Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[suejak]

Sure, I'll take em.

 

[J_C]

I also got 3 coupons. Anbody wants them?

We can only trade them on Steam, am I right?

 

[Infinitron]

Sorry guys, no drama(?) http://www.bluesnews.com/s/149304

Schafer Confirms Broken Age Act 2 Funded
[Feb 21, 2014, 12:43 pm ET]
There's an interview with Tim Schafer on GamesIndustry International discussing how to stay afloat in "a pool of Internet Twitter hate," discussing the reaction to the announcement that Broken Age would be broken into two parts, as Tim describes the venom this generated from people outside their Kickstarter audience, as their communication with their backers eased the way for this news. He also confirms that the plan to fund the development of Act 2 through the sales of Act 1 has succeeded. "We've made enough that we can make the second half of the game for sure," Schafer said. "And we're not done making it to all the platforms because we haven't released it on iPad yet. I feel that's going to be a really interesting platform for adventure games. It's such a fun place to play point-and-click graphic adventures, and so many people have them. That's exciting to me."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...tay-afloat-in-a-pool-of-internet-twitter-hate

Schafer: How to stay afloat in "a pool of Internet Twitter hate"
By Brendan Sinclair

FRI 21 FEB 2014 3:00PM GMT / 10:00AM EST / 7:00AM PST
DEVELOPMENT

Double Fine founder shares lessons from Broken Age Act 1, confirms funding secured for Broken Age Act 2

Double Fine Productions
doublefine.com

Last month, Double Fine Productions officially launched Act 1 of its Kickstarted adventure game Broken Age. While the developer is still working on the second and final act of the game (to be released as a free update once completed), Double Fine founder Tim Schafer told GamesIndustry International earlier this month that a weight has already come off his shoulders.

"We've shipped enough that people can see we weren't kidding, and that's a big relief. Because I think there's a lot of pressure on Kickstarter projects, especially the really big Kickstarter projects, to just not screw it up for everybody else. It's such a great, positive thing for us, and being able to be funded by our fans opens so many doors for us to do original, creative things that we just wanted to live up to [expectations]."

Schafer knows it's not the first time he's had expectations to meet. But the stakes here, and the repercussions for failure, were distinctly different.

"If you take money from a publisher, it's a contract you fulfill or they'll sue you. Here it was just a moral contract with the backers to do right by them, and that felt in some ways a lot stronger. If you found a loophole in a business contract, you could get out of it and not really feel that bad. But here, if the backers were happy, we succeeded. And if they weren't happy, we didn't."

"If you take money from a publisher, it's a contract you fulfill or they'll sue you. Here it was just a moral contract with the backers to do right by them, and that felt in some ways a lot stronger."

One way Double Fine tried to keep backers happy was by making sure they were well-informed on the team's progress with exclusive ongoing updates and documentary videos tracking the game's development. While that may have worked for backers, there was a downside made clear after Schafer announced the decision to split Broken Age into two parts because the original Kickstarter funding wasn't sufficient to see the game to completion.

"People who hadn't been following us all along thought we were out of money and going under," Schafer said. "No, no, no. We were just expanding the game and paying for it ourselves, not asking for more money. Seeing that difference between backers' and non-backers' perspective on the whole thing was illuminating."

Schafer called the backlash to that announcement a "wave of anti-Kickstarter hate" and "the hardest part" of his first experience with crowdfunded development.

That was really a lesson for us, learning that even though our backers are really well informed, the rest of the world hadn't really heard of us since the Kickstarter happened," Schafer said. "It's weird because the Kickstarter experience had been wading in a sea of love from the fans. Because you don't just get money. You get all this positive support from the backers who believe in what you're doing. They hang around and cheer you on. And it was like being dumped from that into this cold pool of Internet Twitter hate. And that was crazy. It was like, 'Oh yeah, right! There's a bunch of people who hate the idea of what we're doing and are waiting to pounce on us if we make a single mistake.'"

To deal with the hate, Schafer considered what some of his celebrity voice acting talent (Jack Black and Elijah Wood among them) has gone through. The bigger you get, Schafer said, the more support you receive from fans. But at the same time, that scope also increases the negativity you get from the other end of the spectrum.

"It was like, 'Oh yeah, right! There's a bunch of people who hate the idea of what we're doing and are waiting to pounce on us if we make a single mistake.'"

