way that might or might not work is woefully inadequate to me.

 

[Entitled]

Yes, because that is how businesses work!

Well, it's not how crowdfunding works for certain.

The whole point of Kickstarter is to contribute to creating projects that otherwise couldn't materialize.

It is implicit from the whole set-up of the backing system, that your money is supposed to be spent on making the game. If after pocketing $3 million, Schafer would have actually published a $400.000 flash game made by six to eight dudes between March and September of least year, then a lot more people would have been angry, and a lot more justifiably.

The whole reason why DFA went over the funding goal so far, because people expected that their money will help to make a real adventure game that is worthy of Schafer's classics, instead of just a little retro-callback.

Otherwise, there would have been no benefit to backing it, everyone beyond the first few thousand could have been waiting to buy the finished game but with less risk. That's what people have been arguing for a year since: "Yeah, there is a risk, the same as with preorders, but this time it's worth it if it helps developers!"

You only get the second story if the first game sells well. Seems to me that if he promised one story, that's all he had to do.

He promised one adventure game. And we will get one by January, that iss much longer and with more artwork and music and production values that would have been implied by a $400k project, and exactly what would have been implied by the $3m goal.

You can think of it as "first half of an even larger story", but that doesn't make it "less than what was originally promised". What was promised is one $3m adventure game, and that's what you get by January, with probably more by July. Unexpected Journey didn't become "one third of a movie" just because you happen to know that it was originally planned to be that, not anymore than Fellowship of the Ring is "one third of a novel" because Tolkien originally wanted to publish it in one volume.

 

[Almgandi]

Clarification from the man himself since everyone is throwing a sissy fit:

"Double Fine is NOT asking for more money. We are fine, financially. We are using our OWN money to deliver a bigger game than we Kickstarted."

https://twitter.com/DoubleFine

Everyone will get the game. They are just trying different ways to gain more money so that they will have to spend less themselves

 

[tautologico]

There is no second part of the game if the first part doesn't sell well. It is entirely possible that the game could flop and people could be left wanting. Essentially if you really want the full game and it doesn't sell the backers are screwed because they only got half of what they were promised. And nonbackers are equally screwed in that they bought "Game 1" for lack of better words, will they have to buy "Game 2" to have the full experience of a product that originally promised 1 game? If so, then yes. They are paying twice. Does that make more sense?

What I understand is that people who get Part 1 will get Part 2 for free as a later update. It says so in his message to backers:

The second part of the game would come in a free update a few months down the road, closer to April-May.

So no one will pay twice, actually.

 

[Something Amyss]

Uh, dude, you got your budget, work within it. It seems a bit silly to get 8 times your original goal and still not have enough. It reaks of bad management.

It's Tim Schaffer. He's one notch below Peter Molyneux. The only real difference seems to be that while we find PM's bullshit charming, we outright ignore Timmy's.

 

[crazyarms33]

It is implicit from the whole set-up of the backing system, that your money is supposed to be spent on making the game. If after pocketing $3 million, Schafer would have actually published a $400.000 flash game made by six to eight dudes between March and September of least year, then a lot more people would have been angry, and a lot more justifiably.

The whole reason why DFA went over the funding goal so far, because people expected that their money will help to make a real adventure game that is worthy of Schafer's classics, instead of just a little retro-callback.

So why if he had a budget of 3 million couldn't he have made the game for 3 million? I agree since the funding was so overwhelming, he was obligated to make a better game but with that being said, if he had it in his head he could make a complete game worthy of his reputation for 400K, why couldn't he do the same for a 3 million dollar game? Why couldn't he have gone back to the drawing board, pushed the release back a bit and planned for the budget he ended up with?

He promised one adventure game. And we will get one by January, that iss much longer and with more artwork and music and production values that would have been implied by a $400k project, and exactly what would have been implied by the $3m goal.

You can think of it as "first half of an even larger story", but that doesn't make it "less than what was originally promised". What was promised is one $3m adventure game, and that's what you get by January, with probably more by July. Unexpected Journey didn't become "one third of a movie" just because you happen to know that it was originally planned to be that, not anymore than Fellowship of the Ring is "one third of a novel" because Tolkien originally wanted to publish it in one volume.

It does make it less than what's originally promised if Part 1 bombs causing Part 2 to not come out. That's a big issue here for me. He promised "One complete adventure game" that now has to be released in two parts because of mismanagement, and part 2 may not come out if part one bombs. If he had said from the beginning this will be a two part game or even that a sequel would be released later, or even hinted at it, then all this goes away. No rage, no outcry, nothing. As I see it, he had to split his original concept(one game) into two different ones and because of that, he has to hope that part 1 does well enough to keep up the quality for part 2. And given that he had a bigger budget than anticipated for Part 1 and this thing happened, I have zero faith in the projected sales(read: Budget for game 2) leading to any situation where the same problem won't be repeated.

 

[crazyarms33]

What I understand is that people who get Part 1 will get Part 2 for free as a later update. It says so in his message to backers:

The second part of the game would come in a free update a few months down the road, closer to April-May.

So no one will pay twice, actually.

