Status of the Double Fine Adventure

[Trapezoid]

Schafer just screw the budget, and now theres the possibility that the game might never be released. And we know about this only after their second Kickstarter finished. That's another budget they can screw up, and theres also the Indie Fund, so it should be a fun year for Double Fine! Maybe Gilbert did the right thing when he got out of there.

This is ridiculous. Am I the only person who thinks Tim knew they might run into this trouble down the line while he was designing, but knew that there would be options and deemed it worth the potential for compromises? I think he knew what he was doing when he over-designed the game, and never would have if it were truly a no-win scenario.
They haven't run out of money. They're planning ahead to make sure they don't. These were their options: 1. Cut the game down, which will make it feel rushed and disappointing. 2. Stretch out the money they have by cutting down the team, taking much longer to finish the game. Or 3. Figure out ways to subsidize it. Be creative.

Under a publisher, 3 wouldn't even be considered as an option. This project is about what can be done under an unconventional model. It's an experiment. And its their own money.

Grim Fandango wasn't exactly an indie. It was a multi-million dollar project. It was delayed. It still had content cut. 2001: A Space Odyssey was 4 million over budget and over a year behind schedule. If it's good, no one will remember or care about the budget and schedule.

[Trapezoid]

Also, 3 million is NOT a huge amount for a game. It's a huge amount for a Kickstarter. It's low for a game at this level. Psychonauts was $12 million. This is multi-platform, voice-acted, globally shipped content.

Sorry, comparisons to AGS are silly. I love AGS, but it doesn't even work correctly on modern monitors.

[m0ds]

If it's good, no one will remember or care about the budget and schedule.

Uh-huh, but kind of different - the budgets for 2001 and GF were not created by 10,000 eager backers. So if its bad or good, I think people will still clearly remember it coming out of their pay packet to begin with If it's good, they'll be glad they paid, if it isn't, they won't. When the studio takes a hit, no-one gives a damn, and why should they? John Smythe did not work an 18 hour shift down a coal mine to chip into it prior to being made.

So what they've also given themselves is mass accountability. And that is why I am still wary of KS/Indiegogo projects (this includes my own) because the accountability rises ten fold. Pissing off a studio is one thing, pissing off 10,000 loyal fans who PAID you to make it happen...another level in my books. But as you say, time will tell - cannot argue with that

Sorry, comparisons to AGS are silly. I love AGS, but it doesn't even work correctly on modern monitors.

LOL, sure, the monitors, but other than that... How? How is THEM making a game different to you or me making one? Writing a strategy game doesn't make you any less incompetent (or more) than writing an adventure game, the same way as making a game under a business or doing it for love...they are the same. If they're not, can you explain how to me please, I'd like to learn How Tim Schafer's awesome games are different to ben304's awesome games. There are no comparisons to AGS if we're talking about budgets, and if it's budgets that "make the difference." Because other than that all games are the same, with the same potential and promise as the rest.

[Trapezoid]

I think it's terrible for the backers to act like investors or publishers. For one thing, they're not going to be hit up for the extra money. It's going to come from non-backer sales of the game, which DF was always going to get (hopefully!)

As for AGS, most of us do it because it's a dream to make a game. We'll do it by ourselves, unpaid. Expecting DF, a professional team of career game-designers, to work unpaid is not quite unethical. AGS is wonderful, but it's sort of like an 8mm film camera. There's nothing invalid about the art it creates. It just wouldn't translate well to a major theatrical release.

Double Fine saw an opportunity to expand their small project into something on a grander scale-- with a bigger audience, and they're taking it. I don't think they've ever canceled a game. Nothing's going to be lost here.

[m0ds]

Mm..no reason for it not to be win win regardless of extra funding, design changes etc. They dont all suuddenly own bugatti veyrons so i guess the issues are fairly trivial...

[Ryan Timothy B]

LOL, sure, the monitors, but other than that... How?

You'd have to be absolutely batty if you were to create a high budget commercial game with AGS. Wadjet Eye is acceptable; it's smallish budget, not overly overly popular. But even in that case, I'd still be looking at other means to create my Adventure games.

AGS surely makes the road less arduous with the Editor side UI (Views, GUIs, Sprites, etc) but it isn't exactly professional grade. Just ask Dave how many emails he gets on a regular basis of his games not running properly on certain systems. Now imagine that times 30 or more.

Not many things in this underdevelopment Double Fine adventure would be possible in AGS. The majority of animations look like texture rotation and combining for limbs/torso (I only saw the quick trailer, so I couldn't be sure on the separate layers). Zooming of the viewport. Shaders. Etc. If it were made in AGS, they'd have to rewrite the majority of the engine.

And don't get me started on how much fun the scripters would have with AGS script.

Also yes, I still believe $3 million is a massively generous budget for that style of game. But I'm not exactly a studio with dozens of employees.