"What is it like for Jack Black?" Schafer wondered. "And I think the answer is he can't possibly sit there and read what people write because he gets love and hate. And it must start to just not mean anything in a weird way. It does mean a lot when you get positive notes, but the negative ones, you just start to see them as all coming from this one angry little hole that usually doesn't represent the vast majority of what people are thinking. I really don't know who they are. It's kind of a mystery to me."

Ultimately, Schafer said he took a cue from the horror movie Paranormal Activity, about a demon that thrives on people's efforts to get rid of it.

As Schafer explained, "The demon expert is like, 'Stop doing this. Stop paying attention to it. Stop filming it. The more you engage with this demon, the more you call it into this world.' Twitter haters are the same way. If you start to pay attention to them, the demon grows and gets bigger and starts to become real."

Ultimately, Schafer's takeaway from his first go-around with Kickstarter-funded development has been to be even more transparent. For the company's second Kickstarter project, Massive Chalice, it is doing just that. The game's forums are open to the public, the team has been livestreaming the executable of the game in public ever since it was executable, and Schafer said there's been no worry with showing people "the ugly, pizza box version of the game."

Of course, there's still Broken Age Act 2 to finish. While Schafer wouldn't discuss sales figures, the good news for Double Fine fans is that the plan to split the game in two as a way of funding the final stretch of development worked.

"We've made enough that we can make the second half of the game for sure," Schafer said. "And we're not done making it to all the platforms because we haven't released it on iPad yet. I feel that's going to be a really interesting platform for adventure games. It's such a fun place to play point-and-click graphic adventures, and so many people have them. That's exciting to me."

 

[PlanHex]

Sorry guys, no drama(?)

Don't worry, there will be drama when they run out of money again LOL

Spoiler

/Metro impersonation

 

[J_C]

This is for Metro , to celebrate the great news of funding Act 2.

 

[felipepepe]

And once they are done with Act 2, they'll be out of cash again? Backers and those who bought Act. 1 will get Act. 2 already, they won't make much from that....

 

[Infinitron]

And once they are done with Act 2, they'll be out of cash again? Backers and those who bought Act. 1 will get Act. 2 already, they won't make much from that....

Solution: Do another Kickstarter.

 

[felipepepe]

Sure, but is still impressive how badly handled this is...

The game's price is $20 on Steam. Let's say it sold very badly for such a hyped title; only 200k copies (Legend of Grimrock sold more than 600k, for comparison). That's fucking 4M dollars, plus 3M he got FREELY from kickstarter and god knows what else in loans (let's say 1M)... all that money, to make a mediocre adventure game and go back to square one? We're talking about enough money to fund around 10 Banner Saga, 80 STASIS, or fucking 600 Paper Sorcerer kickstarters! You could probably fund every single adventure game to this day on kickstarter with this.

And the bastards can't even make a profit; we'll probably see them again asking for money next year... Double Fine living like this while Troika died is proof of how unfair the universe is.

 

[markec]

And once they are done with Act 2, they'll be out of cash again? Backers and those who bought Act. 1 will get Act. 2 already, they won't make much from that....

Solution: Do another Kickstarter.

Theyll probably start a new Hunble Bundle since I heard they discovered a new tribes in Amazon and we dont want those poor people to be only one in the world without copy of Psychonauts.

 

[Sceptic]

Why would it be a surprise that they managed to fund act 2? Wasn't that the whole point of the MASSIVE CHALICE!!!!!1111 Kickstarter?

 

[DeepOcean]

"It was like, 'Oh yeah, right! There's a bunch of people who hate the idea of what we're doing and are waiting to pounce on us if we make a single mistake.'"

This is funny, even the companies I loved made mistakes all the time and I didn't hated them for that as it was real mistakes, something unexpected, they were just dumbfuck in certain areas. "Waiting to pounce on us if we make a single mistake"... I don't think that releasing a point and click with no decent puzzles and gameplay qualify as a single, minor mistake. People criticized his money management skills not the fact that the game was divided, they predicted this money whirlpool Double Fine became would affect the quality of the game, what ended happening. Broken Age is as shallow as a point and click adventure can get.

