Double Fine decides to break some records (and also make a new point and click)

[sickrubik]

Double fine was hoping to raise $400,000 in 33 days to fund a new Point-and-Click adventure game.

Well, they managed did. In a much shorter amount of time and for far more.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/double-fine-raising-funds-for-new-adventure-game-updated/3973/

(Amusing side note, Minecreaft's Notch and Tim Schafer started talking (joking?) about funding a Psychonauts 2.)

[Nebu]

I may have to throw them $20. 

Thanks for the link. 

[Ghambit]

Kickstarter is really the way to do it nowadays, but it's gotten a bit 'perverted' the past year or so.  What you're seeing now is literally companies (re)forming JUST to do kickstarters.  They have crowdsourcing down to a science and pretty much dwarf any TRULY independent developer.  So yah, you may have a great idea and even a great kstarter page but good luck competing with the new 'corporate crowdsourcers' that have gotten way popular.  And the Kickstarter devs LOOOOVE them some corporate crowdsourcers, so good luck bumping them from the "projects we like" page.

DoubleFine is a prime example.  They've got like what?  50+ people on their staff?  ummm yah, if you cant find funding with a company already pushing revenue and profits in the many millions then someone needs to fire your CFO.

It sickens me.  Yippee horray??  Double-Fine breaks records.  Wow nice.     It's really nothing more than a glorified pre-order process now.  They need to get off kickstarter and make room for the smaller guys.

Even better, fund their own projects maybe?  

@Nebu, dont give them a goddamned penny

[Ingmar]

profits in the many millions

Privy to Double Fine's revenue statements, are you?

[pxib]

I like the idea of them making an in-depth documentary of the process as well. I don't think the gaming industry has one of those yet.

[koro]

DoubleFine is a prime example.  They've got like what?  50+ people on their staff?  ummm yah, if you cant find funding with a company already pushing revenue and profits in the many millions then someone needs to fire your CFO.

You really must not know an awful lot about Double Fine.

[sickrubik]

Kickstarter is helping out a metric shit ton of small creators get stuff off the ground, so I'm not sure how Double Fine is "in the way".

Here's the "staff picks" section: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/recommended?ref=more#p1

It's still pretty crazy that they raised that much money that quickly for a point-and-click, a genre that was all but dead a few years ago. Hell, what publisher is going to publish a Pont-and-Click? Why not just do it yourself.

[Ghambit]

profits in the many millions

Privy to Double Fine's revenue statements, are you?

Uhh no, but I pay attention.  Do you honestly think they're broke enough to need a kickstarter project and suck up nearly $1mill in crowdsourcing?  Srsly, you DO know which games are theirs right?  I'll wait whilst you go research.

Forgive me if I seem rantish, but the fact is there's no room in that relatively small marketplace for medium-sized businesses that proclaim to be 'small' or 'independent.'  You just can't compete.  Maybe we need another crowdsourcing site or to cap the size of biz asking for money, i dunno.  I'm just saying it's gotten too crowded in the crowdsourcing world these days, if that's even possible.  

All double-fine had to do was put up a traditional pre-order page via its usual tools, not take a lot of money from one relatively small site that could've got to people with creative projects that REALLY needed it.

DoubleFine is a prime example.  They've got like what?  50+ people on their staff?  ummm yah, if you cant find funding with a company already pushing revenue and profits in the many millions then someone needs to fire your CFO.

You really must not know an awful lot about Double Fine.

Care to qualify?  I admit, I dont.  But I'd like to know more.  Please to be telling me why doublefine is hurting for project monies.

[Trippy]

profits in the many millions

Privy to Double Fine's revenue statements, are you?

Uhh no, but I pay attention.  Do you honestly think they're broke enough to need a kickstarter project and suck up nearly $1mill in crowdsourcing?  Srsly, you DO know which games are theirs right?  I'll wait whilst you go research.

No, you are the who claimed they have profits in the many millions. It is for you to prove your claim is correct not for us to prove you are wrong.

[Paelos]

You mean Ghambit's rattling off random shit with no proof?

Shocked! 

[sickrubik]

http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games?ref=sidebar

That's a lot of over 100% funded games on Kickstarter.

[Ingmar]

take a lot of money from one relatively small site that could've got to people with creative projects that REALLY needed it.

Because all those people who donated money because they want a new Shaefer/Gilbert adventure game would have otherwise said 'screw it, I'm donating to this guy who wants to start a webcomic!'

[sickrubik]

take a lot of money from one relatively small site that could've got to people with creative projects that REALLY needed it.

