Psychonauts 2

[ensouls]

The investor agreement also strips you of your ability to pull funding, and as near as anyone can tell, you don't really get much more legal standing in regards to the ability to demand success than regular backers.

You're better off taking that $500 and just doing reward tiers that interest you than being an "investor" with their system.

According to Fig's ToS, paying for rewards doesn't give you any legal standing to demand results either:

"Rewards-based crowdfunding involves the creation of a Campaign by Fig for a game developer (the "Campaign Owner") to raise funds for the Campaign Owner's project through contributions from individuals or entities ("Contributors") in exchange for rewards ("Rewards"). Contributions should be considered a gift or donation rather than a purchase, as Fig can make no assurances that the Campaign Owner will be able to produce the Rewards in a timely fashion or at all. Rewards are not refundable. Fig makes no representations about the quality, morality or legality of any Campaign, Campaign Owner or Reward."

Gross. That's even worse than Kickstarter, whose ToS at least gives backers some legal recourse of their own.
This was the deciding factor for me.. I'll be thrilled if a great game comes out of this in 3 years, but until then forget it.

 

[Areloch]

The investor agreement also strips you of your ability to pull funding, and as near as anyone can tell, you don't really get much more legal standing in regards to the ability to demand success than regular backers.

You're better off taking that $500 and just doing reward tiers that interest you than being an "investor" with their system.

According to Fig's ToS, paying for rewards doesn't give you any legal standing to demand results either:

"Rewards-based crowdfunding involves the creation of a Campaign by Fig for a game developer (the "Campaign Owner") to raise funds for the Campaign Owner's project through contributions from individuals or entities ("Contributors") in exchange for rewards ("Rewards"). Contributions should be considered a gift or donation rather than a purchase, as Fig can make no assurances that the Campaign Owner will be able to produce the Rewards in a timely fashion or at all. Rewards are not refundable. Fig makes no representations about the quality, morality or legality of any Campaign, Campaign Owner or Reward."

Gross. That's even worse than Kickstarter, whose ToS at least gives backers some legal recourse of their own.
This was the deciding factor for me.. I'll be thrilled if a great game comes out of this in 3 years, but until then forget it.

Gross. That's even worse than Kickstarter, whose ToS at least gives backers some legal recourse of their own.
This was the deciding factor for me.. I'll be thrilled if a great game comes out of this in 3 years, but until then forget it.

No surprise that Schafer appears to have a vested interest in this particular crowdfunding website. His name, photo, and studio is listed in the About section.

Yeah, when I was poking around the site and reading the terms, the whole thing had a bit of a skeevy feel to it. Not to say there's actual malicious intent involved, but Tim and Double Fine, and several other 'advisor' developers having direct connection to Fig comes off like a conflict of interest waiting to happen, let alone the worse-than-Kickstarter ToS, where if it bombs, they have no obligation to backers at all.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it is cool that the game came around again, but I learned Timmy can't be trusted with his lunch money so I'm not giving him any this time around, especially on a crowdfunding site by Timmy himself.
Luckily there are plenty of others willing to risk it so we will see where this leads.

 

[Bat Vader]

I must be one of the very few gamers out there that didn't find Psychonauts to be a great game. I didn't find it bad in any aspect but I never found it enjoyable as many others did. I found it to be decent. It was worth a play through but after that I wouldn't play it again.

 

[Kae]

Well it's more than a little obvious that Double Fine has pretty much destroyed all consumer trust, so of course I'm not going to fund it, it's just not a good idea, besides I liked Psychonauts but it's not a game that needs a sequel, unlike Beyond Good & Evil, XIII and Half Life 2.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Well it's more than a little obvious that Double Fine has pretty much destroyed all consumer trust,

Well, clearly not, because people have already given him $1.5m for some bizarre reason.

I can only imagine that some people still think that Tim Schaefer is some kind of rogue game dev. Fighting for originality against the big evil publishers.

Maybe after this gets overfunded by several million and he makes another crowd funding project because he spent all the original money on hookers and blow people will learn. But probably not.

 

[K12]

Hopefully enough people still trust them so that it gets funded and they fully redeem themselves by making it fantastic and punctual. I totally want to play Psychonauts 2.

... I mean I don't trust them enough to give them money but I hope that other people do.

 

[Mikejames]

Hopefully enough people still trust them so that it gets funded and they fully redeem themselves by making it fantastic and punctual. I totally want to play Psychonauts 2.

... I mean I don't trust them enough to give them money but I hope that other people do.

As the title that people have been asking for since Double Fine's introduction, I feel like Psychonauts 2 is the last major project that they can use to garner this much immediate support and turn recent opinion around. So if it's all cards in I hope they can make something genuinely good out of it.

