Congratulations To Double Fine & Psychonauts' 20th Anniversary! That Said, The Xbox Era Sure Hasn't Generated Much!

Congratulations To Double Fine & Psychonauts! That Said...

Scenes from the Double Fine office during their anniversary celebrations for Psychonauts. Follow them on bsky for more incredible stuff like this!

This blog is one I have been meaning to publish for a while now, but around the time I had a workable outline of what I wanted to write about and discuss, Giant Bomb underwent some "strife." With the site now in a better spot than when I first conceived this essay, I decided to publish it after a few revisions. A month ago marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Psychonauts. The game and its colorful world and cast of characters have endured for literal decades, even if outright financial success has occasionally eluded it. Likewise, it is a universe that seems deeply intertwined with the core identity of what makes Double Fine "special." Both mainline games and their spin-offs value iconic visuals, lighthearted humor, earnest melodrama, character-driven narratives, and larger-than-life personalities and worlds. Whether it be the first or second game, you honestly can't imagine any other studio or studio head (i.e., Tim Schafer) conceiving the series and every adventure each game has contained. That sense of having an identity is a rarity in the industry these days, and there's something warm and welcoming about that fact, as is almost everything Double Fine has put out over its many years of existence.

Nonetheless, if I am going to continue with this introspective look at the current state of Psychonauts and Double Fine, I need to give you a slight admission. I have never been the biggest fan of the Psychonauts games. While I don't err completely on the side of someone like Jeff Gerstmann, his stance is close enough to where I stand about my overall joy in playing either of the mainline Psychonauts titles. I adore the worlds that Tim Schafer's team crafted with each entry, but I abhor playing Psychonauts, even with all of the "improvements" the studio added to the second game. The feel of the jump feels smudgy and unsatisfying, and the precision each title seems to expect out of its platforming and use of Raz's psychic abilities is unnecessarily frustrating. More fundamentally, I continue to find how Psychonauts embodies the old trope of manifestation and confrontation, thus allowing people to "cure" themselves of their mental illnesses or anxieties, perpetually disquieting. Yes, these are video games, but considering how much progress game narratives have made in the realm of mental health awareness, you can't tell me that Tim Schafer and Double Fine are entirely unable to move the needle a little bit more than they have with their studio-defining franchise.

And before you ask, it's not just The Meat Circus that I don't like in this game.

However, you aren't here to listen to my mini-rant about why Psychonauts isn't my cup of tea. With the summer gaming conference rumor mill hitting all spheres of the gaming press, the topic of Microsoft and its many studios has been a constant fixture. We are bound to see something about Fable or Perfect Dark, or else we can all assume the worst about each of those project's states, right? And what about the long-rumored dockable Series S and Microsoft's hilariously not-so-secret hardware partnership with Asus? And will this be the year when we see a PlayStation 5 or Sony logo at a Microsoft/Xbox conference? Is this the year Microsoft goes full throttle and completely embraces its dominance as a third-party video game publisher? I don't put a ton of faith in the gaming rumor circuit, but there's no denying that Microsoft is a bit of a "wild card" this summer.

However, in the case of the topic of this blog, consider this point. Double Fine has been essentially radio silent about what they have been working on since the release of Psychonauts 2, which was way back in 2021. That's a lot of time for Double Fine to be cooking up something with its eclectic group of developers and designers, and a bit odd when you consider that outside of Brütal Legend, they have been able to churn out small projects and games almost every year since their foundation. So, that means we must see SOMETHING from them at Microsoft's showcase this year, right? And if we don't, that's a clear sign that Microsoft has messed up Double Fine's winning recipe, riiiiiiiiiiiiiight?

Wait, How Much Of This Is Actually On Microsoft?

Related, but id proudly advertising they sold less than 1 million psychical copies of Doom: The Dark Ages is just wild to me.

