Double Fine Expands Platforms for Kickstarter Game, And Notch Adjusts Expectations for Psychonauts 2

First, the latest update from Double Fine and its Kickstarter project: the game is coming to PC, Mac, Linux, and select devices for both iOS and Android. Oh, and there's a DRM free version for backers.

Additionally, it'll feature (English) voice acting, and the subtitles will be translated into French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Elsewhere, there’s sort of an update on Psychonauts 2.

Markus “Notch” Persson had the best and worst timing when he proposed funding for Psychonauts 2 over Twitter last week. Coming just days before Double Fine launched its Kickstarter, the Minecraft creator reignited speculation about a possible Psychonauts 2.

Persson and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer are planning to meet at the Game Developers Conference early next month in San Francisco, Persson noted in a new blog post called “Hype!”

The Psychonauts 2 talk hasn’t died down a bit amongst fans, despite all the goings-on with the Kickstarter project, and Persson appears worried his own shenanigans have already created too much expectation for the idea.

“I have NO idea if this is actually going to happen,” said Persson. “The kickstarter stuff obviously changes the playing field a lot. Investing that incredibly high amount of money also requires a lot of planing and discussion, and I’ve never done anything like that before, but I do have contacts and advisors to help me out.”

“All I know,” he continued, “is that IF the numbers work out and IF they still want to do it and IF they don’t decide to self fund a sequel by doing more crowd funding (which is honestly what I would’ve done if I were them), I would be most interested in doing this type of investment.”

It sounds like we're in for a long wait before any real movement on Psychonauts 2. The cat is already out of the bag on that one, so I'd expect fans and press will continue pestering Persson, Schafer and anyone who will listen.

Meh.

In anticipation to this, I actually went and played Psychonauts. Now I finally understand the reverence for that game...Tho fuck the meat circus....

I wonder what percentage of backers are Whiskey subscribers.

cool. :]

God man, it's so cool to see all of these unconventional sources of financial backing potentially flowing into Double Fine.

How crazy would it be to see DF working on a crowdsourced adventure game, and a Psychonauts sequel funded by the Minecraft guy.

Wonder what the over/under is on how many posts it'll take before someone complains about too many Double Fine articles and Giant Bomb's "close relationship" with the studio being the cause. I'm setting the line at... 30 posts from now. Place your bets!

In a world where the guy who made Minecraft has the cash to fund Tim Schafer because he needs the money just to fund a game, I kinda want to hang myself because I clearly live in bizarro world.

Glad there may be a Psychonaughts 2 though.

@Matiaz_Tapia: Did you play the Steam version? I know they went and updated some things about Meat Circus to make it a little less awful when they did the Steamworks/Mac port, but I haven't experienced any changes myself.

If you did play the Steam version, it's a bummer to hear that level's still a pain :/

Notch proving yet again he's clueless when it comes to business. Not that he's a great programmer either, but... After the Minecon clusterfuck, I don't know how that guy is anyone's boss. This turn of events is unsurprising.

@TzarStefan said:

Meh.

Thanks for the insight.

@Kevin_Cogneto said:

Wonder what the over/under is on how many posts it'll take before someone complains about too many Double Fine articles and Giant Bomb's "close relationship" with the studio being the cause. I'm setting the line at... 30 posts from now. Place your bets!

I'm going to say we've already crossed that line.

Double Fine has raised almost 2 million over kickstarter, while Nauts 2 requires at least 20 million as a budget. Raising that much money from kickstarter is not a possibility.

Rock Band for the blind...

This video game-based Kickstarter is not as cool or mainstream as the DoubleFine one, but it is still deserving, even if you only donate $1. And I didn't know computer / video game engineers looked like this either.

There's two people who backed $10,000.

Man, I wish I had their money.

I'm curious how well Psychonauts has sold so far. I'm glad people are excited for it but could it just be a vocal minority that wants the game? If so is the large investment worth it?

@Batmeng said:

There's two people who backed $10,000.

Man, I wish I had their money.

More than that. Notch also gave them $10,000 -- but he chose the custom painting/portrait because he is already going to have lunch with Tim at GDC.

Also, @patrickklepek -- stop stealing my forum posts and turning them into news articles! (I kid, I kid. I like that you are following all of this as enthusiastically as I am.)

@Yiggly said:

I wonder what percentage of backers are Whiskey subscribers.

extremely small

@Masha2932 said:

I'm curious how well Psychonauts has sold so far. I'm glad people are excited for it but could it just be a vocal minority that wants the game? If so is the large investment worth it?

I'd say that if you're game savvy enough, then you've probably bought a copy of Psychonauts one way or another... it just took a lot of time.

@13p said:

Rock Band for the blind...

This video game-based Kickstarter is not as cool or mainstream as the DoubleFine one, but it is still deserving, even if you only donate $1. And I didn't know computer / video game engineers looked like this either.

No one will donate. Doesn't have a big "name" or "cult icon" behind it, which is a fucking shame.

@13p said:

Rock Band for the blind...

This video game-based Kickstarter is not as cool or mainstream as the DoubleFine one, but it is still deserving, even if you only donate $1. And I didn't know computer / video game engineers looked like this either.

