Pour one out for Double Fine

Knucklepux

Knucklepux

Member
Keeper is going to bomb

No PlayStation at launch, increase in gamepass cost announced, no marketing

Xbox/PC players aren't gonna buy this. It was always doomed to be a "I'll give it a try on Gamepass" type of game. But Microsoft is ensuring it fails.

No reason to keep them around.

Cue the Double Fine being shut down and Tim Schaefer starting a new studio
 
Yes... Microsoft bought indie dev surviving on kickstarter campaigns only to expect them to have the next Halo or close the studio

You got it.
 
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Microsoft is doing the same thing Sony is doing with the PC ports no Day One releases.
first Forza Japan and now this come on Microsoft day one from now on come on.
 
I love Doublefine but that studio needs to get out of California ASAP.
The Doublefine youtube page still mostly showing development of the now old Psychonauts 2.
Level designs and such.
They do have a few blurbs about Keeper.

I always look forward to Doublefine games.
 
Keeper seems like one of those games that wouldn't be doing big numbers regardless, but it's particularly odd and rather unnecessarily bad choice to limit platform choices for it.
 
Buggy Loop said:
Yes... Microsoft bought indie dev surviving on kickstarter campaigns only to expect them to have the next Halo or close the studio

You got it.
Click to expand...
They bought them for the pedigree and before the massive act/blizz acquisition. They aren't going to give even a smidge of their budget to a studio/game that doesn't generate players/play time
 
Knucklepux said:
They bought them for the pedigree and before the massive act/blizz acquisition. They aren't going to give even a smidge of their budget to a studio/game that doesn't generate players/play time
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For the pedigree? They bought all the kickstarter niche devs that were scrapping the bottom of the funding barrel to make the games they love. Double Fine, Obsidian, InXile. They were not producing massive sellers.

If they aren't going to give a smidge of budget to these studios (you assume), then they're dumbasses. Just like a project like Pentiment doesn't have to set the world on fire in sales, they're made with very small budgets. They're appreciated. They are needed in this TRIPUL AAYYY machine churning industry. Microsoft will keep the devs that actually deliver to the finish line, not the devs who are in a 7 years stretch with a demo that is not even representative of the final game (Perfect Dark).
 
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not a single game they ever made sold big amounts of copies.
pretty sure not a single game they made crossed the 2 million line.

the have always been a niche studio, that had a handful of 1 million sellers, with only 2 games going above 1 million sold, which afaik are the 2 Psychonauts games. maybe Brütal Legend got to a million as well, but that's about it
 
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The free market has spoken. 🤷‍♂️ Hard to feel sorry for devs who put out art-house niche products that don't sell. Microsoft surely has to be getting tired of propping these kind of studios/games up.
 
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Buggy Loop said:
Yes... Microsoft bought indie dev surviving on kickstarter campaigns only to expect them to have the next Halo or close the studio

You got it.
Click to expand...

They bought tango gameworks and shut them down after releasing a successful indie game in Hi-Fi rush. This new game by double fine is both niche and too bizarre to have any mainstream appeal, because you're literally playing as a lighthouse for crying out loud. This project by them makes absolutely 0 sense and should've been scrapped early in development.
 
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Sebastian1295 said:
They bought tango gameworks and shut them down after releasing a successful indie game in Hi-Fi rush. This new game by double fine is both niche and too bizarre to have any mainstream appeal, because you're literally playing as a lighthouse for crying out loud. This project by them makes absolutely 0 sense and should've been scrapped early in development.
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they didn't really buy Tango, they bought Bethesda, and Tango was part of that bundle.

meanwhile, they specifically bought Double Fine itself because it is a fan favourite AA studio. it gives them good PR basically... that's the purpose of Double Fine.
 
evanft said:
Here's a list of all the great games from Double Fine.
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Day of the Tentacle Remastered was fun. Granted they had pretty good source material to work with. Also like Psychonauts. But yeah, don't care for most of their stuff.
 
Sebastian1295 said:
They bought tango gameworks and shut them down after releasing a successful indie game in Hi-Fi rush. This new game by double fine is both niche and too bizarre to have any mainstream appeal, because you're literally playing as a lighthouse for crying out loud. This project by them makes absolutely 0 sense and should've been scrapped early in development.
Click to expand...

