***Update 1 – 2016-01-12 – 23:45 CET***

In case you didn´t already know it by now, then I´m here to inform you that Tim Schafer (Game designer and founder of Double Fine Productions) and Justin Bailey (CEO Fig) had an IamA (Q and A) over at Reddit yesterday (regarding “Psychonauts 2” and everything in between). And when I found out about that I was not quite sure what I should feel about it, because when I originally wrote this article. I was pretty open with my thoughts and concerns about the “Psychonauts 2” campaign. So I was really curious to see what kind of question’s people would ask Bailey and Schafer. Especially since quite a few people have called out both FIG and Schafer previously (like Gerard McDermott for example). Well, some questions were pretty head on. And frankly, I’m surprised that some of the questions didn´t get removed. Anyhow, I´ve picked out some of the most interesting questions and answers (in my opinion) from the FIG and Double Fine IamA at Reddit:

“Hey Tim. Many people have lost trust in your company due to the mishandling of several past games resources, such as the space base debacle. What would you say to ease the fears of those worried psychonauts 2 may suffer a similar fate?” – johndoz

“Hey, John. When you say “mishandling of several past games resources” I assume you’re talking about two things: games going over budget, and then Spacebase.Regarding games going over budget: Many times in the past I have made the choice to invest more in a game than the original budget specified. That is because in the end, my highest priority is the quality of the game. Most of the games you play (not all of them, but more than you think) went over budget and extended their schedules at some point. Double Fine is just more honest and transparent about it. There are many things that lower the risk of Psychonauts 2 going over budget. It’s a sequel, so the gameplay and IP of the game are already known. We are using the Unreal Engine, so we don’t have to write an engine from scratch. And our team is much more experienced than when we made the first game. But if even after that, if the game has any overages, Double Fine is committed to paying for them ourselves, as we have done in the past.

We have successfully completed and shipped both of the games we crowdfunded (Broken Age and Massive Chalice) and are very proud of them. The majority of our fans and critics enjoyed them as well. We have put three games through early access–Hack ‘n’ Slash, Massive Chalice, and Spacebase. Two of these worked out great, and one of those was a disappointment to many people. We have shipped 17 titles over the last 15 years and overall we have a great track record of shipping great games and being extremely transparent and honest with our community. That is the more lasting reputation of Double Fine, and the reason people can feel confident about Psychonauts 2!Tim Schafer

“Another question about fig. Could you explain for someone who maybe doesn’t have much of a background in financing productions how the company structure of fig works in relation to the financing of Psychonauts 2?  There are all these companies, Fig itself, the parent company Loose Tooth, and Fig Grasslands which seems to be to do with  Psychonauts 2 specifically, then Double Fine it is a little difficult for a layperson to understand why all these different
companies need to exist and where and why my money goes when it leaves my account. A brief explanation of all that would be great!” – KestrelPi

Loose Tooth is the parent company of Fig, it started first and built the Fig platform. Fig Publishing Inc. is the publishing subsidiary, our co-publishing division, which is the one that is funding and publishing our titles, and therefore the one issuing the tracking stocks for each game. Underneath Fig Publishing Inc. are LLC entities we create for each game, which is important to create one per game since a game’s revenue is sent and managed by an LLC. This is where you’ll find Fig Grasslands which is tied to Psychonauts 2, this allows us to sell shares which track the financial performance of this game.”
Tim Schafer

“Do you regret the way you attacked and mocked women and minorities with your sockpuppet?”AntonioOfVenice

Obviously, I never attacked and mocked women and minorities, ever, with a sockpuppet or anything else. During the GDC choice awards I made a joke that implied people in Gamergate are associated with sock puppets, and another joke that implied people who use the #gamergate hashtag also use the #notyourshield hashtag. I never said ALL gamergate supporters are sock puppets. I never said that everyone who uses #notyourshield is a sockpuppet. Some people said I did, though, and they further went on to characterize my statements as racist or anti-women, which is obviously the opposite of what I was saying. Or at least I hope it was obvious. It’s possible it wasn’t obvious, and for that I apologize. Still, my main regret is not getting the math right.”Tim Schafer

“Come on, dude, be real. If a famous male comedian made a joke about women, and then said “obviously I didn’t mean all women,” people definitely wouldn’t let him off the hook. Tim, you probably don’t remember me, but we met at NYU Games Center a few years when you gave a talk on game development. You took a picture with me and the stuffed tentacle that one of my best friends had made for me as a Christmas gift (which became one of my highest karma reddit posts ever, btw). I’m an LGBT person who has been a gamer all my life, and I used to be a huge fan of yours. At a time when the entire media was talking for and over LGBT people and telling us how we should feel, erasing differing viewpoints, and claiming we were all monolithic in our opinions, you used a giant pulpit to tell everyone that, if we didn’t agree with the masses, then we weren’t real and we didn’t matter. Knowingly or not, that comment implied that I – and others like me – were just some dudebro gamers who hate women, pretending for to be gay, or POC, or women for … some reason.

