Double Fine's Broken Age Episode One Early Access Begins Jan. 14th

[Jandau]

Early Access of a First Episode? Really? What started out as a simple adventure game got a bloated budget, then went over budget, then got split into multiple episodes. One of which is now coming to Early Access. All while the company making the game has roughly 2-3 other major projects going. Seriously, they are ticking off every checkbox in recent non-AAA game development paradigm, and it's starting to annoy. This game better be solid gold and cure cancer, otherwise I'm starting to feel like Schafer is the next Molyneux...

The alternative being they cut down the game to fit in the budget. In a choice between making cuts to the game and making cuts into the game's profits, how is it possibly a bad thing, from our perspective, that they went for option 2?

How about setting reasonable design goals that can be achieved with the allotted budget? And the budget they got from KS was generous indeed. But even after that, all we've seen from Double Fine have been more methods of monetizing the damn thing because they keep breaking the budget, again and again and again. This is usually a very bad sign when it comes to game development and usually means that what comes out eventually will be a mess.

 

[Illessa]

How about setting reasonable design goals that can be achieved with the allotted budget? And the budget they got from KS was generous indeed. But even after that, all we've seen from Double Fine have been more methods of monetizing the damn thing because they keep breaking the budget, again and again and again. This is usually a very bad sign when it comes to game development and usually means that what comes out eventually will be a mess.

What? They've not added more methods to monetise - all they're doing is releasing the game up to a natural break point a couple of months before the full game is complete, in the hope that it will take the pressure off the company bank account a bit, as they're currently sinking their own money (profits from their self-published back catalogue) into keeping the project running beyond what they got from the Kickstarter. Since the backers and anyone who buys early access are going to get the second half when it comes out, it's not gaining them any extra money, just getting them some of the money they'd get anyway a little bit earlier.

As to "Breaking the budget again and again" I believe it's been public knowledge that they increased the budget for the project *once*. If you have backers access you'll know there were two budget revisions, both predicted beforehand, discussed and dealt with. It's hardly Daikatana or Duke Nukem Forever, in fact everything I've heard from developers (and my own experience of non-game development) leads me to believe it's pretty par for the course.

I also wouldn't call $2,232,465 (the budget for the game after KS fees, fulfilment of backer rewards and the documentary team's cut are removed) a "Generous" budget for game development. That's roughly the budget of a small downloadable game like Costume Quest or Stacking. By all accounts this game is going to have an awful lot more content and production values than Costume Quest (hell all the voice acting and the orchestral elements of the score alone must have cost a pretty penny) turns out when you add them all together, man hours are expensive!

 

[Razhem]

I'm amazed at how apologist people are the moment "Double Fine" appears on the cover, it's an unknown company or something like Activision and people would be screaming bloody murder. Thing is, ok, the backers are all ok with this, so it's all fine and dandy, the problem is that the game NEEDS early access to do the second part, that means it has to be sold to people that initially never backed, and as such has to be new buyers. The scary part is when you remember that pretty much all of Double fine's games have been financial disasters (reason why almost no publisher works with them anymore, over budgeted mess that sells poorly is not the best of financial plans, looking at you brutal legend), which means that maybe not that many people will actually buy the game outside of all the backers. I mean, the game got a ton of money, but I highly doubt there is that much interest outside of the double fine fans and the old adventure game guard, it's very hard to revive a genre after all.

Also, yes, the game looks beautiful right now, but god forbid it doesn't live up because some bad PR can kill part two of the project pretty quick, I mean, I barely am getting any impression of gameplay out of the trailers and times have changed quite a bit from what was acceptable 15 years ago. Yes, double fine games are famous for being all quirky and I don't doubt that charm won't be there, but there are also known for having very debatable playability, be it shoddy platforming in psyconauts and a lot of annoying mechanics in brutal legend. The ideas are strong, but the executions sometimes suffers, though they are supposed to be old adventure game veterans.

Also, I doubt very much Tim Schaffer has any sort of ill will, he just sucks at planning, that doesn't mean people should be all "aw, it's fine cause he's so charming and artsy!", no, he should be chastised for fucking up with that, I assume he will make due the best as he can (reason why he did the whole early access dance after all) and if the project hopefully pulls through he will hopefully learn something and happy ending for all and if not, well, he'll have to dedicate some resources from other projects to finish it or let it die, with both of those options being less than stellar.

Also, call me crazy, but it's better to have a full game than have half a game that may not be finished, just saying and over ambition is the fastest way to go bankrupt, reason why there has to be a balance between ambition and resources.

 

[random_bars]

How about setting reasonable design goals that can be achieved with the allotted budget? And the budget they got from KS was generous indeed. But even after that, all we've seen from Double Fine have been more methods of monetizing the damn thing because they keep breaking the budget, again and again and again. This is usually a very bad sign when it comes to game development and usually means that what comes out eventually will be a mess.

Because usually when it happens, it means the game will be cut down, and released unfinished. In this case, Double Fine have decided not to do that but instead to eat into their own profits in order to finish the game how they intended.

Look, the game may well not be any good, I'm not trying to defend its quality before it's even out. But I think "they spent some extra money to finish it rather than cut it down to fit within the budget" is a really nonsensical and stupid reason to assume it will suck. Yes, going over budget and spending more than planned on the game is bad - but it's bad for the company's finances, not for the people who will be playing the game.