Context: Psychonauts 2 was just announced as a legitimate surprise at The Game Awards.
Meta-Context: Double Fine has had terrible, terrible luck with crowdfunding and funds in their previous ventures (there is actually a documentary explicitly about that: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/10/broken-ages-making-of-...), which may explain why they are trying an experimental crowdfunding platform.
Your comment makes it sound like the documentary is an expose of mismanagement. It's not; it was put together on purpose by Double Fine to show how difficult game development can be, and to show what happens with the money people pledged... which is a heck of a lot more than I've seen from many other Kickstarted projects.
$3.3 million was the same final budget for Broken Age, the previous crowdfunded game. Apparently, it was very obvious that funds ran out mid-development. (haven't played the game yet)
I dunno, I backed broken age and got months of entertainment (such as it is) from the vlog updates, followed by a beautiful but ultimately flawed game.
Isn't that way Kickstarter is all about? Boundless optimism, unrelenting hype, followed by an uneasy sense of disappointment?
Full disclosure: I backed ouya too. I even played on it once or twice before consigning it to The Shelf of Regret, alongside the Atari jaguar and the PIs I could never be bothered to do anything useful with.
$3.3 million was about the amount Double Fine raised from Kickstarter for Broken Age. They then went on to commit a few million of their own funds. So, if you're trying to calibrate expectations in terms of quality versus funding you should think of Broken Age as being a Double Fine game in the $6 million range.
I think that is one of the reasons they are using this new kickstart platform "fig" they helped to build. So that they can get external investors in along with the crowdfunding.
Broken Age (the previous Kickstarter from Double Fine) was an horrible game (especially the second act - and it was super late and way over budget in the end) so it hardly proves that direct funding is a good idea in the first place.
Double Fine is pretty hit and miss with it's games. The hits are spectacular, and the feel of the games is usually pretty unique, but frequently the gameplay is missing. Brutal Legend (in the background) is a great example; a fresh, original gameworld, some unusual angles on things... and completely uncompelling gameplay.
Psychonauts was spectacular, but I'll wait for the actual release. At $33 for a copy of Psychonauts 2 on this kickstarter, I'd rather wait until 2018 (release date, with no slippage) and avoid all the buzz-generating update emails. The normal retail price would be worth avoiding that spam, and seeing if it actually lives up to the hype...
In user reviews there are 35 negative reviews out of 123 ratings. Not "especially horrible" by any means either.
If you look at the comments on the metacritic "user reviews" page, there are a lot of people disappointed that the game wasn't sufficiently like the classic LucasArts point-n-click adventures.
You get the feeling that the most vocal users didn't review the game on its own merits. It ended up being very casual, which means the target audience isn't well represented by commenters on gaming web sites.
Ok I don't think you are giving it a fair summary. Users who did not like it actually very objectively pointed out that the Act 2 rehashed a lot of the same sets and characters and did not introduce much new elements in the story - in other words, it felt rushed and empty following a promising Act 1. Which it probably was.
The positive critic reviews acknowledged these aspects of the game too, but still gave good reviews if not quite as glowing as Act 1. Eg "While I wish that Double Fine kept taking me to new and surprising settings, Act 2 makes the absolute most of each screen of its world. It’s an adventure that I loved seeing through to the end. "
I bought Hack n Slash because it was supposed to be some hackable, easily moddable adventure game, but it was terrible. To my knowledge, no one really modded it either. The in-game condition statement crystals were way more confusing than any if or for statement. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Their latest games haven't been very good IMHO. Hope they don't destroy Psychonauts.
It seems that this time around fig is taking unaccredited investments, which is interesting.
Double Fine is hit and miss, but at least they are trying to be original, and they have a good reputation in a pretty shady industry. I'll support them.
Way back when before the Broken Age Kickstarter and before Microsoft bought Minecraft Notch half-jokingly tweeted an offer to personally fund a sequel to Psychonaughts. In interviews Tim Schafer (head of Double Fine) mentioned that that wasn't very realistic as a proper sequel would cost around $13 million.
It's interesting that in the news reports about this latest announcement state that crowd funding will be used alongside outside private investment.
It makes me wonder if this fig campaign is mainly about generating buzz (for both fig and Psychonauts 2) and as a way to prove public interest in order to unlock the aforementioned outside investment.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 55.8 ms ] threadMeta-Context: Double Fine has had terrible, terrible luck with crowdfunding and funds in their previous ventures (there is actually a documentary explicitly about that: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/10/broken-ages-making-of-...), which may explain why they are trying an experimental crowdfunding platform.
Isn't that way Kickstarter is all about? Boundless optimism, unrelenting hype, followed by an uneasy sense of disappointment?
Full disclosure: I backed ouya too. I even played on it once or twice before consigning it to The Shelf of Regret, alongside the Atari jaguar and the PIs I could never be bothered to do anything useful with.
I was exceptionally pleased by shovel knight though. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yachtclubgames/shovel-k...
Psychonauts was spectacular, but I'll wait for the actual release. At $33 for a copy of Psychonauts 2 on this kickstarter, I'd rather wait until 2018 (release date, with no slippage) and avoid all the buzz-generating update emails. The normal retail price would be worth avoiding that spam, and seeing if it actually lives up to the hype...
Act 2 scored 90% in IGN, 80% in Edge... I'd like to make an "especially horrible" game like this some day.
Also I hope they never stop taking risks and I hope gamers will continue to enable that instead of demanding safe bets.
If you look at the comments on the metacritic "user reviews" page, there are a lot of people disappointed that the game wasn't sufficiently like the classic LucasArts point-n-click adventures.
You get the feeling that the most vocal users didn't review the game on its own merits. It ended up being very casual, which means the target audience isn't well represented by commenters on gaming web sites.
Double Fine is hit and miss, but at least they are trying to be original, and they have a good reputation in a pretty shady industry. I'll support them.
It's interesting that in the news reports about this latest announcement state that crowd funding will be used alongside outside private investment.
It makes me wonder if this fig campaign is mainly about generating buzz (for both fig and Psychonauts 2) and as a way to prove public interest in order to unlock the aforementioned outside investment.
http://kotaku.com/5885525/bankrolling-psychonauts-2-was-just...