Double Fine's quiet absence in even Microsoft's yearly indie game montage has led many people to assume they are yet another studio held back by Microsoft's foundational mismanagement of the plethora of game studios they now own. Outside of Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Obsidian, no one under their umbrella seems to be able to maintain AAA production expectations without opting into a messy four to five-year development cycle. MachineGames and id Software are recent examples of how that patience pays dividends, but there are many more studios that seem to have fallen to the wayside, and now updates come out in a trickle. For every id, you have the likes of inXile or Undead Labs, who have been stuck on the same projects for what is now approaching five years. Double Fine, on paper, is erring towards the latter camp. We haven't seen the goofy singular mechanic-driven micro or small-scope games that we once saw from the studio during the height of XBLA's dominance. Furthermore, outside of a few keynote addresses at GDCs, we haven't heard much from Tim Schafer about what he and his team are working on. Double Fine has previously been one of the most refreshingly transparent indie outfits in the industry, even allowing you to play whole prototypes of games that didn't quite pan out. Their going quiet for even a year is not the norm for them.

But is Double Fine working on something caught up in corporate red tape since Microsoft purchased them, or are they working on something where they have possibly bit off more than they can chew? Here's what makes answering that question so difficult: before Microsoft bought Double Fine, we had seen the studio afflicted with both scenarios. Double Fine has been insnared by shitty corporate managers as well as being hoisted by their own petard, and what we have perceived of them, in either case, is very similar to what we are faced with today. People sometimes forget that the original Psychonauts was initially going to be an exclusive for the first Xbox and that the exclusivity deal was set to provide stable funding for the game's development. That deal fell through. Nonetheless, Double Fine has been vocal that the milestones and deadlines of their partnership with Microsoft likely led to production delays and feature bloat. When you aren't independent and instead accountable to a higher-up, that's "part of the deal." While you don't have to worry about payroll or your employee's dental coverage, you need to dot i's and cross t's you wouldn't usually need to if you were allowed to "cook" at your own pace or speed.

An incredible concept that just was way too rough in too many spots.

To Microsoft's defense, if an indie developer ever needed a filter or editor, Double Fine is the de facto example. And for evidence, look no further than Brütal Legend. The game began development as early as 2007, shortly before Psychonauts was released, and was eventually released in 2009. Despite Schafer starting the game on a Scrum software development framework, after opting for Unreal 2.5, Double Fine became fatally obsessed with asset generation rather than synthesizing the game's mix of open-world action and RTS gameplay. The issue was so severe that, within months of switching to Unreal, the game genuinely ran the risk of not fitting on a single DVD. How could that happen? Schafer and company were very insistent about also making an in-house terrain engine and an automated testing bot for the multiplayer mode and even opted to make their own in-house "Multi-User-Editor," which allowed the game's artists to simultaneously work on the game's world without fear of overwriting other people's work. For those of you who know a thing or two about game development, you know some of those, though not all, are things Unreal gives you as part of their package. You don't need to make all of these things in-house.

So, blaming Microsoft for employing a heavy-handed approach on one of the indie scene's most beloved icons isn't immediately the answer to why Double Fine might not be doing so well these days, if they are indeed not doing so well, which is in no way confirmed at this point. Until more information emerges, we have seen the studio struggle to conform to corporate expectations AND ALSO chug at a snail's pace while attempting to have its cake and eat it. There is, however, one part of Double Fine's business that we do definitively know Microsoft has put the kibosh on: Double Fine's publishing division. During the twilight days of their independence, Double Fine partially covered the cost of their game projects by also functioning as a middleman for other indie developers through its Double Fine Presents publishing label. This division of Double Fine assisted the release of some certifiable hits, such as Gang Beasts and Ooblets. When Microsoft bought Double Fine, they left them and their partners in the lurch for far longer than they should have, with even Schafer sending mixed messages at the time about the program's future. Yes, Microsoft already has its highly successful ID@Xbox program, but cutting out a line of funding for a newly acquired studio AND leaving their partners in an awkward position wasn't a great look. What was also not a good look was how virtually every game that went through Double Fine Presents opted to avoid continuing with any of Microsoft's indie publishing programs and instead chose self-publishing.

The Golden Age Of Crowdfunded Video Games Is Dead

Remember fig?