Tim is really butthurt because people are saying the truth he doesn't want to hear, I would respect him way more if he admited the mistakes he did instead of being defensive all the time about it. Saying that all criticism towards you is "internet hate" is just a cheap tactic to put yourself as a victim. He is on the gamming industry for a long time, by now he must know that when you release your product in public you can't just expect roses and cheerful sheep sucking your cock. While there are crazy people and psychos out there, most people just judge your work for what they see and they don't have to care if you are going to feel hurt as what matters isn't your feelings but the quality of the product, if you didn't wanted to feel hurt it was better to make something good to begin with.

When you release your product in public you are saying to people: "Judge my product.", you can't just become defensive and butthurt when people do just that. If you don't want "hate" as he calls it, stop making games and go live on a cave somewhere.

 

[Aeschylus]

"And we're not done making it to all the platforms because we haven't released it on iPad yet. I feel that's going to be a really interesting platform for adventure games. It's such a fun place to play point-and-click graphic adventures, and so many people have them. That's exciting to me."

 

[FeelTheRads]

Hey, remember that employee that said something along the lines that it's all cool because Tim said in the Kickstarter video that even if they fail it's still good because you watch them fail or something like that? I'm pretty sure they firmly believe that.
So, fuck you, you have no right to complain. Plus, the game is good because there are people who like it. So those who don't like it are just haters.

 

[felipepepe]

I heard the same thing when I went ot the DF forums:

The Kickstarter was for both a downloadable point-and-click graphic adventure game as well as an extensive documentary depicting the creation of that game. Both of these things have clearly been created and delivered, with more content coming in both cases.

“Whether it goes well or whether it all goes to hell, we’re going to show everything. ...Either the game will be great, or it will be a spectacular failure caught on camera for all to see. Either way, you win.” -Tim, in the Kickstarter video.

We do not consider the game to be a spectacular failure. We’re actually extremely proud of it. If you disagree, well, that’s one of the possibilities that was presented to you when you backed. I’m sorry the game isn’t the precise thing you wanted; such a feat is impossible to achieve for every individual when you’re dealing with an audience of a hundred thousand. But it’s a game that was created in good faith and with a lot of hard work and dedication, and we do not believe we breached any contract, implied or explicit, regarding its content.

So jokes in the middle of the video are vital part of the whole deal, but promising to make a "Classic Old-School Adventure game" means nothing.

Guess what else wasn't a joke?

Spoiler

"We showed you in the early updates how Tim was personally shitting on $100 dollar bills. You have no right to get mad at something that we were so open about from the start."

 

[Metro]

Lol? They didn't even have Act 2 funded? Are you shitting me? $5+ million only covered the first half?

 

[Infinitron]

Lol? They didn't even have Act 2 funded? Are you shitting me? $5+ million only covered the first half?

Why do you think they divided it?

 

[J_C]

I heard the same thing when I went ot the DF forums:

The Kickstarter was for both a downloadable point-and-click graphic adventure game as well as an extensive documentary depicting the creation of that game. Both of these things have clearly been created and delivered, with more content coming in both cases.

“Whether it goes well or whether it all goes to hell, we’re going to show everything. ...Either the game will be great, or it will be a spectacular failure caught on camera for all to see. Either way, you win.” -Tim, in the Kickstarter video.

We do not consider the game to be a spectacular failure. We’re actually extremely proud of it. If you disagree, well, that’s one of the possibilities that was presented to you when you backed. I’m sorry the game isn’t the precise thing you wanted; such a feat is impossible to achieve for every individual when you’re dealing with an audience of a hundred thousand. But it’s a game that was created in good faith and with a lot of hard work and dedication, and we do not believe we breached any contract, implied or explicit, regarding its content.

So jokes in the middle of the video are vital part of the whole deal, but promising to make a "Classic Old-School Adventure game" means nothing.

Guess what else wasn't a joke?

Spoiler

"We showed you in the early updates how Tim was personally shitting on $100 dollar bills. You have no right to get mad at something that we were so open about from the start."

What's wrong felipe, didn't you get your refund?

 

[felipepepe]

J_C, you're being smug about a company that had 2 years and almost 10M dollars to make a shallow, casual Adventure game, and yet can't even make a profit out of it.

Double Fine is doomed man, I doubt any sane business man wants to work with the guy that cheated even Kotick out of his money and now fails horribly at business like this, with a documentary and all about it. They can't live of kickstarter alone.

 

[almondblight]

I heard the same thing when I went ot the DF forums:

The Kickstarter was for both a downloadable point-and-click graphic adventure game as well as an extensive documentary depicting the creation of that game. Both of these things have clearly been created and delivered, with more content coming in both cases.

