Notch downplays Psychonauts 2 funding offer

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 16 February, 2012

"I have NO idea if this is actually going to happen."

Minecraft maker Notch has downplayed his potential funding of Psychonauts 2.

Notch set the internet alight after offered to fund the game in a tweet to Double Fine boss Tim Schafer.

Schafer later said it would cost at least $13 million to make the game, to which Notch apparently replied: "I can do that."

But now it appears as if Notch isn't sure the game's a goer.

In a blog post titled "Hype" the Mojang chief said Schafer's development budget estimation was three times higher than he expected.

"Tim and I haven't spoken much at all other than a couple of emails," he said. "We mentioned meeting at GDC, I hope that will happen. I assume Double Fine will be very busy for many months with the Kickstarter project.

"The budget for doing a Psychonauts 2 is three times higher than my initial impression. A couple of other parties have mentioned also being interested in investing in it. I would not be investing in this as a charity. It would be because I think the game would be profitable. And naturally, I wouldn't want to have any creative input in the game. It would be purely a high risk investment in a project I believe in."

Notch's mention of the Kickstarter project is in reference to Double Fine's hugely successful crowd-sourcing of funding for an adventure game.

Schafer raised $1 million in a day after setting a $400,000 target on Kickstarter. The total raised is now approaching $2 million.

This game, Notch believes, is of higher priority than any Psychonauts sequel.

"I have NO idea if this is actually going to happen," he said. "The Kickstarter stuff obviously changes the playing field a lot. Investing that incredibly high amount of money also requires a lot of planning and discussion, and I've never done anything like that before, but I do have contacts and advisors to help me out.

"All I know is that IF the numbers work out and IF they still want to do it and IF they don't decide to self-fund a sequel by doing more crowd-funding (which is honestly what I would've done if I were them), I would be most interested in doing this type of investment."

Notch called for calm: "Point is, stop hyping over this, internet! You're going to scare me into doing things secretly instead of being open and transparent via Twitter. I am incredibly scared of the very real risk of people feeling let down just because I took a chance at something that doesn't end up panning out.

"Also, I realize you won't stop hyping, so I'll just go into hiding for a few years if it falls through."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 3 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Goonboy #1 3 months ago

    well, that just killed my boner.

  • bad09 #2 3 months ago

    I bet he was drunk and realised in the morning he had just promised someone 13 mill. Happens to me all the time.....

    Seriously though there has been a lot of buzz over a simple exchange over twitter so he is probably right to play it down at this point.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #3 3 months ago

    I'm sure it's not only been me that's confused between all this Psychonauts 2 talk and the Kickstarter project. How many people contributed to that under the impression that it was clubbing in with Notch for Psychonauts 2?

  • arcam #4 3 months ago

    It was kinda funny how it was "a few million" needed initially, then after Notch jumped in the number jumped to $13m :p

  • Subdominator #5 3 months ago

    Classic Notch, lots of promises, loves the spotlight, chickens out when things get serious. It's just like development of Minecraft (thank god Jens and Jon have taken over, they actually get things done at a nice pace). Wanna know why Peter Molyneux is a genre in their vote? Because Notch is becoming more and more the second Molyneux. Half of what he promised for the full version of Minecraft still isn't there.

    But it's not the money that made him a douchebag. He says himself he always believed he was one of the top developers in the world (until someone proved him wrong). The guy has a huge ego and often should take the time to cool down before getting in situations like he did with the Yogscast after Minecon.

  • Frosty840 #6 3 months ago

    Just goes to show that people underestimate the costs of modern game development. Notch is a (wildly) successful game developer, but he's (so far) only a one-hit wonder on a game he put together himself, and then hired a couple of secondary coders for, without needing to hire an extensive art team because of the nature of his product.

    The development costs of a more well-rounded, fleshed-out project like a Psychonauts sequel, budgeted by an industry veteran like Schaefer who flat-out knows how much this stuff costs because he's done it a bunch of times before have obviously surprised him.

    I wonder what that says for any of Notch's own future projects...

  • Yuroko #7 3 months ago

    Surely he should be happy about all the hype, it might mean lots of people will buy his funded game and he'll do well on his investment.

  • danhese007 #8 3 months ago

    Saw it coming. You do not offer to fund a game via twitter, you call, email, snail mail, page or telegraph the developer. Unless you want the internet to hype over it, especially if you have 500,000+ followers on twitter. Lol

  • Subdominator #9 3 months ago

    @arcam The 13 million is the original budget of Psychonauts. That doesn't mean the sequel would be just as expensive.

  • Frosty840 #10 3 months ago

    @MENTAL1ST As many people who decided to pay out money without reading what it was they were paying for, I guess...

