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[Destral]

Since this is the business forum, what do you all think of the direction Double Fine have taken after Brutal Legend? Long, long story short, at some point during development of Brutal Legend the entire team took 2 weeks off, split into teams, and pitched and prototyped 4 smaller games. The idea at the time was to take a break from the dev cycle of Brutal Legend. After Brutal Legend was published, they were unable to get a publisher for a Brutal Legend 2, so they took those 4 prototypes and started developing them in earnest. Since then, they've been announcing and releasing those games on a staggered schedule on PSN and XBLA (not sure if they ever came out on PC).

Longer version as part of an interview with Schafer on Gamasutra.

Personally, I really like that they are developing smaller games of high quality with smaller teams, budgets and development cycles. It seems like a good combination of the indie flexibility and innovation with the stability and resources of a AAA studio, and it wouldn't surprise me if more studios pick up that model in the future. Why put the fate of your company on a game that takes 3 years to develop for $50 million, when you can stagger the development cycles and release dates of several projects, to the point where you are releasing something every 3 months, are constantly getting press attention for the release of something or the announcement of the next thing, while at the same time exploring all kinds of different game genres, art styles, and generating IP like a crazy IP-generating machine.

I think it's great.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that's what indies have been recommending that the big companies do for a while -- spend the same amount of money, but do more game projects at once, with smaller teams. the scratchware manifesto recommended that approach to them too.

[moi]

"The benefits to making smaller games with budgets of $1-2 million compared to $40-50 million are huge," said Schafer.

smaller games with budgets of $1-2 million

$1-2 million

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

good observation, i missed that

[Destral]

"The benefits to making smaller games with budgets of $1-2 million compared to $40-50 million are huge," said Schafer.

smaller games with budgets of $1-2 million

$1-2 million

Yeah, it's still a AAA size studio. I imagine part of the way things turned out (4 teams working on 4 games) was due the the number of people they had on salary when BL shipped.

Still, for a startup it would probably be that much easier to raise that $1-2 million instead of $40-50 million to develop a game.

[:^)]

1-2 million isn't a lot considering how much was spent on their previous game Brutal Legend.
I think they're headed in the right direction.
I'm a huge fan of Schafer, Psychonauts and Scott C.
I hope we get some awesome games outta them. ...PC games. 

[Tuba]

I'm also a big fan of Tim Schafer, Double Fine is one of the few big developers out there making original games, not afraid to try new ideas.

While definitely not something for indie devs, I like the idea of splitting your team into smaller ones and letting each of them decide what to make, having this kind of freedom is the dream of a lot of people working in the industry and I know of some companies that could be better now using that system.

[LemonScented]

$1 - $2 million is the square root of fuck all as modern non-indie game budgets go. A lot of AAA studios can burn through $1 million in a month, on staff wage bills alone.

I'm loving what Double Fine are doing. It seems like Schafer has always been about doing stuff with interesting and risky new IP, and I guess he's found that that's been less viable as budgets have risen. To solve the problem by reducing the budgets, whilst simultaneously mitigating risk by working on so many games simultaneously (i.e. "If Costume Quest doesn't go so well, it's okay because Stacking is just around the corner") is a smart thing that other studios should be looking to emulate. The AAA business model as it stands is unsustainable - if the PS4 or Xbox 4pi came out right now, the budgets required to make games for it would likely kill most of the major games studios. So, working out how to do more things, where each thing is cheaper, makes a lot more sense than trying to do one ever bigger, ever more expensive thing.

[Bree]

Another thing that's also giving Double Fine financial stability is their foray into licensed games. Their next downloadable title after the mech game is a Sesame Street game for the Kinect. It was an accident, though- the game idea was one made during the Fortnight, but the designs and concepts were so similar to Sesame Street that DF decided to approach the company about using their characters. Pretty darn brilliant idea, if you ask me.

[:^)]

What?? That is craziness. Weird.

[moi]

I would like to see what would happen if we took 1-2 millions and give them to a prolific indie, someone who has a good record of releasing good games all by himself (someone like derek or cactus or whoever), and make sure that the money is used solely on game production assets (not cocaine or stuff).
The result would probably be awesome.

[Bree]

Isn't there something like that already? Some sort of Indie Collective Fund or something that was started up last year?

Oh, and if you're wanting more info on the Sesame Street game, here's an interview on Gamasutra.

[TeeGee]

Seems like what PopCap's been doing since quite a while. They are a huge company, but their model is to assemble a small team for each game, and give it enough time and money so they can experiment freely. When it's ready, they pump resources into finishing it asap. Plants vs. Zombies team for the most of its development was just the designer and the programmer.

[gimymblert]

What about the musician?

[tzachs]

I would like to see what would happen if we took 1-2 millions and give them to a prolific indie, someone who has a good record of releasing good games all by himself (someone like derek or cactus or whoever), and make sure that the money is used solely on game production assets (not cocaine or stuff).
The result would probably be awesome.

I think that if we let them spend the money on cocaine the result would be even more awesome.

[TeeGee]

What about the musician?

I'm not sure. I just recall an interview with George Fan (PvZ designer), where he described it as that. I'm sure Supershigi knows more .

He also said that lots of the mini-games are in there, because honing the core gameplay took its sweet time. The programmer got bored and started implementing all those extra modes.
Judging by the game's crazy popularity, it paid off.

[LemonScented]

I would like to see what would happen if we took 1-2 millions and give them to a prolific indie, someone who has a good record of releasing good games all by himself (someone like derek or cactus or whoever), and make sure that the money is used solely on game production assets (not cocaine or stuff).
The result would probably be awesome.

Hmmm. The only way for a one-person indie team to usefully spend that money would be to get more people involved, by hiring, subcontracting, or outsourcing extra work. At that point, the whole thing starts to look fairly indistinguishable from a team which is about a quarter of the size of Double Fine.

Or were you thinking of seeing how many one-man games you could get for $1m? Just pay for Derek or Cactus to live comfortably for the rest of their natural lives, and get 40 or so games of out Derek, or a couple of million from Cactus? That'd be pretty cool.

GTA IV was rumoured to cost $100 million. For that money, I reckon you could cobble together a rudimentary cloning facility for indie developers, and have them make more games than the whole of humanity could ever play.

[Destral]

Isn't there something like that already? Some sort of Indie Collective Fund or something that was started up last year?

Oh, and if you're wanting more info on the Sesame Street game, here's an interview on Gamasutra.

There's the indie fund, but I believe that works more or less like most publisher deals work: you pitch a game/show a prototype, they look at it and decide whether it's something that fits the type of game they want to fund, and if it does they fund you, you develop the game, and (I'm guessing) you pay them back from the sales of the game.

[dongle]

Let's not forget that Playdead pursued about 3 mil dollars of funding for Limbo.

[dongle]

I like Double Fine's new approach because they weight narrative/atmosphere/art direction over uh making fun games, so I enjoy their work better as high-density charm.