This absolutely deserves to be funded. I've already chipped in, hope they make their goal.

Oh Notch, yet another fumble that makes you look like an idiot. Might be time to start looking for some new "contacts and advisors to help." or maybe you could just stop blogging everything you are thinking all the damn time.

@ThePilgrums said:

Notch proving yet again he's clueless when it comes to business. Not that he's a great programmer either, but... After the Minecon clusterfuck, I don't know how that guy is anyone's boss. This turn of events is unsurprising.

Clueless? Schafer stated that, in order to make another Psychonauts, he would need "a few million". It sounds like Notch reasonably took that to mean that three or four million dollars would do it. Tim only stated that it would take $13m some time after that. Perhaps you could assert that Notch should have known a Psychonauts would cost well over $10m to make, but Tim didn't say how much it would cost, in that interview, to make. He said that's how much money he needed.

When Tim said it would be $13m, Notch apparently also said "Yeah, I can do that." (source: http://pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Just-how-much-money-down-mine-anyway-Mojang-Psychonauts-2-could-need-least-13M-Not)

I doubt Notch needs to be the sole investor. If he invested the three or four million he expected in the first place, it wouldn't be impossible to get another investor or two. Or if this whole adventure game project works out, Notch could fund a third, the crowd funds a third, and one other investor funds a third.

Of course, it would have been less risky and more rational, to have approached Tim via a direct message or email or a phone call than in front of the world via Twitter, until he had been assured that what he took Tim's interview comment to say was what Tim really meant/needed.

Can't wait to see how this turns out.

@TheBrainninja: Yup playing it on Steam...It is probably easier, but it's hard not to hate the combination of things they make you do on the Meat Circus. An escort mission+ timed platforming since you have to get to the kid + having to wait for the dudes to trow their swords at the right place..then missing your jump and have to start all over again to miss your jump again....then waiting for the dude and the kid screaming about his face...

I bet s not that hard once you figure the path ...I'll try again over the weekend.

@Methodis said:

@13p said:

Rock Band for the blind...

This video game-based Kickstarter is not as cool or mainstream as the DoubleFine one, but it is still deserving, even if you only donate $1. And I didn't know computer / video game engineers looked like this either.

No one will donate. Doesn't have a big "name" or "cult icon" behind it, which is a fucking shame.

Uh. Plenty of stuff like this has been funded on Kickstarter. In fact, they are more likely to be funded today than they were a week ago, because Schafer has drawn attention to not only Kickstarter (amazed how many people didn't know about it -- hell, Kickstarter is what they used to raise the $200k for the Diaspora project over a year ago), but to the fact that Kickstarter has games being funded on it.

@13p said:

Rock Band for the blind...

This video game-based Kickstarter is not as cool or mainstream as the DoubleFine one, but it is still deserving, even if you only donate $1. And I didn't know computer / video game engineers looked like this either.

You mean, indian and asian? Yeah, that's like 75% of the engineering world, dude. Most of my colleagues have names that I fail miserably at pronouncing and are from more interesting places than I've ever even been to. Some are even hot. :P

Anyway, yeah, this just got my $15 (although, in this circumstance, it really is more of a donation since I have no personal interest in the product itself - which is just fine).

I'm just glad there's finally a way we can help them directly. Double Fine has the worst luck with publishers. They're one of the few developers unafraid to experiment and try new things. They can have all my monies!

@Methodis said:

No one will donate. Doesn't have a big "name" or "cult icon" behind it, which is a fucking shame.

Its already at 13k out of a goal of 16k with 10 days to go...

@Matiaz_Tapia said:

In anticipation to this, I actually went and played Psychonauts. Now I finally understand the reverence for that game...Tho fuck the meat circus....

I did the same thing. And you're right, fuck the meat circus. But try this on for size... Psychonauts 2... ALL MEAT CIRCUS.

@ThePilgrums: You're Most Welcome Sir.

Notch just doesn't get a clue does he.

@Matiaz_Tapia said:

In anticipation to this, I actually went and played Psychonauts. Now I finally understand the reverence for that game...Tho fuck the meat circus....

That's actually amazing. Hope more people take notice of Psychonauts. Especially with that fantastic Steam version out there. Game looks real solid in high-res. And it runs like a dream on most PCs.

DRM free for backers you say. I don't know if it's their intention to alienate future customers or think waving the DRM stick around might encourage more Kickstarter backers. Either way I feel some anti DRM folks might feel manipulated and disenclined to support a game before it's even started. Also it makes little sense to me having 55,000+ DRM free copies of a game out in circulation for the pirates to distribute without having to even crack. What's the use I mean really. Maybe Double Fine should put up on the Kickstarter page that 50-250+ thousand dollars are going to be sunk into DRM which the backers will never see. Just being a devils advocate here so please easy on the flames.

@Alwaysrun: I would assume it is a response to the vocal minority of people commenting on the Kickstarter saying things along the lines of "If we are trusting you with our money for a game we haven't seen shouldn't you trust us with a DRM free copy?".

Or Tim could have some evil plan in his evil tower to deviously try and rope in more money by pandering to people. Surely this is much more likely.