Because all those people who donated money because they want a new Shaefer/Gilbert adventure game would have otherwise said 'screw it, I'm donating to this guy who wants to start a webcomic!'

Apparently, they might have! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-the-stick-reprint-drive?ref=spotlight

Also, seriously, a lot of people get a lot of funding for projects through Kickstarter. This statement that somehow Double Fine is KEEPING THEM DOWN is... rubbish.

[koro]

DoubleFine is a prime example.  They've got like what?  50+ people on their staff?  ummm yah, if you cant find funding with a company already pushing revenue and profits in the many millions then someone needs to fire your CFO.

You really must not know an awful lot about Double Fine.

Care to qualify?  I admit, I dont.  But I'd like to know more.  Please to be telling me why doublefine is hurting for project monies.

Double Fine makes largely niche products, like Psychonauts, Stacking, Costume Quest, and so on. These are projects that your usual suspects as far as publishers would usually never touch as far as funding and publishing go. Their last major published title, Brutal Legend, was fraught with publishing politics (Activision trying to force Double Fine into integrating it with Guitar Hero and then later dumping the game, EA picking it back up, Activision suing EA over it, etc.) and they've since turned to doing independent stuff for places like XBLA. They make great games and aren't hurting, but they're not rolling in cash either and can't really afford to go after every project they'd like to.

[Sheepherder]

So, umm, now they can afford to go after other projects.

THE HORROR!

[murdoc]

I contributed because I REALLY want a Shaefer/Gilbert adventure game and I actually think the documentary filming the whole process will be as good, if not better, than the game.

I started following this yesterday when Notch sorta/kinda offered to fund Psychonaughts 2 - but it's actually pretty cool to watch a company pitch an idea and see the response it gets.The fact that they will probably break a million dollars in less than 2 days is incredible.

[koro]

The fact that they will probably break a million dollars in less than 2 days is incredible.

At the rate it's going, it's looking like it'll break a million bucks in less than one day. Up to $937,000 as of this post.

[Ratman_tf]

Ooh. I hadn't heard about the documentary aspect. That alone is worth the kickstart money, IMO.

[Ghambit]

 

[sickrubik]

 

[Ghambit]

This sums it up a bit better for me.

The second question is more important. While an established company like Double Fine understandably sees fans immediately flocking to donate, things become much more difficult for an emerging artist working on his or her first project. While you could argue that it is the responsibility of that artist to earn his or her reputation over time, I can’t help but wonder what kinds of tools Kickstarter could introduce to facilitate discovery and fundraising for less visible names. This will become increasingly important as more established names and studios see the success of the platform and begin migrating to it. So, I suppose, my second question is this:

How can Kickstarter ensure that it remains a platform for the best ideas and projects, not merely the biggest names?

-Random blogger

Double-Fine is a major games studio, independent or not.  And there is NOT an unlimited share of capital on sites like kickstarter.  So when they swoop in with these big projects they think they cant get normal funding for (or want to fund themselves) they're essentially cannibalizing funding from say 100 projects (the average kstarter is $10k) and sinking it into one "popularized" one.  In the end, creativity is stifled... not helped.  It's like fuckin Valentino using Etsy to make his next dress.   

So talk like this has been creeping up of late regarding sites like Kickstarter, I'm not some special snowflake with this.  It's something that's gonna have to be addressed soon.  I mean for christ's sake we're talking about a studio that got in bed with EA to do "Brutal Legend."  Let us not forget this.

Note: I'm all for killing the publisher though, but just not eating the small cap crowdsource market to do it.

[Ingmar]

99% of the people giving money to Doublefine would have never been on Kickstarter to begin with if it weren't for this. If anything this is going to expose more Kickstarter projects to potential donors, not less.

[sickrubik]

So.... they're jerks for using a publisher like EA, but also jerks for using a thing like Kickstarter. Okay.

Creativity is not stifled. The content that say, a company like Double Fine, or, Valentino I guess, would be producing would be creative. Competition, MAYBE. But, as we see, there are plenty of higher profile projects that get funded, and yet, smaller and more intimate projects get funded just fine as well, so that's really not even a fair point at this juncture.

BTW, here's the link you could have provided, http://transmythology.com/2012/02/09/kickstarter-double-fine-a-seismic-shift/

Really his comments don't come off as doom and gloom as you seem to infer. It's an interesting question, for sure, but I'm not sure Tim Schaffer and Ron Gilbert are demons in this situation.