I really can’t convey to you what that felt like – to have your childhood hero do you like that. I’m late to the party, and I know you’ll probably never see this comment. And I’m not looking for anything from you – you’ve already made your (highly conditional non-apology) apology. But I wanted to put this out there, on the off-chance you’ll understand the impact you made, and maybe a sliver of why people were upset in the wake of that speech.
You let me down, Tim.”WiseSalesman

“I’m sorry I offended you. That was not my intention.”Tim Schafer

You know, while I was reading through these questions and answers. One thing hit me, do you remember the song “I Can Change” from “South Park The Movie”? (the song which Saddam Hussein sings from the devil). Well, to make a long story short. Schafer has quite a lot of previous scandals to his name (scroll further down the page for some examples of that). So it´s really hard for me to take him seriously. I mean, it´s like asking a notorious liar if the person would lie to you. You know what I mean?

In short. People who pledge money to the “Psychonauts 2” (which, by the way, got fully funded not so long ago) project, is doing it with no guaranties whatsoever. And since Schafer got a lot of critique for his “Broken Age” Kickstarter campaign back in 2012. It´s going to be really interesting to see whether or not he will pull off a similar crowdfunding stunt one more time. If so, then it might be his last crowdfunding campaign for sure. Time will tell I guess.

With that said, what do you guys and girls think about the Reddit IAMa with Tim Schafer and Justin Bailey? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Source:
Reddit

—————————————————-

Psychonauts 2 Vs crowdfunding money and past scandals

I had a lot of mixed emotions when I found out that Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions had launched a crowdfunding campaign for “Psychonauts 2” yesterday (please read the whole article before you get angry at me). Because I really enjoyed the original game (which were released back in 2005 for PC, Xbox and PS2), and I´ve been waiting over ten years for a sequel. However, a lot of things have changed in the games industry since the release of “Psychonauts” (Psychonauts has sold 1,6 million units in total so far though). And Tim Schafer (the creator of The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Brütal Legend with others) has changed over time as well. And please allow me to explain what I mean by that.

psychonauts 2

Say hello to the “Psychonauts 2” team (long time no see Raz).

Back in the 90s Tim Schafer was considered to be “the best of the best” and he was a very respectable and loved game developer (both among fans and other developers), as he had crafted awesome games such as “Monkey Island”, “Full Throttle” and “Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle“). Personally, I grew up playing many of Schafer´s classic games (Monkey Island 1 were the very first LucasArts and Schafer title that I played). So I have been a fan of Schafer´s for at least 20 years time. However, like I mentioned before. The 1990s Schafer (and early 2000s) and the 2015 edition of Schafer aren’t exactly the same person anymore. Sure, we all change and evolve over time (for better or worse). Nevertheless, the Schafer I once knew wouldn´t bring in political correctness or SJW agenda into his creations (or talk about it whenever he gets a chance to do so). Nor would he make himself look stupid during a speech at the GDC 2015 event. And he would most definitely not be associated with “suspicious” crowd founding campaigns for that matter, either.

psychonauts team veterans

Psychonauts 2 will be developed by the original Psychonauts team.

Sadly enough though, that´s the current image that the Gaming community has of Tim Schafer as of now. And rightfully so, since Schafer has quite a few scandals attached to his name. In fact, the first “scandal” (or what I should call it) that i heard about regarding Schafer involved Bobby Kotick (CEO Activision Blizzard) and Brütal Legend. Long story short, things didn´t work out all that well with the development of Brütal Legend (this was back in 2009 when Vivendi was said to publish the game, but when Activision and Blizzard became one company. Activision dropped Brütal Legend, which EA then picked up.). And even though I´m no fan of  Bobby Kotick (CEO Activision), Kotick understood very early on that Schafer had big problems with keeping up with deadlines and budget ceilings (Schafer is well-known for overspending the original said budget for his projects). And that´s also probably why Kotick said the following things about Schafer back in 2009:

“Tim Schafer. The guy comes out and says I’m a prick. I’ve never met him in my life — I’ve never had anything to do with him, I never had any involvement in the Vivendi project that they were doing, Brütal Legend, other than I was in one meeting where the guys looked at it and said, ‘He’s late, he’s missed every milestone, he’s overspent the budget and it doesn’t seem like a good game. We’re going to cancel it.

And do you know what? That seemed like a sensible thing to do. And it turns out, he was late, he missed every milestone, the game was not a particularly good game …” – Bobby Kotick (CEO Activision), On Tim Schafer calling him a prick and “Brütal Legend

tim schafer double fine productions

Tim Schafer likes to eat money apparently.

