Broken Age sales secure funding for Act 2 development
Double Fine's decision to release Broken Age in two halves is paying off, as Tim Schafer says that sales from the game's season pass has ensured funding for the remainder of the story.
Double Fine took a calculated risk by releasing Broken Age in two parts, hoping that the sales from the game's first half would offer enough financing to complete the rest of the adventure. The risk has paid off, as founder Tim Schafer has confirmed that Broken Age's first act has made more than enough money to allow the studio to finish development on the second half of Vella and Shay's story.
"We've made enough that we can make the second half of the game for sure," Schafer told Games Industry International. He did not specify sales numbers, but noted that Act 2's development is proceeding on schedule. He also expresses gratitude to the game's Kickstarter backers.
"We've shipped enough that people can see we weren't kidding, and that's a big relief," Schafer said. "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 adds that Broken Age on iPad is also on track, seeing it as a "really interesting platform" for adventure games. There's no date for the iOS version of Broken Age, which is intended to ship as a complete package. The second half of the story will ship to PC, Mac, and Linux later this year.
-
Shacknews
replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, Broken Age sales secure funding for Act 2 development.
Double Fine's decision to release Broken Age in two halves is paying off, as Tim Schafer says that sales from the game's season pass has ensured funding for the remainder of the story.-
[deleted]
-
-
That backers pledged $3,336,371 of the $400,000 goal and didn't get a full game should worry anyone about future projects.
-
while it didnt work optimally:
-everyone will get a full game at a much lager scale than the originally planned game.
-if anyone who doesnt grasp the concept of a kickstarter and its risks he should not spend money.
you are funding game development not buying a game. if you want to buy a game wait for its release.
doublefine, inxile obsidian and others that were "safe" bets have been very transparent about development and particularly doublefine deserves all the praise in the world in the way they have documented the development of the game and the work at a developer in particular. -
-
If they stuck to a budget of $400,000 and didn't expand their scope - I'm certain we'd have a totally different game than what has been delivered thus far.
And I for one have been very pleased with what they have released thus far. Broken Age was an incredibly streamlined game (see: lacking in cliche inventory puzzles, had an effective UI) and the production values were top-notch.
-
-
Or maybe $3.3 mil just isn't enough for the game that Tim was inspired to make.
Don't forget, this crowdfunding thing is very much uncharted territory. The original proposal game was going to be in line with a cheap and dirty flash adventure game that would have been a much smaller experience. The only thing that should worry anyone is that maybe Tim can't design to fit a budget exactly, which is an absurd idea. I've never heard of a game hitting their original budget proposal without any issues. Double Fine just didn't have any Daddy Warbucks publishers to cover for budget overruns.-
Also, lacking in a publisher means that DoubleFine has the ability to set their own deadlines and consider any project cuts at their own discretion. Had Act One not been as well received as it was, I'm certain that Act Two would still finish development but perhaps not with all the content that Tim would have wanted to include.
I'll gladly support a project that may ebb and flow through development towards becoming a full product. It's certainly better than purchasing a game cut short under the heavy hand of a publishing body (IE: Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic 2).
-
-
Late people are late because they overshoot their target. If they had received double that with $6 million, they would still be over budget because they would have overshot the $6 million mark
-
-
Yes and no I guess - because they sensed a larger market for it they were much more ambitious with what they made compared to what they had planned on doing. I would have been satisfied with a pixel art, very small adventure game that still contained Tim's writing but I am very happy with what we got so far.
-
-
That's cool and I love DF. I do think it would be a good time to sit down and plan something long term instead of all this touch and go stuff. Just for their own sake. Build some pillar franchise that makes money to do all this other stuff.
-
Yay, awesome news. I love both the game and documentary series.
-
That Amnesia Fortnight thing sure came in handy then.
-
That probably barely pays for the development time of the Amnesia Fortnight
-
-
YAYYYY!
-
-
[deleted]
-