[m0ds]

Yup. My (unclear) point was that a game made in AGS can be as loved as one made for 3 mil. Not that ags is a wise commercial move if you intend a huge audience. But even then..if ags games could reach xbox etc I Think some may be in for a surprise to their popularity. But this is another discussion

Ps. Sorry, my android phone and this input box dont get on very well.

[Eric]

Questions to consider:

1. Does, for example, Dave at WadjetEye, pay a living wage to his employees? Healthcare? Benefits? I'm sure these are expectations of DoubleFine employees.

2. How much of the three million raised from Kickstarter made up the budget of the game itself? I know there's a 10 percent off the top that goes to KS and Amazon, plus shipping expenses on whatever items they're shipping, plus around 3-5% of backer contributions usually don't come through for whatever reason, plus the cost of the documentary.

3. If I'm reading correctly, cuts were going to be made primarily because of deadlines. How many AGS games come in on time, meeting their creators' self-appointed deadlines?

I honestly don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I do think these are factors to consider. The difference between making a game as a business versus making one out of love is that, in the former instance, if you fail, bills are not paid, people are unemployed, children of your employees starve, etc.

[Igor Hardy]

1. I don't mind waiting (even much) longer for the game to be ready.

2. I already feel like I got my money's worth because of the cool documentaries.

3. I can understand it's difficult for Tim to downsize at this point in his career.

But...

4. Schafer still comes across as incompetent because of underestimating (overestimating?) the budget to such degrees. The studio would be already out of money if not for the 2nd KS, the humble bundles and the Indie Fund (All that income came from marketing, PR and business negotiations and almost zero real new content production).

5. Also, I'm not sure making one single game should be this expensive, unless it's REALLY huge and offering incredibly complex interactions and system-based processes. Otherwise it feels like a waste of money.

6. I feel they actually didn't separate the money for the game from the rest of their expenses. Partially it was sunk into additional marketing. Which is a bit of unfair to their backers.

[Armageddon]

All of this has been written in the sand since that first Humble Bundle. Scratch that, since they introduced the slacker backer thing after two months.

[Trapezoid]

4. Schafer still comes across as incompetent because of overestimating the budget to such degrees. The studio would be already out of money if not the additional KS, the humble bundles and the Indie Fund (All focused on marketing, PR and business negotiations and almost zero real new content).

5. I'm not sure making one single game should be this expensive, unless it's REALLY huge and offering incredibly complex interactions and system-based processes. Otherwise it feels like a waste of money.

6. I feel they actually didn't divide the money for the game from the rest of their expenses. Partially it was sunk into additional marketing. Which is a bit of unfair to their backers.

That's the thing, all the backlash comes from a very intangible place. It "comes off" as incompetent, it "feels like" a waste of money, it seems "a bit unfair." But is it actually anything that will matter once the game's out? Or does it all just amount to people "feeling weird" about there being a hitch in the production?

I see this as an interesting, possibly good thing. Double Fine are going over budget with this game. But that's not necessarily bad. They're in a unique position where they can go over budget, with the freedom to solve it using their own resources. It's no skin off anyone's back but their own, and if they weren't willing to make those compromises, Tim wouldn't have over-designed the game. This didn't blindside them! They just didn't want to make this call until they were sure they had to.

[Jared]

If this was their plan all along you'd have thought Tim never would have put out a release date for September this year. Likewise, if he had no idea how long the development would have taken that he wouldn't have thrown that figure out there. To state the obvious, there wouldn't be controversy over the delay if there was no delay. If they had said "We can't promise a release date at this stage, we need to work out the scope of this project, bear with us" I imagine that wouldn't have been massively popular but it would have made all this 'bringing it forward from June 2015' easier to swallow.

That's the thing, all the backlash comes from a very intangible place. It "comes off" as incompetent, it "feels like" a waste of money, it seems "a bit unfair."

I think that owes more to people being polite because they, like me, have a lot of respect for Schafer and his work so it still doesn't feel 'right' on some level to criticise him harshly, even when he, yes, seems to be screwing the pooch like you wouldn't believe. People who are unhappy with Schafer's handling of this know what their issues are and will have solid basis. Stuff like

*Clearly holding this announcement back until the Massive Chalice Kickstarter has closed
*Promising a certainty of Part 2, funded off the back of part one, when your studio has a history of financial disasters
*Appointing a buddy as producer who obstinately refuses to actually acknowledge the reality of the schedule
*Appointing another producer to cover for the fact that the first guy isn't really doing his job
*Set out to make a 2D adventure game with one animator on the team, then give most of the hard work to [what appears to be] an unpaid intern
*Hiring a team of artists with specific tasks in mind but not actually assigning them to these tasks

True, we're seeing all this through the prism 2PP is giving us and possibly they're making it look more chaotic than it is for the sake of creating drama. But there has been a hell of a lot that smacks of plain old incompetence and none of it has been made up.

