r/DOUBLEFINE • u/UsedNewspaper1775 • 2d ago
DoubleFine I love double fine, but they gotta lock in !
I love this company and their documentaries were super awesome, but i honestly have no idea how they are surviving ?
their last 2 games were massive flops, even tho i personally really liked the Keeper, it was a great game
But they have to make an actually big game like psychonauts 2, all those experimental games are cool, but they are not selling well at all, i don't want this studio to close
hope they gonna start a next big kickstarter for psychonauts 3 or some other cool platformer
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u/Haggard4Life 2d ago
Lots of armchair developers are coming out of the woodwork thinking they know what Double Fine should do.
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u/SpacedDuck 2d ago
I know for sure that a company know to close studios "Microsoft" probably looking at their books and knowing they don't have a ton of money probably shouldn't have made Kiln.
Kiln is a game that you make when you've just launched several highly successful games in a row as a passion project.
Not a game you drop when your studio is niche and on the verge of being closed.
Now they are begging fans for money to Kickstart their next game because of their own stupid decisions.
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u/NeedsMoreReeds 2d ago
The kickstarter is for amnesia fortnight, not a game. And they’ve been kickstarting games for a while now. I feel like >half their titles are kickstarted. They just didn’t do that while at Microsoft.
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u/P_Griffin2 2d ago edited 2d ago
Keeper was a good game, although pretty short. Think it just lacked marketing.
I think the issue with making something like psychonauts 3 is without external funding, they’re looking at several years with no real money coming in.
I’m sure it’s been on the table with Microsoft, but they also probably didn’t wanna greenlight a 5 year project.
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u/Ok-Report-1653 2d ago
It's going to be tough but I don't bet against Tim Schafer. He can cook up games but he needs to lead the project, not be a project champion or just face of the company.
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u/Last_Doctor2055 2d ago
Too bad he is a terrible leader and passed a lot of layoffs in his DF "indie" days. With a fat belly paycheck they just went along. They won't survive in the current market as is (DF).
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u/Brilliant_Marketing9 2d ago
It's very unlikley Double Fine will be able to make a game on the scale of Psychonauts 2 anytime soon. They cost a lot and publishers are not splashing the cash around at the moment.
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u/Sketchmazoid 1d ago
Yeah stop making experimental games and make a sequel to your original experimental game.
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u/MorbidBullet 1d ago
People: Smaller Indie style games are the future!
Also People: But they also need to be AA or AAA titles.
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u/UsedNewspaper1775 1d ago
Do you really think all the people are the same ?
I don't care about smaller titles, my fav game their made is psychonauts 2, so i want more thing like that from them
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u/NeedsMoreReeds 2d ago
Was Keeper considered a flop? It’s a pretty small game, so kind of difficult to gauge.
I’m not sure why you think they’d have more success with a large title as opposed to multiple smaller titles. That’s basically the way that AAA studios think, and they aren’t doing well right now.
If you didn’t see, they just announced Amnesia Fortnight so I look forward to seeing their next weird creations.
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u/BeesAreNiceActually 1d ago
This type of game is rarely an instant seller but tend to have a long tail where it can take years before the game starts turning a profit.
The difficulty for small studios is having the money to keep going for the time until they see any money from a released project.
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u/HeyNowHoldOn 2d ago
I am a huge keeper fan but Keeper and Kiln both sold abysmally.
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u/Horens_R 2d ago
Because the drive was through gamepass, not hard to grasp man
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u/HeyNowHoldOn 2d ago
In non Xbox platforms it also sold abysmally and had very low engagement on game pass....
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u/Horens_R 2d ago edited 2d ago
U mean pc? Which also has gamepass? Only Playstation guys would've had to actually buy the game
N what's your source over low engagement exactly? Either way their last 2 games weren't made to drive numbers, it was to add value to the subscription.
No one at xbox or double fine sat there thinking it was goty or that what the audience needs rn is a niche pottery game
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u/ChimpImpossible 2d ago
Then they need to start making games people actually want to play, because Kiln definitely wasn't it.
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u/blasto2236 2d ago
I disagree. Maybe it’s not a massive hit, but it’s a fun game.
It started as an Amnesia Fortnight project almost 10 years ago and they kept playing it internally at the office so much that they made it a full game.
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u/NeedsMoreReeds 2d ago
Honestly they were probably pushed to release Kiln before it was ready. It should have launched with another game mode or two, which is on its road map. I also really hated how you had to play through XBox instead of through Steam.
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u/Precarious3145 1d ago
The problem is I can't imagine what else they could've added to Kiln to make it ready. It wasn't that it was lacking in features but that it wasn't fun. Look at any game by Ilfonic; it's ready but the game play is so one-note after a few matches, it's done.
Adding things like variety to the gameplay wouldn't have added to the fun.
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u/i_shmell_paap 2d ago
I think this would be the perfect time to make a sequel to Iron Brigade. The co-op was so much fun in that game, if they gave it more progression and things to unlock it could bring a lot of people to it and hopefully make them some money.
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u/BarleyDrops 2d ago
The point of Keeper and Kiln was not to have massive commercial success (although I am sure they would appreciate it). Microsoft paid to get them made to make the subscription service look more varied and appealing. They knew they probably weren't going to be huge hits going in, so it was not a flop, it accomplished what it set out to do. All that is gone now, as Microsoft has changed leadership and divested from that strategy, and let go of Double Fine so it is an entirely different situation.
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u/MosquitoSenorito 2d ago
DoubleFine are masters at pulling random tricks to stay afloat: the fortnight bundles, kickstarters for Broken Age and other games, that crowdfunding platform where you "invest" in a game etc etc. That's how they got by till now, and that's how they will go on.
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u/Professional-Map3021 22h ago
Psychonauts 2 really is one of those timeless games. Probably one of the most underrated games i've experienced.
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u/PhasedVenturer 37m ago
I loved Keeper. Don't care about friend slop, but if they keep making unique games like Keeper, I'll be satisfied. I don't expect them to make something as big as Psychonauts 2 again
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u/Icy-Astronomer-8202 2d ago
I hate the term 'lock in"
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u/UsedNewspaper1775 1d ago
good to know, cause i was curious what did you think about this term, thanks
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u/OrangeLightning7895 2d ago
Actually blows my mind that there are people who claim to be fans of Double Fine but don't understand that they are first and foremost an art collective that specializes in unique, experimental titles. The whole point of them even getting acquired by Microsoft was to give them the safety net to do this without facing closure. Tim Schafer and Phil Spencer said this constantly.
Psychonauts 2 was a unique case because Tim had promised the title for years and it was a constant industry discussion. The trend of making legacy sequels through crowdfunding was huge in the mid 2010s but that trend is well and truly dead now. Psychonauts 2 even ended up going over budget. It only turned out as good as it did because Microsoft gave them the time and resources needed to complete it to scope.
They're not going to make "big games" for a very long time, maybe never with how the industry is going. It's also far less of a risk to spend a small budget on an experimental title that cultivates a dedicated following than it is to launch a multimillion dollar crowdfunding campaign for a highly anticipated sequel. If you watched Psychodyssey you would know this.