Starbreeze Invests $8 Million into Psychonauts 2

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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Starbreeze Invests $8 Million into Psychonauts 2

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Starbreeze will be entitled to 85% of Psychonauts 2 revenue, after Fig revenue share has been paid out.

Early last year, Tim Schafer's Double Fine ran a successful crowd funding campaign [https://www.fig.co/campaigns/psychonauts-2] for a sequel to Psychonauts, raising just shy of $4 million from independent investors via investment platform Fig. Now, publisher Starbreeze, best known for Payday 2, has doubled that investment, putting a whopping $8 million into the project.

Along with distribution and platform fees, the Fig revenue share will be paid out before Starbreeze can recoup its investment, which is a pretty substantial 85% of total revenue. Once it has been paid back its $8 million, the number will drop down to 60%, which is still a majority of revenue.

"Starbreeze is the perfect partner for Double Fine and our backers on Psychonauts 2," Double Fine's Tim Schafer said. "Their expertise in not just developing and publishing games, but supporting them after launch will be a great benefit for players of the game."

"We're very proud to be able to add this prominent collaboration to our publishing business," added Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson-Klint.

Backers may be a bit upset by this development - after all, the game was billed as a kind of crowdfunded investment opportunity, and now it simply has a publisher put up the majority of funds like any other game.

Psychonauts 2 is scheduled to launch in 2018.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-06-starbreeze-puts-up-usd8-million-for-psychonauts-2]

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Geisterkarle

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Steven Bogos said:
Backers may be a bit upset by this development - after all, the game was billed as a kind of crowdfunded investment opportunity, and now it simply has a publisher put up the majority of funds like any other game.
ahm.. why would any backer do that? Have you read the original Crowdfunding position about money?



"external partner" would be what again?
 

fix-the-spade

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I have to say any backers upset by this are somewhat naive.

Double Fine expressly laid out that they were looking for a publisher/commercial partner when they went crowdfunding. Having said that, DF are being as reliably terrible at business as ever, assuming the game gets finished properly they're not going to make any money on 15% of total revenue.

Good luck to them all, even with such favourable terms I wouldn't do business with Tim Schafer.
 

dragongit

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Well, good for them. Now the game has a somewhat decent budget for even modern games. With over 12 million they could Psychonauts 2 could really be a fleshed out sequel. I loved the original game, and though I didn't back it on Fig I look forward to it's release.
 

Xeorm

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Hmm, how does this work exactly? Fig's business plan seems to entail them getting access to a percentage of all revenue, not a set amount.
 

Zontar

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Feb 18, 2013
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Xeorm said:
Hmm, how does this work exactly? Fig's business plan seems to entail them getting access to a percentage of all revenue, not a set amount.
It's actually a horrible system, those who 'invested' into it will never, ever see a penny for their efforts.

Explanation by a rare actual game journalist:
 

Xeorm

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Zontar said:
Xeorm said:
Hmm, how does this work exactly? Fig's business plan seems to entail them getting access to a percentage of all revenue, not a set amount.
It's actually a horrible system, those who 'invested' into it will never, ever see a penny for their efforts.

Explanation by a rare actual game journalist:
Oh I know that bit. Though reading up on what happened I think things have changed since that movie went up. Judging as well that someone dropped $8 million on the project I'm not going to regard it as completely fishy just yet.
 

Piorn

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But will the game actually be better for it, or "good" to begin with? I mean, with well-funded and well-staffed kickstarters failing and/or succeeding left and right, all bets are off.
 

MortalKomic

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Mar 5, 2011
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Zontar said:
Xeorm said:
Hmm, how does this work exactly? Fig's business plan seems to entail them getting access to a percentage of all revenue, not a set amount.
It's actually a horrible system, those who 'invested' into it will never, ever see a penny for their efforts.

Explanation by a rare actual game journalist:
Interesting video. Admittedly I never intend to crowdfund, but even just seeing Fig's promise of allowing people to "invest" seemed bizarre and unlikely to work out.
 

Dalisclock

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Definitely waiting for reviews before buying on this. DF's record over the past few years has been fairly spotty.

At least they probably won't release half the game and then release the other half a year later, with no explainable reason for the delay.
 

Battenberg

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Between the fiasco over Payday 2 micro transactions and Tim Schafer's history with crowd funding it's hard not to see this as more than a disaster in the making. It's especially concerning to see talk of the game needing post release support so early. Are they planning on levering in multiplayer or expecting the single player to just need that many fixes/ patches?
 

Raioken18

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This is idiotic.

The Psychonauts IP would have easily transferred across mobile platforms as a side scroller with most of the powers able to be tweaked for 3DS or IOS/Android compatibility. The character designs and overall style would transfer well to 2D and would be able to drum up interest in the YOUNGER age groups. Like what child or even teen has played the first Psychonauts and remembers it? Who is gunna be the target audience?

A 2d game would have been cheaper to make and able to gauge interest in a larger production while also working through some of the problems Schafer has as a game dev. It could also be used to bridge the gap between the story arcs.

Instead we have a massive crowdfunding mess, again, over something that couldn't possibly meet expectations and likely is already lacking a solid direction and will be superficial at best.

You gotta give it something to work with...

Sorry, I'm upset, I'd love it if I thought it would be able to compete with modern games/humour etc. I really want it to work but I have zero faith in Schafer and Double Fine.
 

FogHornG36

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In a year, we are going to hear about starbreeze giving them another 8 million so they can finish the game, and then in another year, another 8 million...