The argument of "Hey, we'll get a better game, what's the problem?" is fine. To a point. What about the industry? If this game flops Double Fine will tank. The ideals that have come with the Kickstarter wave about wresting control from the publishers will take a battering. They are, after all, trying to put themselves on the map as a now totally independent studio but it's looking like an unattainable dream - every time they find a new revenue stream they sink it all into this game.

Really.. it even feels like a little bit of hubris. Ultimately Tim Schafer has taken the 'make exactly the game I want to make' notion to heart to an extent none of the other Kickstarters so far appear to have. All the others have involved a lot of compromise. Hear the burden of extra money just gets shouldered by the rest of the studio..

[Dave Gilbert]

1. Does, for example, Dave at WadjetEye, pay a living wage to his employees? Healthcare? Benefits? I'm sure these are expectations of DoubleFine employees.

Comparing Tim Schafer/Double Fine to Me/Wadjet Eye is like comparing Spielberg to a kid with a camcorder.

This is SO typical of the industry. When I was working with PlayFirst on Emerald City Confidential, they gave me $200k to play with. That seemed like infinity, and I designed a massive massive game. A massive game that, once we broke it down and analyzed the costs, was impossible to make. So we cut it. By a lot. If you play the game, it's kind of painfully obvious where the cuts were made. It killed me that we had to do that.

As for Broken Age, I'm so torn about it. On the one hand, Schafer is doing everything right in order to mitigate what happened. He's being upfront and honest, and people are a LOT more forgiving when you are upfront and honest about things. Lord knows when I've made a mistake or colossal lapses in judgement, admitting what I've done is always more effective than putting a PR spin on things when crap happens. And crap HAPPENS OFTEN.

But on the other hand... I can't help but feel that this is such a "newbie developer" mistake to make in the first place. "Oh no! We are running out of time and money! Quick, release it in two parts! The first part will fund the second! Problem solved!" I see so many inexperienced developers do this, and it typically fails because nobody wants to get invested in something that might not be finished - an issue I continue to have with Blackwell but for other reasons.

But Double Fine is no newbie developer, so they can probably pull it off. At least, I hope so!

[Snarky]

I think that owes more to people being polite because they, like me, have a lot of respect for Schafer and his work so it still doesn't feel 'right' on some level to criticise him harshly, even when he, yes, seems to be screwing the pooch like you wouldn't believe.

I think most commenters agree that Double Fine has screwed up from a business POV. They should never have ended up in this situation. What seems to separate the complainers from the "defenders" is the question of whether this is something we need to worry about. Unless you own shares in Double Fine, their inability to stick to their budget isn't necessarily our problem.

It only becomes our problem if it jeopardizes the completion of the game, or the future of the company. Personally, the latest news doesn't make me all that worried. I mean, I knew from the beginning that there was a risk, and I had some notion that Double Fine's finances weren't as strong as they could be. None of the updates have really changed that, but given the company's and Schafer's commitment to this game, it's still looking fairly safe, IMO. No point throwing blame around until they've actually failed.

People who are unhappy with Schafer's handling of this know what their issues are and will have solid basis. Stuff like

*Clearly holding this announcement back until the Massive Chalice Kickstarter has closed

I guess I don't really see the problem with this. Did they misinform or mislead the MC backers? Not as far as I can tell. Unless this development on Broken Age materially affects Massive Chalice, I don't see how they have any duty to disclose it. (Since, after all, they're still pledging to uphold their DFA commitments.) If you choose to back someone's second KS campaign before they've delivered on their first, not knowing how that project will ultimately turn out is an uncertainty built into the situation. It's the risk you take.

*Promising a certainty of Part 2, funded off the back of part one, when your studio has a history of financial disasters

Have any of these "financial disasters" ever left Double Fine unable to honor commitments they've made?

*Appointing a buddy as producer who obstinately refuses to actually acknowledge the reality of the schedule
*Appointing another producer to cover for the fact that the first guy isn't really doing his job

If I remember the early episodes correctly, Greg was made the producer of the game because he'd proven himself in his current job, and seemed ready to step up and take on more responsibility. Tim talks a fair bit about how running a company involves team development, making sure each person has new challenges and opportunities to grow... or fail. Reading between the lines, it does seem like he wasn't quite up to the task (which, to be fair, was probably more challenging and unfamiliar than they realized at first). So how is moving some of the responsibility off him a screw-up?

*Set out to make a 2D adventure game with one animator on the team, then give most of the hard work to [what appears to be] an unpaid intern

Aren't you talking about the period before they even had a design, when they were just building the tools, trying to decide on the art style and tech, making concept art and so on? Why would they need a ton of animators at that point of the process? If you think they only had one animator once production ramped up, I believe you've got the wrong impression.