 

[Dalisclock]

So a question that just came to mind is, if Psychonauts 2 doesn't meet expectations, even if somehow it manages to come in on time and on budget(which I really don't see happening), will TS and DF be sunk in the eyes of most people?

 

[ObserverStatus]

After DF-9, if Doublefine started a Kickstarter to send backers 1 dollar checks for 2 dollars a piece, I'd be shocked if anyone trusted them to deliver as promised. I'm even more shocked that this project is 61% funded. Then again, I bought Dragon Age Inquisition when I had everything I needed to know to understand that it would be a hollow experience, so I can understand the desperation of Double Fine's fans.

 

[vallorn]

It boggles my mind that it's already nearly halfway funded.

When will people learn that fire burns?

This seems decidedly appropriate.

Back on topic, excuse me while I roll with laughter, I love Psychonoughts but Schafer isn't the developer he was even 5 years ago and he was already going downhill then. Plus it has been repeatedly shown in everything from Brutal Legend to Spacebase DF9 to Broken Age that Double Fine have not the foggiest idea how to budget or handle a schedule. I think most of their heads would explode if you explained how an Excel spreadsheet worked...

 

[DudeistBelieve]

It's weird to see all the hate for Tim considering how when Pyschonauts came out he was white hot with everyone... Becareful folks, you'll end up being like MovieBob whining about how Kevin Smith "imploded" because he didn't match up to the potential Bob thought he had.

I really hope it gets made, Pyschonauts was a fun little game/pointclickadventure which I think would do just fine nowadays with the crowd that likes art games like Go Home. Question is, what more can they do with the concept of going into visual representations of people's minds? Aside from just doing more minds? that is just looking at it from an innovative stand point.

 

[JemothSkarii]

It's weird to see all the hate for Tim considering how when Pyschonauts came out he was white hot with everyone...

It's important to note that Pyschonauts came out ten years ago, and everything Tim has made since then has been ranging from painfully average to completely unfinished.
Broken Age got it's 3.3 million after all and... well, everyone knows what happened there.

OT: I've never really been a big Tim Schafer fan, so I'm definitely not giving him money for this. Plus seeing his recent projects it appears he has no idea of how to budget.
At all.
Really not sure how it's made so much money at this point. People will pay for anything I suppose.

 

[Mikejames]

I really hope it gets made, Pyschonauts was a fun little game/pointclickadventure which I think would do just fine nowadays with the crowd that likes art games like Go Home. Question is, what more can they do with the concept of going into visual representations of people's minds? Aside from just doing more minds? that is just looking at it from an innovative stand point.

That's kind of been the appeal hasn't it? Every mind in the original game looked and felt different based on the issues and quirks of that particular character. So there's potential for interesting level design as long as there are new characters to explore.

Outside of that, I suppose there were some character arcs that were left open in the original. The protagonist and his family are still cursed to die in water, his teacher still has a fragmented psyche, etc.

 

[Dalisclock]

It's weird to see all the hate for Tim considering how when Pyschonauts came out he was white hot with everyone...

Key phrase being "when psychonauts came out". Nobody is disputing the man used to be good at what he did. The fact is, the man can't seem to administer a company worth a damn and works much better when he's just doing games development. I even like some of DF's games(I have a soft spot for the Cave that few people seem to share and really liked Brutal legend despite feeling like it's a tad unfinished) but their track record lately has been pretty lackluster, especially with crowdfunding.

Also Criticism is not the same as Hate. I'm fine with paying for Psychonauts 2 when it comes out if it's awesome, but considering the state of Broken Age and Spacebase, I will be waiting until AFTER it's released and reviewed to decide on purchasing.

 

[ShakerSilver]

I'm slightly interested in the idea of a Psychonauts sequel, but considering the man behind the game and his horrible ability to manage funds, Timmy's going to have to prove he can actually MAKE the game before I'll consider throwing some money his way.

The most worrying part I feel is the site he is crowdfunding on, Fig.co, the platform Tim himself had a hand in making. Looking at its terms of use and the about section, the site does very, very little or nothing at all to protect the investments of "investors" and regular backers. Backers aren't guaranteed their rewards in a timely fashion or at all even, campaign owners can freely extend deadlines at their whim, and there doesn't seem to be any system of penalizing owners who do the previous mentioned. Even sites like Kickstarter make sure to protect backers on a basic level.

