Why you shouldn’t give Tim Schafer anything.
3.3 million, Tim Schafer? By golly that sounds remarkably familiar!
Following the surprise announcement of Psychonauts 2 at The Game Awards show of 2015 — and the subsequent mass groan upon everyone realising it’s Yet Another Crowdfunded Game™ — a clattering pile of Schafer’s atrocious history with the gaming industry and his dishonesty have been spotted trailing not too far behind, making even fans of his work feel uneasy.
Tim Schafer, well known for his creativity when it comes to Day of the Tentacle, Psychonauts and Brütal Legend among the blissfully unaware is also known by another group of former fans who have been burnt by Tim Schafer’s past misdeeds as completely unreliable at managing money and development.
However, the former group have already begun flinging millions at Tim Schafer’s latest crowdfunding campaign for a sequel to Psychonauts without realising, or at the very least wholeheartedly accept that Tim Schafer directly profits from fig.co, a crowdfunding platform on which the campaign is hosted. He is part of the advisory board - this is not disclosed on Psychonauts 2’s page.
The rabbit hole only goes deeper.
There is a reason why I started off taken aback by Tim Schafer asking for 3.3 million dollars, and while true this project is being funded in parts to form a singular, unified drive, the coincidence is that the crowdfunding goal that the consumers are asked for closely match the score that they managed to procure for their last crowdfunded title… This is a sore reminder to all those who were burnt by Tim Schafer’s inability to direct the development of a game.
This game was advertised as a “Double Fine Adventure” with its initial Kickstarter campaign, and ended up being named “Broken Age”.
Broken Age’s initial goal was a laughably paltry $400,000. This quickly blew out of proportion into $3,336,371 before the end of the campaign run. Then, disaster struck as Tim Schafer lamented that he “designed too much game”, forcing him and his studio to take Broken Age to Steam Early Access in a last-ditch effort to fund the other half of the point and click adventure. Overbudget, and far behind schedule, Broken Age had a final full release in the 28th of April, 2015 - even though the initial pledge goals claimed to be delivered 3 years ago on the Kickstarter page in late October of 2012.
This, of course, resulted in the second half feeling largely detached from its first half, with many reviewers criticising how disconnected the two halves of the game were, and how the result of Tim Schafer’s inability to effectively fund and direct the creation of Broken Age ended with “a let down”.
This was not the first time that Double Fine and Tim Schafer abused Steam’s Early Access in an attempt to fund a poorly managed title.
Even more recently, Spacebase DF-9 chronicles the troubled development cycle of a game that had a bumpy underfunded run on Early Access, which ended up being pushed out the door far too early as a “full title” minus all the promised content and Beta testing. In an attempt to quell disenfranchised customers, Tim Schafer went to the Steam forums, trying his best to not outright admit that he screwed up. Big time. Again.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/246090/discussions/0/613936673464943075/
Ultimately what I and many others would like to know is the exact budget that Tim Schafer has that is being augmented by the crowdfunding run and where it’s all coming from. If I were to be anywhere close to trusting the development of Psychonauts 2, he would need to prove to me that the 3.3 million that he’s asking of us is inconsequential, and that his past isn’t representative of what we’ll expect. Until then, expect many to not bother with Psychonauts 2… Or at least be warned of the dangers by gamers who have already been burnt by Tim Schafer’s history with game development.
