Tim Schafer Thought He'd Get Two Grand, Not $2 Million

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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Tim Schafer Thought He'd Get Two Grand, Not $2 Million



He didn't have a clue his Double Fine Adventure would be this huge fundraising drive.

When I woke up this morning, I was happy to eat my cereal and feed my kid her oatmeal. When Tim Schafer woke up last Wednesday morning, the current total sits northwards of 1.7 million dollars donated by nearly 50,000 people [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115746-Tim-Schafer-Raises-1-3-Million-Update-Again] with 29 days left to go. Schafer promised he would give the backers what they want: an awesome adventure game and a no-holds-barred look at the making of that game with him as the MC of the documentary circus.

Schafer admitted that he hasn't really solidified what the game will be about. "I have some vague ideas floating around in my head," he said. "But importantly, this isn't just making a game, but making a viable documentary about it. People often ask where ideas come from and how they turn into games, and this is a great way to show the entire process from lose ideas to a developed concept. We're going to put it all on camera. It'll be like The Office, with me as Ricky Gervais."

Is he worried about all the pressure of 50,000 backers demanding he adds so-and-so to the game, because hey, they are the backers. "Double Fine is still going to be responsible for the game," he said. "We can't say, 'We made a crummy game, but the fans made us do it.' We're going to make sure they get a game they like - and that doesn't always mean doing something they've asked you to do. If you're making a shooter and the fans say, 'We want the shotgun to be more powerful', you might not be able to do that because it's tied in to a lot of other systems.

"The fans will get a really original adventure game," Schafer said. "That's what they want."

Did he think he'd make quadruple his asking price before a week was through? "No, I guessed by the end of the first night we'd be at $2000," he said. "People were saying it's crazy to ask for $400,000 on Kickstarter, but I was just working off what I knew it would actually cost to make a game. It's shocking that games cost millions of dollars to make. But you've got to pay salaries. People are expensive ..."

To be fair to the all of the commentary from last week about Schafer blowing up the publishing model, he doesn't want to portray corporations as evil. "I'm not trying to vilify them," he says. "Publishers do their business in a way that works for them. They're risking millions of dollars so they've got to mitigate that risk - and sometimes that means removing risky ideas from games. The thing is, Double Fine is all about coming up with new, unproven and really creative ideas. It's a constant battle for us to get those ideas to go through the system, that long spanking machine of people who have to sign off on you. They're not evil, they're just trying to protect themselves."

Even the previously fertile ground for independent games like such as Xbox Live or the Sony Entertainment Network still cost too much money. "Those systems, as great as they are, they're still closed," he said. "You have to jump through a lot of hoops, even for important stuff like patching and supporting your game. Those are things we really want to do, but we can't do it on these systems. I mean, it costs $40,000 to put up a patch - we can't afford that! Open systems like Steam, that allow us to set our own prices, that's where it's at, and doing it completely alone like Minecraft. That's where people are going."

And now that Schafer has paved the way, will we see shift to independent companies Kickstarting games for open platforms? I sure hope so.

Source: Hookshot [http://www.hookshotinc.com/interview-schafers-millions/]

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Zen Toombs

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Nov 7, 2011
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Congratulations! I'm glad Mr. Tim Shafer managed to gain so much support so easily! Hopefully independent game developers and major studios will take note of what this means. :)
 

samsonguy920

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Mar 24, 2009
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I say give the guy at least a week solitude to mindstorm and experiment, then we can sic the cameras on him. Turning it into a reality show from the get-go will kill the game before it's even begun.
 

Monkeyman O'Brien

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Jan 27, 2012
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I donated purely because I want to see the documentary. A inside look at the development process is easily worth the asking price for me. The end product is just a nice bonus.
But yeah, this kind of start off was just freaking insane. Guess we know one developer who wont be dealing with annoying publishers any more.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Ah, 2012, how good you've been to me.

Schafer gets 2 million, Activision admit fucking up CoD, Zynga Sued, Apple under investigation, Phantom Menace getting panned by the critics, Ubisoft screw up their servers, Mass Effect 3 panned before it's even out, Kotick and Newell in a slap fight.

I don't care if the Mayans were right. This has been a good year overall.
 

Axeion

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Feb 18, 2010
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The_root_of_all_evil said:
Ah, 2012, how good you've been to me.