Appreciate the info, but he only mentions backers. I assume the same is true for nonbackers but do you know for sure if it is?

 

[tautologico]

Clarification from the man himself since everyone is throwing a sissy fit:

"Double Fine is NOT asking for more money. We are fine, financially. We are using our OWN money to deliver a bigger game than we Kickstarted."

https://twitter.com/DoubleFine

Everyone will get the game. They are just trying different ways to gain more money so that they will have to spend less themselves

It's the reporting. Escapist tends to be a bit more sensationalist these days with headlines and such, "Broken Age Needs More Money" gives the idea that somehow people will have to pay more for the game they already paid for. This very thread shows how many people were misled by this. Now compare the coverage on the Penny Arcade Report, how Ben frames the whole story, and see how the comments there are much more reasonable:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/double-fines-adventure-game-snapped-in-twain-fans-taste-the-fun-of-being-a

 

[tautologico]

Appreciate the info, but he only mentions backers. I assume the same is true for nonbackers but do you know for sure if it is?

I can't say for sure but I understand this will come as a free update to the game on Steam. This means that no matter how you have acquired it (as a backer or via Early Access), you will get the second part for free. Maybe it'll be different but it doesn't seem to be.

 

[Entitled]

Appreciate the info, but he only mentions backers. I assume the same is true for nonbackers but do you know for sure if it is?

No, maybe it's all a conspiracy to pretend that everyone will get the full game for one payment, right until the last minute.

Then again, if Double Fine would want to decieve you, they would only need to declare the first half of the story to be a finished game (that happens to end with a cliffhanger for "artistic reasons"), and then spend the next two years finishing the other half as "Broken Age 2" the slow way, or even start a new Kickstarter justified by how they "delivered their promise releasing a $3 million game, and now they want to do it again".

The only reason why you even have a chance complain that they might possibly only give you "half a game", is because they were open enough to disclose that they ended up thinking in much bigger than what they are ready to release. There are plenty of games, that cut huge amounts of unfinished material. That doesn't mean that they are all "less than a full game".

The knowledge that at one point during the development they had even bigger plans, doesn't harm you in any way.

 

[surg3n]

This is plain rediculous. Tim, finish the game then go back and find a publisher for your next one. You have no business being an indie developer.

 

[Lightknight]

This is plain rediculous. Tim, finish the game then go back and find a publisher for your next one. You have no business being an indie developer.

This is finishing the game. The game is just the first installment of two games. I don't think other smaller developers get in trouble for making episodic releases so I'm not sure why this "angers" you.

 

[BernardoOne]

Great, here we go. A great opportunity for internet inhabitants to criticize someone as a fashion statement. Nothing quite like a bit of cheap mud-slinging to make you feel witty. Ignore the fact that a small developer has stretched themselves a bit thin simply because they're thinking big, and trying to deliver a better game. Never mind that the whole situation is actually being handled quite tastefully, and the details are freely given to you in a transparent manner. Turn a blind eye to the reasonable explanations behind this mistake, and overlook the fact that things are in fact being rectified here. No, don't bother taking any of this into consideration. Make your seething, incendiary comments because they make you cool. Keep talking crap, because it builds your reputation. Disparage and belittle others for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. Enjoy it.

What?

No one is complaining to "look cool".

People are complaining because they wanted $400,000 to fund this game, they got 8 times that, and yet it still isn't enough?

Get off your high horse, there is no reason to defend someone who got 8 times the funding, and decided to let it all go to his head, and work outside of that budget.

Because the game that needed 400 000 would be much shorter in gameplay, scope, and worse in assets and everything else. The game is getting much better and bigger than what they initially planned.

 

[SweetShark]

I'm a backer of this project, am I going to get the full game?

Why when you saying that, I read it with a voice of a cute innocent small kitty?
HHHHHNNGGGGGGGGGGG *dead by heart*

OP:
I am a "backer" because I bought the Humble Bundle back then.
I didn't expected to see having difficulties having a big amount of money to their disposal.
Then why they created another Kickstarter for a new game if they are not sure for their first one?
Not mad or anything, but I don't want to be disappointed....

 

[lifeat24fps]

Having backed Broken Age and followed the process, I remember that they ran into financial trouble pretty quickly. Especially in the early phase, Tim seemed to basically go "I have INFINITE money, let's do it!" The news is a bit distressing, but I guess we should have seen it coming.

On the other hand, I think the way they handled it is quite good. They didn't try to back out of their commitment to the backers, and aren't going to charge anyone for the second part. Maybe they initially hoped that Slacker Backers would balance the books.

But one question... The video updates had quite a bit of complaining about the poor state of DoubleFine's finances. Tim saying that things were looking pretty bleak before the Kickstarter success. The project manager, I forget the name, often underlines how they are stretching their budget thin... Why then are they still based in San Francisco? They mention a few times that it's expensive to keep offices in SF, wouldn't it help to move to a cheaper place?

Anyway, here's hoping Brad Muir is better at planning than Tim Schafer.

I always wonder why those game devs have to be in SF. I think Epic saves lots of money being in Raleigh, and even that's not the cheapest place but orders of magnitude cheaper than SF.