Status of the Double Fine Adventure

Mati256 · Wed 03/07/2013 01:15:34

Just saw this at RPS and I can't believe it.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/03/broken-age-needs-more-money-tries-steam-early-access/

I did not contribute to that campaign, but If I had I would be really pissed!

Trapezoid · Wed 03/07/2013 04:20:26

I don't understand the backlash. The game's not getting significantly cut down, nobody has to double-pay, it's just getting Kill Bill'd. Backers will get both parts for what they've already paid. The release of Part 1 will attract sales from new people who were never backers, hopefully enough to fund Part 2 to its completion.

What I don't understand is the assumption that it's going to be an preview-release of an unfinished game. Wouldn't it make more sense to release it as the PART ONE OF A THRILLING ADVENTURE to attract as many new sales as possible? Isn't this model already established in other episodic games, not to mention comic books, films and books?

Trapezoid · Wed 03/07/2013 04:45:36

Side note: Despite the troublesome stuff, this was one of the most thrilling updates so far, for me. See, up until now I was worried that the game was going to be a bit small...

Spoiler

They've only focused on two environments (cloud town and the spaceship) so the game felt a little bit limited. But in this update, there's a bit where they talk about other locales: sandcastle town, forest, pyramid...

[close]

The budget and scope issues they're having seem to indicate that this is going to be a full length, proper adventure. Like the old days.

To anyone who's reading this thread but didn't back the Kickstarter:
I wanna stress that the documentary is wonderful, and very honest and fascinating. I always drop what I'm doing when a new episode comes out. You can still get in on it (and the game itself, of course) for $30, and it's worth every penny: http://www.doublefine.com/dfapay

Armageddon · Wed 03/07/2013 05:14:52

Quote from: Mati256 on Wed 03/07/2013 01:15:34
Just saw this at RPS and I can't believe it.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/03/broken-age-needs-more-money-tries-steam-early-access/

I did not contribute to that campaign, but If I had I would be really pissed!

It's a little upsetting. There's Shadowrun Returns that's coming out this month, had a Kickstart the same time and they got a million less, the game has more art and a lot more written dialogue it seems. And the studio looks smaller...

Snarky · Wed 03/07/2013 10:01:15

So there's one thing I'm not getting. They say that following the original design, the first half would be done by July 2014, and the whole thing some time in 2015. Then they make "some modest cuts" to get the first half ready by January 2014. OK... but then they say the second half "would come in a free update a few months down the road, closer to April-May." Are they still talking 2014? How will they manage to cut the development time of the second half by that much? (At least 50%)

I'm a patient guy, so I don't care too much about delays, and I'm happy that DoubleFine is finding ways to raise the money they need while honoring the original Kickstarter commitments they made. (As a backer, I really have no idea why I would be angry about this.) But I hope the plan is actually realistic, and they'll be able to execute the vision and game design in a satisfactory way on the schedule and budget they now have.

I should go watch the latest video update...

Trapezoid · Wed 03/07/2013 10:06:36

They probably figure they're gonna run out of money early next year and have to work less hours, or with fewer people, thus taking longer. Revenue from Part One would let the full team work full time and finish Part Two.

Still don't get why they're releasing Part One as a "pre-release beta" on some Steam offshoot, or whatever it is. Is that going to make enough dough?

blueskirt · Wed 03/07/2013 15:50:33

QuoteI don't understand the backlash.

Because this is bad news for crowd funding in general. When the fourth most successful video gaming kickstarter in history, the most well known, the one that launched the trend, announces that it ran out of money after they got eight time more than they originally asked, it casts a looming shadow of doubt and failure over every other kickstarters, whether they're funded or to be announced. And it's especially worse in this context of kickstarter fatigue where people want to see some actual results after an entire year of backing projects.

And it's a point and click adventure game we're talking about here, it can't be this costly to produce an adventure game, if an adventure game fails with three million in funding, what about all of these non linear, open world roleplaying games that harken back to the glory days of Baldur's Gates, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment and Jagged Alliance 2 that were funded with kickstarter, games with more epic scope, games that requires much more testing, coding, branching conversation trees and animations? A simple point and click adventure game failing with three millions is bad news for everyone who backed all of these roleplaying games. Double Fine are lucky the linear nature of adventure games allow them to save face by cutting the game in half because I know plenty of projects that won't have this luxury should they fail this bad.

At least this sends a big "Don't screw this up like they did" message to every other projects out there and we have Leisure Suit Larry and Shadowrun Returns later this month to cushion the impact of this bad news. But yes, this is bad.