Make it happen!

I hope these guys can make it happen. Psychonauts is the best platformer game I have played since the n64 days.

This Notch guy is kind of a loser.

@Alwaysrun said:

DRM free for backers you say. I don't know if it's their intention to alienate future customers or think waving the DRM stick around might encourage more Kickstarter backers. Either way I feel some anti DRM folks might feel manipulated and disenclined to support a game before it's even started. Also it makes little sense to me having 55,000+ DRM free copies of a game out in circulation for the pirates to distribute without having to even crack. What's the use I mean really. Maybe Double Fine should put up on the Kickstarter page that 50-250+ thousand dollars are going to be sunk into DRM which the backers will never see. Just being a devils advocate here so please easy on the flames.

Devil's advocate would be either just being for or against DRM, you can't set them up as to be in the wrong for both situations.

@Methodis said:

No one will donate. Doesn't have a big "name" or "cult icon" behind it, which is a fucking shame.

This so screams of gaming hipster. Yeah, Double Fine is sooooooo mainstream, man. I was playing their games back when it was cool. Now, like, so many people played their games, and they're just like the man now. I only like games that haven't even been made yet. That's how hardcore a gamer I am. Deerrrrrrrrrrrrrp.

@Branthog said:

@ThePilgrums said:

Notch proving yet again he's clueless when it comes to business. Not that he's a great programmer either, but... After the Minecon clusterfuck, I don't know how that guy is anyone's boss. This turn of events is unsurprising.

Clueless?

http://i.imgur.com/Xktrp.jpg Just a reminder of how he runs his own company. "Clueless" sums it up quite well, I feel. I enjoy Minecraft, but Notch is a naive, delusional manchild of the highest order, and I'm glad Jens Bergensten took over its development.

Double Fine gets more money, expands options for game I don't care about.

@Rowr said:

This Notch guy is kind of a loser.

You're kind of a loser.

If they put this game up for sale I'm going to feel deeply betrayed. It's one thing to provide the game to the backers that funded it, but to make money off the back of those people seems outside of the scope of the original kickstarter pitch. It was my understanding that the game would only be provided to backers. I had actually hoped they would release it for free. Damn my naive idealism!

@eskimo said:

If they put this game up for sale I'm going to feel deeply betrayed. It's one thing to provide the game to the backers that funded it, but to make money off the back of those people seems outside of the scope of the original kickstarter pitch. It was my understanding that the game would only be provided to backers. I had actually hoped they would release it for free. Damn my naive idealism!

I hope you're kidding. If not why wouldn't they put it on sale? There are a lot of people who might want to play this game but have no idea about the Kickstarter project.

For those concerned about the DRM release all that means is that you'll probably get a version of the game that you don't need Steam to run.

@Landon said:

@Rowr said:

This Notch guy is kind of a loser.

You're kind of a loser.

You're Mums kind of a loser.

@eskimo said:

If they put this game up for sale I'm going to feel deeply betrayed. It's one thing to provide the game to the backers that funded it, but to make money off the back of those people seems outside of the scope of the original kickstarter pitch. It was my understanding that the game would only be provided to backers. I had actually hoped they would release it for free. Damn my naive idealism!

I believe they stated outright that this game was going to be for sale. They needed money to fund development for the project which most publishers wouldn't back. Why don't you want to share the Double Fine goodness with the world?

Did you even read my post? I said that I had hoped it would be released for free. They didn't have to pay for development, and the backers aren't going to make any money. Still, I agreed to put in a substantial sum of money and I stand by that.

@Rowr said:

@Landon said:

@Rowr said:

This Notch guy is kind of a loser.

You're kind of a loser.

You're Mums kind of a loser.

I would make fun of your mom, but me and him are really good friends.

@mikey87144: Why would I bother to post if I was kidding?

It's not that I don't want anyone else to play it, I just don't understand why Doublefine need to make money off this when the costs have already been covered by donations. Like I said in my post, I had hoped they would release it for free. To go and sell something that has been produced for free in such a kind hearted manner seems antithetical to the whole project.

@eskimo: Well, to be fair, there is the time investment and they are still a for-profit company. Plus, that money is for that project only. If there is excess, it's supposed to go back to the backers, not Psychonauts 2 or any other project because that would then be embezzling. Meaning if they released it for free, there would then be no money after those costs to fund the next project and Double Fine will be in the same money hole they were in before. Unless they went totally kickstarter driven, which is not the most reliable thing.

@ThePilgrums said:

@Branthog said:

@ThePilgrums said:

Notch proving yet again he's clueless when it comes to business. Not that he's a great programmer either, but... After the Minecon clusterfuck, I don't know how that guy is anyone's boss. This turn of events is unsurprising.

Clueless?

http://i.imgur.com/Xktrp.jpg Just a reminder of how he runs his own company. "Clueless" sums it up quite well, I feel. I enjoy Minecraft, but Notch is a naive, delusional manchild of the highest order, and I'm glad Jens Bergensten took over its development.

I wish I had the ability to say

"Y'know what? I think I don't want to work this May. Like, any of it. I'm going on vacation. As in, for all of it. May is my time of the year."