Double Fine Launches $400K Kickstarter for Classic Adventure Game

by Mike Bendel on February 8, 2012 @ 11:43 pm


Update: Incredible: the fund just crossed the one million mark. History is in the making folks!

Psychonauts developer Double Fine is out to breathe new life into the rather dormant genre of point and click adventure titles. In a bold move, the studio has turned to fans for funding by launching a Kickstarter goal of $400,000.

Backers will gain exclusive access to a Steam beta of the project by pledging at least $15. That includes a finished copy once it is officially released. There are other incentives if you’re willing to pitch in even more, from autographed posters to a personal mini-portrait illustrated by artists on the development team.

All supporters will be given the opportunity to start a dialogue with developers by sharing ideas and feedback on a private forum throughout the course of development, which is estimated to last six to eight months.

As of writing, it looks like the Kickstarter is attracting a sizable amount of attention. So far, a whopping $284,000 has been pledged, that’s around 71 percent of the target fulfilled in just a few hours. Entirely free from creative limitations and deadlines imposed by publishers, it’ll be interesting to see how the project takes shape over the coming months.

Follow this author on .

Read more: Watch_Dogs Dated for November 19 / 22, Rumor: Nvidia Readying GeForce Titan Ultra, Diablo III on the PS3: Reduced Mob Density, Rumor: Nvidia Prepping Slimmed Down GK110 With 5GB VRAM, Possible GTX 780?, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Turns Up In Steam Registry Along With Achievements

Comments
Trigun says:

That's rad.

sonnyz says:

Looks like they're already up to $618,981!

sonnyz says:

Looks like they're already up to $618,981!

ShadowmanX5 says:

This is great!! I love how Double Fine have basically skipped out the entire industry of the Publishers and got SOO much support, it just shows that if you can reach them, there are alot of gamers out there who would donate to see a decent game get made :) I sure hope we see more of this in the future, brings alot more interactivity between Developers and Players and allows ALL sorts of mindblowing games to be developed.

After all, who else knows more about what makes a good game, than the people who play them all the time!!

FrozenIpaq says:

This is an interesting concept to take on in the industry (crowd-sourcing) but it places a lot of trust on the developer to deliver an appropriate game. I don't forsee a problem with Double Fine, being an established studio and all, but I have had other experiences in the past where the "inventor" of a product does not deliever the final product in a timely fashion or in a way that resembles the original mock-ups.

x3sphere says:

Just hit one million, WOW. And it hasn't even been live for 24 hours yet. This goes to show that publishers complaining about piracy on PC have it all wrong. People are willing to back good games.

Trigun says:

Yeah, this is TOTALLY amazing how much support there has been!

ShadowmanX5 says:

The pressure on Double Fine must be getting pretty intense now, with all this backing most people are going to have very high expectation for this game!

TheRaiderNation says:

My question now is what happens with the extra $820,000 and growing that they've raised? I get that $400,000 is relatively low as far as budget is concerned. But I could only imagine them using about another $200,000 for the budget. Do they pretty much just get to pocket the extra now? Or do they HAVE to use it towards the project?

slicer4ever says:

why not?, people are willing to support them to this extent. I mean yea a million for a 6-8 month project is a bit high, and last i checked, it's not like their not giving people things for how much they pledge. What would you rather they do? close the door and tell people who didn't get their before 24 hours that, tough shit, you don't get anything, even if you wanted to pledge something.

although, if they really want to take the high route, i'm sure they well post something like "we will donate all extra proceeds to charity, after finishing the game."

TheRaiderNation says:

I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all. I think they should be able to pocket extra money too, they deserve it (so long as they don't embezzle it and have the project fall through the roof obviously). I was just curious. Not to mention maybe these publisher will finally see there is money in these other genre's and stop saturating the market with shooters. Anyway, I digress, It's just interesting the way kick starter works. If you don't raise enough money, you get nothing. But if you raise above (and beyond) the amount, you get funded, but there's nothing that says where those extra funds really have to go to (maybe there is, I haven't really looked that much into kickstarter's rules). Just saying, it seems like a pretty easy way for a corrupt person to do some embezzling.

But doublefine should be pretty trust worthy, I don't think we have anything to worry about.

slicer4ever says:

i can't imagine that anyone could just up and do this, being an established developer like double fine gives alot of trust to the people that pledge to support them. but an random upstart indie company probably wouldn't have the slightest chances at raising anything like this to get off the ground.

TheRaiderNation says:

I understand that, but rather than rules actually stopping someone from using the funds; it's the fact that it's just not practical that keeps misuse from happening. In theory, in the unlikely chance someone does try to abuse kickstarter, it is possible. (ie, ask for 1.5k when the product really only needs 1k). Not like those on kickstarter have to give a breakdown of where the money is going. I get it's not likely, and just impractical for that to happen, just an interesting thought I guess.

Chathurga says:

By donatating you're buying the game so yeah they'll pocket any money left over since it's profit.

Games are very, very expensive though so we'll see.

slicer4ever says:

ah, i didn't realize that anyone pledging also got the game, thought it was just some rewards.

FrozenIpaq says:

They did say that any leftover money would go into the development of the documentary and improvement of in-game assets but I'm pretty sure that they never would've guessed at attracting over one million dollars.

you say:

Login with your username and password below. New User?