During the 2015 Game Awards, Double Fine made an announcement of Shenmue 3 proportions. The company wants to finally make Psychonauts 2 . Which is great, because the first game ended on a cliffhanger. The problem is, it wants to turn to crowdfunding to help the game get made. The problem lies here, as Double Fine has had problems in that area. When it comes to publicly funded and early access games, overambition hampers the studio.
With Psychonauts 2 , Double Fine is seeking $3.3 million. Supposedly the developer itself is contributing some money, an unknown investor is providing additional funding, and the rest is coming from people willing to invest via Fig . Considering the original Psychonauts had a budget of between $10-13.5 million back in 2005, we should immediately be leary. Even if all three sources contribute a roughly equal amount of money, that would only be around $10 million for the sequel. Inflation hasn’t even been accounted for. More disclosure would have been appreciated, such as the name of the other investor and the exact amounts the other two branches are putting in.
Especially since $3.3 million is such a familiar number for Double Fine projects. Remember Broken Age , formerly known as the Double Fine Adventure ? It raised $3,336,371, when it asked for $400,000. It wasn’t enough, and that was for a point-and-click adventure game. The game had to be split into two parts, with half sold on early access, to make enough money to finish the project. Something like Psychonauts 2 , a 3D platformer, would likely have higher development costs. There aren’t as high profile voice actors attached, yet, but this is still a project that is going to need plenty of money to do the series justice.
The worst case scenario is that Psychonauts 2 gets its full funding, but needs a second crowdfunding campaign to be completed. That went fine for Broken Age and Massive Chalice , but not for Spacebase DF-9 . The Amnesia Fortnight 2012 prototype cleared a hurdle and was on its way to becoming a full game. Except it didn’t. In October 2013, it was released on early access. It stayed there for a year before Double Fine abandoned it. They called it quits on the project, said no more patches or support would be offered, and slapped a 1.0 on it. While it wasn’t as high profile a project as Psychonauts 2 or Broken Age , it still gives you pause.
Psychonauts 2 does deserve to happen. Some would even say it needs to, and I’d count myself among their number. But it needs to be done in the right way. Double Fine should have been realistic about such a thing and be upfront with supporters. With the Fig project, it’s hard to tell if that’s happening. After all, Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson dropped out of backing this sequel two years ago because Double Fine wanted $18 million .
If the developer wanted $18 million in 2013, who knows how much money is wanted and needed for Psychonauts 2 now? Yet all Double Fine is asking for on Fig is $3.3 million. This is a game that is wanted. People are going to feel like supporting it is a good idea. But remember to be cautious. Double Fine’s track record isn’t exactly shining, and it might be best to wait for Tim Schafer to come forward with more information before kicking in some cash. Not every independent game has to be crowdfunded.