Schafer gets 2 million, Activision admit fucking up CoD, Zynga Sued, Apple under investigation, Phantom Menace getting panned by the critics, Ubisoft screw up their servers, Mass Effect 3 panned before it's even out, Kotick and Newell in a slap fight.

I don't care if the Mayans were right. This has been a good year overall.
Agreed! But um if the Mayans were so great at telling the future wouldnt they still be here as a empire?
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Axeion said:
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Ah, 2012, how good you've been to me.

Schafer gets 2 million, Activision admit fucking up CoD, Zynga Sued, Apple under investigation, Phantom Menace getting panned by the critics, Ubisoft screw up their servers, Mass Effect 3 panned before it's even out, Kotick and Newell in a slap fight.

I don't care if the Mayans were right. This has been a good year overall.
Agreed! But um if the Mayans were so great at telling the future wouldnt they still be here as a empire?
"May" in Aztec is pronounced "Syri". :)
 

RA92

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Jan 1, 2011
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TheKasp said:
Wait wait wait wait.

40000$ to put up a patch for a game on PSN or XBLA???
And no free content allowed on XBLA (the reason why XBox TF2 died...)
 

BehattedWanderer

Fell off the Alligator.
Jun 24, 2009
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You know...it kinda seems like he's chumming the waters, here. Hope he remembers to get out before the sharks arrive, or the hunt might start sooner than expected. Either way, guess we're gonna get a good look at the industry this time around. It should be a revelatory experience.
 

ResonanceGames

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Feb 25, 2011
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TheKasp said:
Wait wait wait wait.

40000$ to put up a patch for a game on PSN or XBLA???
Correct. It would only cost $10,000, but Microsoft requires another $40,000 to be sculpted into the image of Bill Gates and burned in effigy to the money gods.
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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The_root_of_all_evil said:
Ah, 2012, how good you've been to me.

Schafer gets 2 million, Activision admit fucking up CoD, Zynga Sued, Apple under investigation, Phantom Menace getting panned by the critics, Ubisoft screw up their servers, Mass Effect 3 panned before it's even out, Kotick and Newell in a slap fight.

I don't care if the Mayans were right. This has been a good year overall.
Apparently I missed the memo on Mass Effect sucking?
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Eri said:
Apparently I missed the memo on Mass Effect sucking?
Which one? Did you miss the bad animation, lousy storywriting, Chobot Sue, Origin linked, EA tweaks, Mordin recast, or the other bits?

Have a look round, they're here on the Escapist.
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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Tim Schafer said:
"I'm not trying to vilify them," he says. "Publishers do their business in a way that works for them. They're risking millions of dollars so they've got to mitigate that risk - and sometimes that means removing risky ideas from games. The thing is, Double Fine is all about coming up with new, unproven and really creative ideas. It's a constant battle for us to get those ideas to go through the system, that long spanking machine of people who have to sign off on you. They're not evil, they're just trying to protect themselves."
Oh, but some of them ARE evil Mr. Schafer.
As much as I respect your opinion and your work, I can still name examples of Publishers who are scum or have acted as such in the past.

Just off the top of my head...Electronic Arts and Zynga.
Easy targets? You bet. But they're fair calls all the same.

I can understand the stance of protecting your interests by basically making a mock-up of proven to work gaming formulas, but when a company starts buying out developers and then ass-raping their franchises, or doing literal copy-and-paste jobs of other people's work, and then buying out their market share with advertising blocks, it's hard to defend that as simply being "defending themselves".
 

krellen

Unrepentant Obsidian Fanboy
Jan 23, 2009
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Eri said:
Apparently I missed the memo on Mass Effect sucking?
There exists a not-insignificant portion of people that think ME2 sucked (either for gameplay or for story reasons) and find very little to be hopeful for in ME3.
 

Eri

The Light of Dawn
Feb 21, 2009
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The_root_of_all_evil said:
Eri said:
Apparently I missed the memo on Mass Effect sucking?
Which one? Did you miss the bad animation, lousy storywriting, Chobot Sue, Origin linked, EA tweaks, Mordin recast, or the other bits?

Have a look round, they're here on the Escapist.
MORDIN RECAST?! WHAT WHAT WHAT!?
 

oldtaku

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Jan 7, 2011
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DVS BSTrD said:
lol, I guess a lot of people REALLY hate RTS elements.
From Tim's Tweet stream:

Guys, I'll make you a deal. If we hit $980k I'll add RTS elements to the game! And if we hit $1M, I'll take them back out!
Luckily we hit the $1M