At a basic level, I've got no problem with the direction BA took. He's made oldschool adventure games back when oldschool adventure games were at their height, so there's no pressing artistic reason for him to do so. I'm not even sure that he should even try to do so - how could he approach that kind of game without simply trying to copy (with small innovations) what he's already done?
I know a lot of people will read that and say "YES - that's exactly what we WANTED him to do!!!". But there's a huge difference between the kind of product you'll get from someone authentically trying to be creative and boundary-pushing during the era of adventure games, i.e. trying to make something original and coming up with an oldschool adventure game, and the product you'll get from someone who is cynically copying his past work. I'm not saying it's a guaranteed failure - the new Tex Murphy game oozes artistic authenticity, and you can tell the developers were as excited as all fuck and making the game they wanted, which just happened to be like their old games. But usually, an artist that tries to copy his own early work will fail miserably - he no longer thinks the same way, and he's now trying to work to a fixed template, resulting in a lifeless product where every failure to meet that original template stands out, because there's no new inspiration to balance out the inevitable copying errors.
The problem with it, though, is that it's a huge marketing fail. I don't mean marketing as in 'advertising' or PR. I mean, in terms of identifying who your target market is, and designing your product accordingly.
Kickstarter benefits developers who want to make products that have a built-in audience, but one that isn't being served by the publisher oligopoly. It's not a good platform for genuinely new ideas, and it's a terrible one for genres that are well-served already. For all the complaints about Hepler's writing, the reason why her Kickstarter failed was simply because there wasn't enough in there that isn't adequately served by the mainstream industry. Why should people give that company free money when there are other products serving that same market segment?
So from a market view, there's good sense in making an oldschool adventure game, and the success of BA's Kickstarter confirmed that there's a sizeable market segment that's underexploited by the industry. His mistake was taking that success as a basis for skewing the product away from that very market. By bending towards the mainstream, he blundered across into a different market segment altogether, setting himself up to be wtfpwned by publisher-backed games that already serve the new segment. Like many developers, he seems to have overlooked that market selection isn't just about the total size of the segment, but also about how much competition there is. He had a market segment that was so neglected that it was lying in bed, with a come hither pose and its legs wide open, offering to pay him as much money as he needed to stay home from work that day and give it a good rogering, and after taking the poor lass's money, he abandoned her so he could flirt with the woman down the road who, despite being slightly prettier, made him wait in line with 12 other suitors to get a few minutes of her attention and a kiss on the cheek.
But just because he could have gotten away with just going through the missionary position for 2 minutes before getting up for a beer and some tv, that doesn't mean it was the optimum position. The market segment might have been content with that, but only because she's been so badly abused in her relationships with the gaming industry. She's spent so long telling herself 'things will get better, things will go back to how they were at the beginning', even though she knows that isn't true, and feels ashamed for not simply walking out on computer games, that she thinks a developer who provides the minimum of service because he's too lazy to pursue other markets, is the best she deserves. But a decent, moral, developer can't just take advantage of that. If he wants to look at himself in the mirror the next day, he better fucking well deliver like the lovechild of Don Juan and Christian Gray for the next 12 hours.
So his thinking was half-right. But he was so infatuated with the idea of the woman down the road that when he thought about how this day of lust should go, and it had been so long since he'd approached her with this kind of enthusiasm, that her tastes were no longer instinctive to him. During the golden years, he'd never had to do anything so crass as asking what the market wanted, he just tried what came naturally and it had worked. His friends counselled him that it's normal in long-term relationships to have to put more effort into learning your partner's tastes after a few years, and that he can't to rely on intuition forever, but this seemed absurd (after all, he could get that hot market segment down the road instead of her, so why wouldn't she be pleased with whatever he provided?) So he just went with what was intuitive, and like his friends warned, it 'just happened' to be very similar to what that other market segment liked (or what he thought she liked - he wouldn't admit it, but he'd never actually gotten anywhere with that market segment down the road).
So he arrived back home in an S&M outfit and the most lavish, outrageously expensive, handcuffs, whips and chains he could find. He'd seen a suitor with similar materials being invited in by the market segment down the road, just a few days ago, and so he was confident that it would deliver everything his lonely segment had dreamed of. But when he got to the bedroom, she had a look of abject disappointment. 'I...don't you remember? I never liked bondage - otherwise back in college, I'd have dated that sweet Drew Karphshynn instead of you!" she murmured.
"But I've planned our whole day! I've done so much work - I was just so pleased by how devoted you were, that I wanted to do something really grand for you!"
"I know, and I appreciate it, sort of....I mean I wanted this kind of effort from you. I only asked for a few minutes in the missionary position because I thought if I wanted anything more, you'd leave me for that horrible market segment down the road. But this isn't it. In fact, it's insulting. Even when you're trying to do something for me, you're only thinking about what she might like. You never even considered taking the time to talk to me, to ask me whether I'd like something, because you were too afraid that [mock expression of shock] you'd have to adjust your plans to meet my needs. I don't know what's worse - that you've become so distant that you have no idea what I'd like the moment you go beyond what we've done before, that you never considered talking to me about it, or that when you do make an effort, you can't even tell that I've got completely different tastes to that market segment."
Double-fine frowned. "I...I don't know where to start. It's been years since you've been happy with anything I've done. And it's not like there are any other developers servicing your needs who I could take tips from. And I don't want to lifelessly go through the motions of what we used to do. If my intuitions aren't good enough for you anymore, what hope do we have?"
"Double-fine, stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen to me. If you're going to reconnect with me, it will take more than throwing everything you have into one grand effort. Start with the small things. Don't think of it as just going through the motions of what we've already done - treat it as a starting point, something that works and can be used to explore new ideas. There are sick, depraved people out there who like to peek through windows these sort of things in their early stages (personally, I don't understand why anyone would ruin their experience like that, but as I said, they're sick and depraved). Use the old model as a base, and then see how people react to what you add to it. If you're not sure whether I'll still like something with difficult puzzles, or whether I'll be lost if faced with a text parser, create something small - even a java-based online game - and let me refresh my memory. Create an alt at some of the forums I attend, and if you can't get back into my headspace, at least refamiliarise yourself with it enough that you can understand me. And yes, use your imagination and give me something I haven't experienced before - but not when all you have to go on are decade-old memories."
TL;DR - Schaeffer should have known that he'd need more than a purely old-school adventure game (if he truly wanted a $300,000 game, he could have taken a personal loan), and should have come prepared with an idea to extend the genre in a way that was still aimed exclusively at the market segment that threw money at him. His problem wasn't that he extended the game model - it's that he did so in a way that watered down its core appeal, for the sake of customers who had a surplus of alternatives.
, sorry about that.
really hope they'll do better this time. 