If we were to assume that large funded projects are cannibalizing the other ones, there would be a lot fewer projects at 100% funding already. HOLY SHIT, THOSE JERKS AT ORDER OF THE STICK ARE RUINING EVERYTHING.

[Ghambit]

99% of the people giving money to Doublefine would have never been on Kickstarter to begin with if it weren't for this. If anything this is going to expose more Kickstarter projects to potential donors, not less.

Yah, expose more kickstarter usage to big companies you mean.      So your percentage is a wash, if not skewed away from your logic in the end.

I once suggested Schild use the site for his TCG, but if he's got to consistently compete with DoubleFine-like entities I seriously doubt he'll ever get his game off the ground.  And said game will never see the light of day, even though you may be likely to play it a lot more than "Double-Fine Adventure."

I mean, it's getting to the point we're seeing guys PROXY for funding.  You'll have a developer grabbing funding for something who once you peel back the layers is already backed by a large pubbie, devhouse, equity firm, whatever.  All it ends up doing is lowering the exposure for the company they REALLY represent and the fatcats go away with a smile.  At minimum it bleeds cash to test the market for bigger production.

I dunno man, it just doesn't feel right to me.

edit: I'm not demonizing 'Double-Fine' I'm just bringing up something that I believe NEEDS to be discussed.  Go ahead and donate if that's what you wanna do, but dont be naive in thinking this isnt worth discussing.  A lot of people making way more than me/us are asking the same questions and bringing up the same points.

[Xuri]

99% of the people giving money to Doublefine would have never been on Kickstarter to begin with if it weren't for this. If anything this is going to expose more Kickstarter projects to potential donors, not less.

This. I've largely ignored Kickstarter up until now, but this project made me both hand over some cash _and_ start having a better look at all the other cool projects that exist on that site.

[tmp]

This sums it up a bit better for me.

How can Kickstarter ensure that it remains a platform for the best ideas and projects, not merely the biggest names?

That arguments presents a false choice and hinges on the author's view of what Kickstarter is about that the actual owners of the site don't appear to share.

"Kickstarter is the world's largest funding platform for creative projects."

nothing more, nothing less.

[koro]

And it just topped $1 million, still under the 24-hour mark as far as I can tell.

[sickrubik]

Actually, you've been pretty much demonizing Double Fine the entire time and demonizing people who would want to donate to the project. You're making them analogous to something like EA or Nike, or even fucking Valentino. You're being a tad hyperbolic. Valentino is a billionaire. Tim Schafer is not.

It's an interesting question, possibly, but none of it seems to pan out so far. I still do not see a single thing wrong with Double Fine using this to fund a project. They weren't going to get a publisher to sign off a new Point and Click, so why not go to the crowd that's going to buy it... or in this case... have already bought it.

So far all that has happened is you've made unsubstantiated claims and referred to "people talking about it" without even giving any links to relevant conversations. I'm for one interested in community driven efforts like this, and if there is some concern, it would be interesting to read about. So, link it!

In exchange, I offer this.

[kildorn]

Wasn't Doublefine on the verge of dying a horrible death, and barely saved themselves by making some pretty amusing stuff via an odd "everyone do your own thing" design method? This isn't Blizzard asking us to donate so they can make Diablo 4, or Relic wanting donations for Homeworld 2.. this is a pretty loved but commercially unimpressive company asking for some cash because they really fucking need it.

[Severian]

Wasn't Doublefine on the verge of dying a horrible death, and barely saved themselves by making some pretty amusing stuff via an odd "everyone do your own thing" design method?

Yes, they called it their "Amnesia Fortnight", a two-week break from the current project where they would split into four teams to protoype new game ideas. Costume Quest was one result.

This Kickstarter campaign reminds me most of the pre-release funding of Minecraft, a model we are seeing more and more. Bypassing publishers. Somewhat like shareware back in olden tymes. In this case Double Fine could substitute reputation for a work-in-progress, but the effect is the same: your moolah funds a game like this.

[Amarr HM]

At least it's not gonna be a first person shooter, right?

[Lantyssa]

99% of the people giving money to Doublefine would have never been on Kickstarter to begin with if it weren't for this. If anything this is going to expose more Kickstarter projects to potential donors, not less.

Pretty much my opinion on the matter as well.

[Furiously]

I guess my question about them using kickstart inapproprately is.

What publisher would have funded this game?

Oh that's right...none.

[UnSub]

Most established publishers would have ignored a $400k project, certainly.

[Ingmar]

Not to mention an adventure game.