There's another weird complication to the standard fan theory of blaming Microsoft for Double Fine's mysterious absence in recent memory. Since Double Fine's purchase, the business model that practically revived them has fallen out of favor. Broken Age was the game that saved them after Psychonauts proved to be a financial disappointment and Brütal Legend got tied up in a publisher dispute with Bobby Kotick. After pitching a point-and-click adventure game led by Tim Schafer on Kickstarter, Double Fine found itself flush with over $3.45 million from almost 90,000 backers. They then followed Broken Age with a Kickstarter for Massive Chalice, thus proving that they could take advantage of crowdfunding without completely banking on the nostalgia of Schafer's earlier works. The success of Double Fine's Broken Age pitch led to dozens of imitators and the highly speculative era of crowdfunded games featuring elder icons from the video game industry. Shortly after the then-titled "Double Fine Adventure" smashed all expectations on Kickstarter, Revolution Software pitched a Broken Sword remaster, Jane Jensen got their spiritual successor to Gabriel Knights off the runway, the Leisure Suit Larry franchise got a revival, and even the people behind Tex Murphy got Tesla Effect funded. While not a massive fan of the game itself, there's no doubt that Broken Age fundamentally decoupled thousands, if not millions, of people from thinking all games had to go the studio greenlighting route, and that alone may remain Tim Schafer's most incredible legacy since he left LucasArts.

The issue here is that the industry is in a different place. Yet, Double Fine still seeks to benefit from community input and interactivity to keep people invested in their projects. Schafer is an incredible "ideas guy," as we will discuss in more detail shortly, but he needs someone else to hone his ideas into workable games. That problem was mitigated in part by the extensive community input he received on his crowdfunded works. And you're not getting that these days unless Microsoft allows them to release a game on Early Access, and that seems impossible to imagine. Double Fine's preference for crowdfunding would not be sustainable today, and that fact may have contributed to why they were so open-minded about Microsoft acquiring them in the first place. Kickstarter isn't what it once was for video games, and what games are still relying on the platform these days aren't exactly projects you want to associate with if you are Double Fine OR Microsoft. Remember how Psychonauts 2 was funded through Fig? Yeah, that Fig! The video game pitching platform that promised a more responsible and transparent approach to crowdfunding for video games, with a significant focus on independent game developers or industry figureheads with a proven track record. To their credit, the games that secured funding on Fig delivered on all of their backer goals and project milestones. However, even Fig was able to read the room and realized so much of their business was being cannibalized by Early Access and itch.io. So, they sold out to a private equity firm and closed shop.

I didn't even find Massive Chalice to be the best tactics game, but I like it from a conceptual perspective.

As I have already conceded multiple times, none of this context-building is to say you can't find new success stories in gaming on crowdfunding platforms. Kickstarter might not be the titan in the industry it once was, but small-scale indie projects still emerge from it that are worth praising. Nonetheless, things are undeniably different, and it has been practically replace. Any game with AAA to even A-tier aspirations has opted for the Early Access business model, and indies have almost entirely shifted to itch.io. It is hard not to see why so many developers have decided on either option. Early Access locks consumers and interested buyers into a full-game purchase, often with just a game prototype. While it has plenty of examples of abuse and fraud, the real-world success stories are numerous and undeniable. Larian had Baldur's Gate 3 on Early Access for two years before releasing the game, and they were met with near-universal accolades. With Itch, pages are easy to set up, and while their search system continues to be a disaster, there's no anxiety of outright failure with deadlines. Yes, Kickstarter has reformed its platform to no longer require deadlines or closures of funding if targets are not met; however, the stigma of maintaining such a draconian system for as long as it did has persisted. Likewise, there's no denying that the barrier to entry with Itch is simply lower.

People Need To Realize Tim Schafer Is (Maybe) An Ideas Guy And Not A Great Studio Manager

Man... remember how much fun Iron Brigade/Trenched was on XBLA?

