Double Fine launches crowdfunding campaign for Psychonauts 2
Development studio Double Fine has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a new Pyschonauts game. Double Fine head Tim Schafer is asking for $3.3 million from the public to make the game for Windows, Linux, OS X, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The crowdfunding campaign was announced on Thursday night during The Game Awards 2015 in Los Angeles. Schafer says he is using platform Fig to raise the money. Fig differs from Kickstarter, for example, in the sense that backers have more of an investor role. “If we make a profit, you make a profit,” Schafer says. In August of this year, he founded the crowdfunding platform together with some other veterans of the game industry.
The moment of announcement during the award ceremony
Schafer says in his pitch that the first Psychonauts has sold a total of 1.7 million times since the game’s release in 2005. The budget for that game at the time was 10 to 13.5 million dollars and the developer says that Double Fine has at least needs the same amount to make a sequel. Only $3.3 million is being asked from the public, because the rest of the money comes from other sources; Double Fine itself contributes a part and an ‘external partner’, who is not mentioned further by name, contributes the rest. Much of the same developers, designers, and voice actors are working on the sequel. Even a developer who works at Valve these days has got explicit permission from Gabe Newell herself in the pitch video. Schafer has in the past been responsible for Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle and Brütal Legend, among others.
Schafer has been negatively in the news several times in the past in the context of crowdfunding. For example, during the development process of Broken Age, which had raised more than 3 million dollars, he ran into money shortages. That campaign was run in 2012 and some backers are still waiting for their rewards for it. In the faq on the Fig page, he tries to reassure the public about this: “The Broken Age rewards that have not yet shipped are being made even cooler at the moment. This is our third crowdfunding campaign and we are going to use the knowledge and experience of the previous two bets with this one. We think this time we’ve come up with rewards that can be sent to investors much more timely.”
The 3D adventure platformer Psychonauts 2 will further explore the story behind protagonist and psychic secret agent Razputin and features a new hub world. The main character will gain new abilities and there will be new spirit worlds to explore. The languages in which the spoken and written texts will be available depend on the final budget. Production company 2 Player Productions is also making a documentary of the entire development process that can be viewed for free on YouTube. Schafer expects to release Psychonauts 2 in 2018.
Update, 12:13 PM: added paragraph about Schafer’s history with crowdfunding.