Double fine has always been about bizarre

They're on low budgets.

Tango game works was part of Bethesda deal, they didn't necessarily go out of their way to get them. Also, shut them down? No they sold it to Krafton. They went after double fine precisely, not attached to a huge bag of devs with a publishing house. You also conveniently don't mention ghost wire Tokyo. How much that cost? Mikami retiring, what's worth remaining in the studio? I can guarantee you that Hi-Fi rush and Ghostwire Tokyo probably costed more to make than the entire worth of the Double fine buyout. Hi-Fi rush production for animations and music is anything but « indie » in costs.
 
Episode 2 Whatever GIF
 
kevboard said:
they didn't really buy Tango, they bought Bethesda, and Tango was part of that bundle.

meanwhile, they specifically bought Double Fine itself because it is a fan favourite AA studio. it gives them good PR basically... that's the purpose of Double Fine.
Click to expand...

I doubt microsoft cares about good PR when they just hiked up the price of gamepass and have destroyed any good PR they could ever have. Double Fine are in trouble unless the game hits big on gamepass and I can't see that happening. They can't spend years and years on a niche game and get little return on their investment.
 
kevboard said:
they didn't really buy Tango, they bought Bethesda, and Tango was part of that bundle.

meanwhile, they specifically bought Double Fine itself because it is a fan favourite AA studio. it gives them good PR basically... that's the purpose of Double Fine.
Click to expand...
they bought them because they needed content at the time.

Now they have Activision... do they still need DF to make money losing games? I know Grounded is somewhat successful but they can strip mine the studio like they have with other ones.

I would be surprised if they continue to invest in games like this going forward.
 
When is the last time DoubleFine created a dollar of profitability? I was in the BioWare thread and had a thought. At this point, in the life of BioWare, I'm not even sure they're profitable at this point. Even their old classics didn't set sales charts on fire. Last few projects have all lost hundreds of millions. It would be interesting to math out.
 
diffusionx said:
Now they have Activision... do they still need DF to make money losing games? I know Grounded is somewhat successful but they can strip mine the studio like they have with other ones.
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Grounded is an Obsidian game, Double Fine has nothing to do with it.
 
As long as MS owns Double Fine and Obsidian, I will always find a way to play their games.

Must play IMO.

Also I will be supporting the devs by playing on gamepass. (Monthly payment).
 
Knucklepux said:
Keeper is going to bomb

No PlayStation at launch, increase in gamepass cost announced, no marketing

Xbox/PC players aren't gonna buy this. It was always doomed to be a "I'll give it a try on Gamepass" type of game. But Microsoft is ensuring it fails.

No reason to keep them around.

Cue the Double Fine being shut down and Tim Schaefer starting a new studio
Click to expand...
Why would the game pass increase have anything but a positive effect on the likelihood of them surviving?
 
Knucklepux said:
Keeper is going to bomb

No PlayStation at launch, increase in gamepass cost announced, no marketing

Xbox/PC players aren't gonna buy this. It was always doomed to be a "I'll give it a try on Gamepass" type of game. But Microsoft is ensuring it fails.

No reason to keep them around.

Cue the Double Fine being shut down and Tim Schaefer starting a new studio
Click to expand...

Isnt Keeper coming out in like 2 weeks??
 
diffusionx said:
never heard of it
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Kacho said:
It was going to bomb regardless. No one knows that game exists, or care about Double Fine.
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KellyNole said:
I just found out this exists and I am on gaf multiple times a day. Crazy.
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DKehoe said:
That looks kinda cool. I had no idea it existed until just now.
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BennyBlanco said:
I have never heard of this game tbh
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Hollowpoint5557 said:
The free market has spoken. 🤷‍♂️ Hard to feel sorry for devs who put out art-house niche products that don't sell. Microsoft surely has to be getting tired of propping these kind of studios/games up.
Click to expand...

evanft said:
Here's a list of all the great games from Double Fine.
Click to expand...

Borealis said:
It seems kinda insane to me that MS asks their console customers to pay almost double the amount of PC players to get their Games day 1... This has "please get rid of your Xbox" vibes tbh.
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Outlier said:
Exactly.

I almost forgot they even existed.
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This makes me want to pour one out for Neogaf. The gaming forum.
 
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