The “Broken Age” Kickstarter scandal

Then we got the part that concerns the “Broken Age” Kickstarter scandal, because when Tim Schafer asked for $400,000 for “Broken Age” via Kickstarter back in 2012. No one could ever imagine that “Broken Age” would collect 3,35 million dollars (pledged by 87,142 backers) in total by the end of March. That´s good news of course, well, so we thought. Because nobody thought that Schafer would ask for even more money to develop “Broken Age” (but he did, so an additional $100,000 were added to “Broken Age” via Kickstarter). And well, the development process didn´t exactly run smoothly (thus the decision to split up “Broken Age” into two chapters, and the first chapter ate all the Kickstarter money. It is rumored that Schafer spent much of the money on famous actors such as Jack Black and Elijah Wood). And once chapter 1 (act 1) of “Broken Age” launched (which it did on the 28th of January, 2014), it would take 18 months before chapter 2 would see the day of light (the 28th of April, 2015). What I´m trying to say is that Schafer has proven time after time again, that his having huge problems with deadlines and budget ceilings. And Schafer didn´t exactly make his credibility any better by tweeting out pictures where he eats, throws and plays around with money on Twitter (as seen in the picture above).

tim schafer gdc 2015

Tim Schafer made an ass out of himself during his GDC 2015 speech.

The GDC 2015 sockpuppet scandal

Even so, I have to say that I lost my trust completely in Tim Schafer after his sock puppet speech at the 2015´s GDC event. That was the final straw for me, because not only was his joke (or whatever you could call it) stupid, racist and inappropriate. It was also the very last thing the games industry needed, as its image is already “somewhat” broken from before (corruption, scandals, etc). And my trust for Schafer got even worse once “Spacebase DF-9” hit the market (it´s a Space simulator for Windows, MAC and Linux), as the game received some really bad reviews and scores in October, 2014. In fact, there is just one game that made me “trust” Schafer a “bit” more. And that was the Remastered version of “Grim Fandango”.

psychonauts 2 art

“Psychonauts 2” has some really impressive art designs for sure.

The pros of Psychonauts 2 and my expectations

Nevertheless, I´m not going to pretend that I´m not excited about “Psychonauts 2” because I am. However, Double Fine Production needs 3,3 million dollars in order to turn “Psychonauts 2” from a dream into a reality (so far +9K backers hads pledged 1,3 million dollars to the “Psychonauts 2” project, with 34 days left to go). This time things “might” become a little different though, since Double Fine isn´t using Kickstarter to found “Psychonauts 2”. No, instead their using a “different” kind of crowdfunding platform called “Fig”. And this is the actually description of Fig (as seen on their homepage):

“There are two different ways you can back this game: Traditional crowdfunding REWARDS and INVESTMENTS”

“On Fig, game studios can raise funds for development costs through reward and investment based crowdfunding. Funding is all-or-nothing, ensuring everyone — fans and investors alike — are able to support with confidence.”

I can´t say all that much about Fig though (as I found out about their company and services today), anyhow, as for the pros of Psychonauts 2 and my expectations. I´ll start with the pros and said features of “Psychonauts 2” first:
– Jack Black (I´m a huge fan of his)
– The original Psychonauts voice cast (Richard Horvitz and Nicki Rapp have promised to return to voice Razputin and Lili)
– The original development team Psychonauts (Anna Kipnis, Bert Chang, Dave ‘Rusty’ Russell, Geoff Soulis, Kee Chi, Malena Annable, and Ray Crook)
– Double Fine will be putting up a significant portion of the development funds themselves
– Psychonauts 2 is set for a release in 2018 to Windows, MAC, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One
– Artists Scott Campbell, Peter Chan and Nathan Stapley will be returning alongside composer Peter McConnell to contribute their unique visual and musical styles
– Team 2 Player Productions will film the entire Psychonauts 2 process of (a documentary)
– Pretty awesome backer rewards

psychonauts 2 fig campaign

Even “if” “Psychonauts 2” manages to collect 3.3 million dollars. Will Tim Schafer keep his promises? And will the game deliver?

And the “Psychonauts 2” campaign is doing really good so far. In other words. So far, so good. As for my own expectations and hopes for “Psychonauts 2” goes. I just hope that the project won´t turn out the same way that “Broken Age” did (pushed release dates, budget problems, etc.). And that the game will be a worthy sequel to “Psychonauts”, as I really enjoyed the original game a whole lot. However, like I mentioned before. “Psychonauts 2” is a Tim Schafer project. So you simply can´t ignore his past mistakes and scandals (I honestly believe that this might be his last crowdfunding project “if “he messes up “Psychonauts 2”).

In other words, there are no guarantees whatsoever that “Psychonauts 2” will deliver anything of the stuff which Schafer has promised (nor that the game will be released in 2018).So it´s up to each and everyone one to decide if you want to take a gamble with Schafer ´s “Psychonauts 2” project or not (+9,000 people have already pledged +1,3 million dollars so far though), you can in fact even invest money in “Psychonauts 2”. (yes, the whole idea behind it is that you should earn money from your investment).

With that said, are you guys and girls excited for “Psychonauts 2”? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Source:
Psychonauts 2

***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.

***Disclosure***
I was once a huge fan of Tim Schafer. Well, I´m not a “huge” fan of his anymore.

tgg author avatar robin ek
Robin “V-Act” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround

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