Sources:
https://archive.is/oliZW

Spoiler: Pics

I wonder how long Tim is going to rely on abusing the goodwill and optimism of his fans before that well dries up. People can only be scammed so many times

EDIT: I just found out about this piece of news: apparently Tim is holding Brutal Legend 2 hostage and only making it if Psychonauts 2 does well. How many "classics" is Double Fine going to milk to get its money?
https://archive.is/zR63L

 

[vallorn]

I'm slightly interested in the idea of a Psychonauts sequel, but considering the man behind the game and his horrible ability to manage funds, Timmy's going to have to prove he can actually MAKE the game before I'll consider throwing some money his way.

The most worrying part I feel is the site he is crowdfunding on, Fig.co, the platform Tim himself had a hand in making. Looking at its terms of use and the about section, the site does very, very little or nothing at all to protect the investments of "investors" and regular backers. Backers aren't guaranteed their rewards in a timely fashion or at all even, campaign owners can freely extend deadlines at their whim, and there doesn't seem to be any system of penalizing owners who do the previous mentioned. Even sites like Kickstarter make sure to protect backers on a basic level.

Sources:
https://archive.is/oliZW

Spoiler: Pics

I wonder how long Tim is going to rely on abusing the goodwill and optimism of his fans before that well dries up. People can only be scammed so many times

EDIT: I just found out about this piece of news: apparently Tim is holding Brutal Legend 2 hostage and only making it if Psychonauts 2 does well. How many "classics" is Double Fine going to milk to get its money?
https://archive.is/zR63L

Oohhh yeah, fig just seems like a giant conflict of interest waiting to happen even before you read into its "Worse Than Kickstarter" TOS. Also, jeez, so he's actually doing it now? Tim has finally lost it if he's going to try and pull that kind of bullshit. It's pretty much universally hated when publishers hold sequels to ransom but this is just absurd.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I wonder how long Tim is going to rely on abusing the goodwill and optimism of his fans before that well dries up. People can only be scammed so many times

I expect he'll be able to do this long after he's dead, somehow. I just got into a 'discussion' elsewhere, where one indivudal stated the following:

-Psychonauts 2 is guaranteed to be good because Tim is 'invested' in the 'franchise'
-The fact its a franchise ensures consistency
-All games made after Psychonauts don't count towards overall developer quality because... reasons
-Quality is insured because Doublefine is a 'major' studio
-It's okay to postpone delivery of backer rewards indefinitely, as long as 1) the developer is working on something 'better' (Psychonauts 2 in this case) and 2) because Doublefine is a 'small' developer

Fools and their money and all that.

Also, jeez, so he's actually doing it now? Tim has finally lost it if he's going to try and pull that kind of bullshit. It's pretty much universally hated when publishers hold sequels to ransom but this is just absurd.

For the sake of accuracy - From the Psychonauts 2 Fig page, FAQ section:

Will you ever make Brutal Legends 2?'
We've always said that we wanted to make a sequel to both Psychonauts and Brutal Legends. We can't make any promises but if Psychonauts is a success for us, then perhaps Brutal Legends 2 will be more possible?

 

[vallorn]

Also, jeez, so he's actually doing it now? Tim has finally lost it if he's going to try and pull that kind of bullshit. It's pretty much universally hated when publishers hold sequels to ransom but this is just absurd.

For the sake of accuracy - From the Psychonauts 2 Fig page, FAQ section:

Will you ever make Brutal Legends 2?'
We've always said that we wanted to make a sequal to both Psychonauts and Brutal Legends. We can't make any promises but if Psychnauts is a success for us, then perhaps Brutal Legends 2 will be more possible?

Thanks for the direct quote. It definitely seems like weasel language to me though. He's left himself enough wiggle room either way but he's also dangling Brutal Legend as a possible future game if Psychonauts "is a success for us."

 

[DefunctTheory]

Also, jeez, so he's actually doing it now? Tim has finally lost it if he's going to try and pull that kind of bullshit. It's pretty much universally hated when publishers hold sequels to ransom but this is just absurd.

For the sake of accuracy - From the Psychonauts 2 Fig page, FAQ section:

Will you ever make Brutal Legends 2?'
We've always said that we wanted to make a sequel to both Psychonauts and Brutal Legends. We can't make any promises but if Psychnauts is a success for us, then perhaps Brutal Legends 2 will be more possible?

Thanks for the direct quote. It definitely seems like weasel language to me though. He's left himself enough wiggle room either way but he's also dangling Brutal Legend as a possible future game if Psychonauts "is a success for us."

If it was just a quote from an interview or something, I'd probably give it a pass. But bolting that to a crowdfunding page for a game that has nothing to do with Brutal Legends, besides the fact both titles' profits would empty into the same corporate bank account, stinks of sleaziness.