There's a chance that everything I am cautioning about regarding how Double Fine operates isn't genuinely a canary in the coal mine. Double Fine was purchased in 2019, and they published Psychonauts in 2021, which was first announced in 2015. These days, games take a long time to make. My issue is that the game I want from Double Fine has not changed in scope or production compared to ten years ago. AAA games are taking forever because asset generation and open worlds take time, and that's not what I want them to be making. I understand that Brütal Legend has its defenders, but I wouldn't want a smaller developer putting all their eggs in one basket, especially if it were a new IP. And I'm sorry, but if I were Tim Schafer and saw Obsidian's model over the past two years, I'd call Phil Spencer right now and beg him to be allowed to make a similar mix of small games led by jigsawed siloed claves alongside more significant game titles. And it is somewhat on Schafer for not embracing a more agile and well-rounded model for his studio when others are doing so under Microsoft's banner. That's unless he's fully committed his team to a large project that requires all hands on deck. However, if that's the case, then there needs to be a discussion about whether Double Fine has ever been suited for such projects.

This last point highlights Tim Schafer. Now, before we continue, I want to make something crystal clear. Tim Schafer knows way more about game development than I do, and I don't want anything I am about to say to get misconstrued into an indictment against him and his skill set. Nonetheless, as someone who has followed Schafer for almost my entire life, I have noticed a couple of shortcomings in his leadership and management. First, and this returns me to my earlier points about Brütal Legend, but he desperately needs a filter and editor. Yes, Activision's upper management was incredibly shitty about Brütal Legend's distribution rights, but that had nothing to do with the game's weird mish-mash of ideas and genres that maybe played better in Schafer's head than in execution. Also, while I agree the game's world is lovingly crafted with characters that stick with you, that doesn't change the fact that its large open world is mainly empty, and the RTS missions get incredibly fiddly to play as the game's complexity ramps up. I can't discount Schafer and company from learning from past mistakes, but do we actually want to see a big open-world game from them again? Like, really? I'll be the first to admit that Double Fine's 2010-2015 run, during which they released two to three smaller-scale games that primarily focused on a singular gameplay gimmick with each release, was my favorite era of Double Fine. Not all of the games were gems, but there was an admirable scrappiness with each game, and it seemed like Double Fine knew how to operate within its means. And then they stopped doing that.

Again... why isn't Double Fine making smaller games?

That might come across as a personal criticism of Double Fine rather than an objective observation of Schafer's management style, but consider this point. As briefly mentioned earlier, starting with Brütal Legend, Schafer embraced a Scrum management strategy wherein a team breaks into groups and works on goals to be completed within self-prescribed "time-boxes" done in "sprints" and assessed in communal meetings. This direction is a commendable strategy for asset generation, especially for smaller teams. However, for larger projects, Scrum management and development often utilize routines that hinder productivity and detract from productive tasks. Additionally, let's not sit here and pretend that Double Fine didn't experience notable turnover before the Microsoft purchase. Look back at their Amnesia Fortnight 2014 bundle in which a cache of unfinished prototypes was made public. If you do even a cursory amount of research, you'll find a decent amount of the figureheads behind those projects have since left Double Fine, and many of their subsequent post-Double Fine works have honed in on ideas from those early builds.

So, Double Fine's weird silence these past four years is "complicated" and impossible to discern. Despite being a developer near and dear to many people's hearts, its history and track record are far more messy than most are willing to admit. However, that's indie game development in a nutshell. Shit in the indie developer arena is bound to get strange, and any strategy that keeps you and your company relevant to as many sequential generations in the gaming hobby as Double Fine has is nothing short of a miracle. For all of the theorized quibbles I have mentioned about Tim Schafer and the structure of Double Fine as a studio, there's something commendable about how long they have been able to keep the lights on before and after their purchase by Microsoft.

Nonetheless, Double Fine knows how to create great worlds and characters and that should keep them afloat until the end of time.

Yes, what made the company's endurance possible in the past is no longer viable or replicable today, but that's beside the point. I hope they have a project to show or share at the Summer Showcase, and I wouldn't mind if they were another studio tied to Microsoft's multiplatform approach. If ever there has been a studio that deserves success to guarantee its future, it is Double Fine. Until then, congratulations on the 20th anniversary of Psychonauts, Double Fine! You have done the world and characters of that universe so much justice over the many years you have been making video games.