“Whether it goes well or whether it all goes to hell, we’re going to show everything. ...Either the game will be great, or it will be a spectacular failure caught on camera for all to see. Either way, you win.” -Tim, in the Kickstarter video.

We do not consider the game to be a spectacular failure. We’re actually extremely proud of it. If you disagree, well, that’s one of the possibilities that was presented to you when you backed. I’m sorry the game isn’t the precise thing you wanted; such a feat is impossible to achieve for every individual when you’re dealing with an audience of a hundred thousand. But it’s a game that was created in good faith and with a lot of hard work and dedication, and we do not believe we breached any contract, implied or explicit, regarding its content.

I love it. "Hey man, you should just be grateful that we didn't outright defraud you." It's like something a contractor says in a slapstick comedy before they're hoisted up and roughly tossed off the premises.

 

[Azrael the cat]

"And we're not done making it to all the platforms because we haven't released it on iPad yet. I feel that's going to be a really interesting platform for adventure games. It's such a fun place to play point-and-click graphic adventures, and so many people have them. That's exciting to me."

I don't own an Ipad, and I'm not getting Broken Age until Act 2 is out, but he's correct on that point. If I was to think of one type of game that you could port to the Ipad without altering gameplay, it would be a point and click adventure. You could even include oldschool text commands - it would be more annoying than having a real keyboard, but given the popularity of SMS there's little barrier to typing 1-2 word commands with a stylus.

 

[suejak]

The main problem with the company is that its employees make too much money. If they didn't have so many highly-paid artists and programmers on the team, and those artists and programmers didn't stroke every character and every animation and every scene until it was perfect, they could make games on a Stasis or Daedalic kind of budget. This would require lower salaries, more hours, more overall dev time, reused assets, and an overall lowered standard of "quality".

TLDR: (1) The marginal costs of the game's production are too high. (2) The creators' piece-by-piece standard of quality is too high.

 

[Sceptic]

You know DF are running out of money when they can no longer afford two plants and have to exclusively rely on J_C.

 

[J_C]

J_C, you're being smug about a company that had 2 years and almost 10M dollars to make a shallow, casual Adventure game, and yet can't even make a profit out of it.

10M? Cannot into math much? 5-6M at max. And you are making assumptions again. Who said, who knows if they made a profit? They just said that they funded Act 2, not that they made just enough to fund Act 2. They might have made more, maybe not. I don't know, you don't know. And don't assume that they won't make more money after Act 2 released. Many people don't buy games until it is fully finished. Especially if they improve Act 2 compared to Act 1.

Double Fine is doomed man, I doubt any sane business man wants to work with the guy that cheated even Kotick out of his money and now fails horribly at business like this, with a documentary and all about it. They can't live of kickstarter alone.

Theye switched to self publishing years before Kickstarter, I don't think they want to work with publishers anymore.

You know DF are running out of money when they can no longer afford two plants and have to exclusively rely on J_C.

Did they ever had 2 plants?

 

[J_C]

The main problem with the company is that its employees make too much money. If they didn't have so many highly-paid artists and programmers on the team, and those artists and programmers didn't stroke every character and every animation and every scene until it was perfect, they could make games on a Stasis or Daedalic kind of budget.

TLDR: (1) The marginal costs of the game's production are too high. (2) The creators' piece-by-piece standard of quality is too high.

Yes, this is it probably.

This would require lower salaries, more hours, more overall dev time, reused assets, and an overall lowered standard of "quality".

But who knows if they would work in these conditions? They are working in the US, in a fairly expensive city, you can't keep up dozens of families with Stasis budget.

 

[FeelTheRads]

If I was to think of one type of game that you could port to the Ipad without altering gameplay, it would be a point and click adventure.

Yeah, and they say the same thing about turn-based strategies, RPGs and what not. I say no. Fuck tablets. Everything that is intended to be ported to tablets at some point will be affected negatively by it.

You could even include oldschool text commands

No. Not when the keyboard will take up half of your screen. I tried playing text adventures on a tablet. It's shit and it sucks. Plus typing on a touch screen is fucking slow.

What's wrong felipe, didn't you get your refund?

Fixed.

The creators' piece-by-piece standard of quality is too high.

lol

The "problem with the company" is that they are getting payed much more than they deserve for the work they do.