*Hiring a team of artists with specific tasks in mind but not actually assigning them to these tasks

Could you be more specific? Are you still talking about Bagel's role? I don't think that's an accurate description at all. Tim wanted the graphics to be "Bagel-style," but there was some confusion about what that actually meant once it became clear that the expanded game was too big for one artist, and it took a little while to work out a division of labor that made sense and used their resources most effectively.

True, we're seeing all this through the prism 2PP is giving us and possibly they're making it look more chaotic than it is for the sake of creating drama. But there has been a hell of a lot that smacks of plain old incompetence and none of it has been made up.

On the contrary, I get the impression that they're usually trying to put a positive spin on things for the cameras, and that there may be more friction off-camera or behind closed doors. For example, they never straight out said "Greg can't hack it as the producer, we need to bring in someone else." If that's how they really felt, they found a nicer way to put it, and instead of going into a blame game or dwelling on mistakes, they talked about the ways the new arrangement could help. Similarly, there have been times when some team members have seemed frustrated with Tim, but they generally don't openly badmouth him on camera.

You could say that's a betrayal of the "transparency" they promised, but honestly, I think it would be a disaster if they took every conflict and confrontation public and recorded it for posterity. They'd never be able to keep working together. This isn't a reality show where people throw drinks in each other's faces for our amusement, and 2PP need to be sensitive so they don't ruin the development process they're there to document. (Maybe there are some behind-the-scenes clips of people speaking less diplomatically that are being held back until the end of production?)

At the same time, of course the documentaries focus on things that are interesting and where things happen. That naturally means that problems are going to get attention, while parts of the project that are proceeding without a hitch tend to get less screen time.

On any major project, there will be some things that go wrong. The trick isn't to avoid any mistakes, but to spot them and fix them. I really don't think the things you list or the other hiccups we've seen in the documentaries amount to "a hell of a lot that smacks of plain old incompetence." The only whopper of a mistake, IMO, is the enormous mismatch between the game design and the budget available, and the failure to realize just how big it was sooner.

[Trapezoid]

I'm not saying DF didn't make a mistake, or that it was unavoidable. But it's definitely not the devastating mistake people are making it out to be. I'm seeing a lot of armchair accountants, going off based on misunderstandings of one-liners from the documentary.


When I see so many gamers scoffing at Tim's desire to make this as big and good a game as possible (and holding that as a higher priority than being utterly practical, business-wise) I think to myself, "This is why people don't see games as art."

[Igor Hardy]

When I see so many gamers scoffing at Tim's desire to make this as big and good a game as possible (and holding that as a higher priority than being utterly practical, business-wise) I think to myself, "This is why people don't see games as art."

Every game designer wants to make his game as big and good as possible. And that is actually 100% practical business wise to do.

But creating art has nothing to do with spending money without moderation and solid planning.

I think most commenters agree that Double Fine has screwed up from a business POV. They should never have ended up in this situation. What seems to separate the complainers from the "defenders" is the question of whether this is something we need to worry about. Unless you own shares in Double Fine, their inability to stick to their budget isn't necessarily our problem.

It only becomes our problem if it jeopardizes the completion of the game, or the future of the company.

It could also negatively affect all future games crowd-funding (particularly that of adventure games), and Schafer knows this.

[Trapezoid]

But creating art has nothing to do with spending money without moderation and solid planning.

Considering they identified the problem long before they would run out of money, and they have a plan in place that's pretty well founded (they've already, on two occasions, subsidized the game to the tune of about $1mil) I wouldn't exactly deem it THAT irresponsible. Yes, it's not the safest path to getting a game made, but a huge part of this project is not having a publisher breathing down their necks and forcing them to always take the safest path.

It could also negatively affect all future games crowd-funding (particularly that of adventure games), and Schafer knows this.

Worrying about his own game is probably enough work for him. Why should that be his burden?

[Igor Hardy]

It could also negatively affect all future games crowd-funding (particularly that of adventure games), and Schafer knows this.

Worrying about his own game is probably enough work for him. Why should that be his burden?

It is his burden whether he likes or not - a consequence of his previous actions. He started something special - popularized a new way of funding creative works - but for now he's quickly proving that it's all been an utopia. That studios need a publisher/producer/etc. to manage/control what the creative guys are doing.

I mean - if Schafer had absolutely no idea how far off he was with his budget estimations (and after following the project we know he didn't), what about all the little indies - the 1,2 guys teams - asking us to help fund their games via KS. What chances is there they can manage a game project better than a man who's been in the industry for more than 20 years. That's how many potential backers of new KS projects will be thinking from now on.

[Armageddon]

When you're doing funding like this you need to exercise a lot of self control, it seems he didn't try to do that.

[Trapezoid]

Crowdfunding? Or alternate revenue from other products' sales?