    I shall pretend to retain a shred of faith in humanity and claim that it was probably a small number. Then I shall go and weep.

  • TheDudesRug #11 3 months ago

    He probably was just showing off.

  • misinformed #12 3 months ago

    @Subdominator Generally as they get more complex that has to cost more.

  • number3son #13 3 months ago

    "A couple of other parties have mentioned also being interested in investing in it."

    Please don't let EA publish it. Please don't let EA publish it. Please don't let EA publish it...
    Edited by number3son at 16/02/12 @ 09:23

  • ZuluHero #14 3 months ago

    Well, personally, I was pledging for "Double fine Adventures". All this Psychonauts business is extraneous to that.

    In regards to him backing out, I think this has been misconstrued a little. I find articles like this on EG very hard to read and misleading, and often lines are printed out of sync and quotes used deliberately out of context. And there is always a follow up article the next day to explain the subject.

    It's the gaming journalism equivalent of the Daily Express or the Sun. A little bit trashy, often controversial and enough 'information' to cause very heated debates fuelled by a dash of truth and more than a pinch of hearsay.

    Still, it matters not. I enjoy the trash as much as the informative stuff. I guess what I will take from this is that Notch *might* still want to help contribute to the development of Psychonauts 2. let's hope he can get those other investors that he had in mind on board!

  • bobfish09 #15 3 months ago

    @Subdominator Some sites are throwing around a figure like $40m as the amount needed.

    Notch didn't say he won't invest, he just says he'll only do it if he thinks it will be profitable.

  • Subdominator #16 3 months ago

    @misinformed That depends on the scale of the game. They could just create what is basically a mission pack for Psychonauts. They could reuse a lot of sound effects, they could reuse the (slightly updated) engine and that 13 million probably includes their marketing budget.

  • Subdominator #17 3 months ago

    @bobfish09 Some sites are just full of shit. :) The average budget for a retail game these days is 6 million for a 2 year period. You can easily pay a team of over 50 developers with that.

  • arcam #18 3 months ago

    @Subdominator The 13 million is the original budget of Psychonauts. That doesn't mean the sequel would be just as expensive

    But the article we're discussing says "Schafer later said it would cost at least $13 million to make the game". Kotaku's quote has it as "The original game was, I think, $13 million, I think you have to match the original game".

    Then again, websites seem to have got a lot of this wrong so I don't know how true that is.

  • Concrete #19 3 months ago

    @subdominator

    No, it's a lot lot higher than that.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #20 3 months ago

    How many reverse gears does his bicycle have exactly?

    /peddles furiously

  • scoop #21 3 months ago

    So it's not just politicians that tweet without thinking :)

  • AnotherIdiot #22 3 months ago

    Post deleted at 13:39:42 16-02-2012

  • Subdominator #23 3 months ago

    @Concrete Here's how it went: Notch thinks about funding. Has something like 4 to 5 million in mind. Schafer tells him it's gonna be pretty much what the original budget was (13 million) and goes public with that number. Notch rethinks and says it's about 3x what he expected. Stupid journalist at Kotaku makes 13x3 = 40 million budget for Psychonauts 2 OMG! The truth is: AAA titles these days have a 20 million budget (according to Ubisoft anyway). There are of course some that are much higher (take SW:TOR for example) and a lot that are much cheaper.

    Even with inflation taken into consideration the original Psychonauts doesn't come over 15 million. And the sequel would be built with what they know about the market. It will be a downloadable game because the IP already failed at retail once. Even Rayman Origins has made a profit according to Ubisoft and that is with worldwide sales lower than 500k. Game development is not nearly as expensive as it is always said to be, those numbers just skyrocket when EA and Co. are working on games because they don't have 50 people working on any given game, they have 500 people working on them. That's why their costs are so much higher.

  • Concrete #24 3 months ago

    Ubisoft pay less to make games because of the Canadian government.

    I'm not saying that I know for certain how much it will cost to make Psychonauts 2, but a modern AAA game costs a lot more than 6 million and requires a lot more than 50 people, even solely in terms of internal dev staff.
    Edited by Concrete at 16/02/12 @ 14:45

  • Golgo #25 3 months ago

    "I have no idea if this is actually going to happen...I just wanted to remind everyone that I'm rich, RICH, RIIIICH, I tells ya!!!"

    Now he's calling THE INTERNET for calm and to stop hyping it up, when he pinged it on Twitter for all to see! Honestly, what a fucking AAA tool.
    Edited by Golgo at 16/02/12 @ 14:58

  • Subdominator #26 3 months ago

    @Concrete We're not talking about AAA titles, we're talking about Psychonauts 2.