Snarky · Wed 03/07/2013 16:15:56

I understand that the immediate impression from the outside isn't favorable: "They raised 8 times as much money as they asked for, and now they're saying it's only enough to finish a quarter/half the game?" But really that's not fair. They didn't have a design in place when they started the campaign, they came up with something once they saw how much money they had. In principle, they would have had every right to make the $400,000 game (less Kickstarter fees, rewards and documentary costs) they promised and just pocket the rest of the money, but instead they decided to put every cent (and then some, as it turns out) into development.

OK, going $6 million or whatever over budget on a $3 million game is still not that impressive, but I take that to mean they've been really ambitious and tried to make the game as great as possible. (And ultimately, that means backers are going to get a better game for the money they pledged.) Blame Tim Schafer's imagination and inability to constrain himself if you want, but I don't see any evidence that Double Fine has irresponsibly or incompetently wasted much of the money, which would justify a backlash. Sure, they screwed up on some things, but that's to be expected on any project.

The important point is that the project hasn't failed, and they're still promising that backers will get the full game. Hopefully they'll actually be able to raise enough money by this scheme to deliver on that.

And if this is a wakeup call for some people about the risks, difficulties and resources it takes to make a professional computer game, and that some campaigns may be unrealistic, I see that as a good thing.

Trapezoid · Wed 03/07/2013 19:03:47

I keep seeing crazy numbers thrown around. Do they actually clearly state in the video what the total budget they need is? I thought it was 6 million total.

Krazy · Wed 03/07/2013 19:09:16

This doesn't really bother me. The thing that worries me is the idea that a lot of people might be unwilling to trust Tim Schafer on further projects after this. It's silly, yet admirable that he wants to make this giant game... Ohhhh man...

Stupot · Wed 03/07/2013 19:59:22

In hindsight, I think they really ought to have had a game written and started before launching. Of course that would have been less exciting and might not have caused the hype or raised the money that it did, but at least they would have actually had a clue from the start. As a backer I'm just looking forward to the game whenever and however it comes, but this situation is quite an embarrassment for all concerned. :-/

Babar · Wed 03/07/2013 20:22:18

I'd definitely prefer a nice full not-cut game to be released rather than something with a ton missing, so I don't really mind waiting a little longer. I've waited this long, and I've had the documentary episodes to keep me company (I wonder how they will be funding this, though

). They keep throwing around "Steam", but I hope their "first part" release won't be exclusive to that.

Azure · Wed 03/07/2013 20:56:36

Trouble is with saying they should have designed it all first is that they'd have to pay for the designers somehow, even Tim Schafer will get paid and that money has to come from somewhere. Staff will be assigned to a project and their wages will get allocated from that project's funds, otherwise publisher X will want to know why the staff they pay for aren't working on their game.

blueskirt · Wed 03/07/2013 21:15:30

It takes money to make money. And when you own a business and want it to thrive, you don't count the hours you invest in it. I don't think they should have planned every details, but they should have made a plan.

I'm gonna stop talking about it because it boggles my mind, and I'd rather not taint my enjoyment of the game with stories like this.

miguel · Thu 04/07/2013 00:43:56

This really sounds insane to me. 3M dollars isn't enough to make a point&click adventure game?
Who's getting his pockets full?

Secret Fawful · Thu 04/07/2013 00:51:50

Daedalic made nearly all if not all their games under a 3M budget combined. Double Fine, y u do dis.

Trapezoid · Thu 04/07/2013 04:54:50

Grim Fandango was 4 million, adjusted for inflation. Keep in mind that after Kickstarter's cut, the documentary budget, taxes, and reward fulfillment, that $3M is probably closer to $2M (which, for a full-length game made by a full team, isn't much these days.)

Stupot · Thu 04/07/2013 08:35:41

They spent half the money on Rubick's Cubes, judging by the videos.

Armageddon · Thu 04/07/2013 09:23:16

And his car repairs.

Jared · Thu 04/07/2013 09:33:25

Man, people are really forgiving when it comes to Schafer. The money people at Double Fine (Justin and the other lady, can't remember their names) should've been running this from the get go. What seemed to be little 'kinks' early on in the 2PP docos are clearly crystalizing into big blunders.

I can imagine a lot of the shortfall comes from poor management and poor planning. From episodes on art eyebrows were raised over the fact they had four concept artists and only one animator. Furthermore, the entire game was meant to be in the 'style' of one particular artist. Yet he was not art director for the project and quickly got moved off of doing actual background art to colourise scenes by other artists to maintain his 'brushwork' and keep the style. Even though this was all done digitally and, wait for it, using software he had no experience with!

As has been said, look at the work coming from Project Eternity and Shadowrun Returns. It's... it's like it's in another stratosphere. Those guys look like they know what they're doing.