Schafer on crowd funding: "I don't think publishers are quaking in their boots"
"Oh, two million dollars, that's cute!"
For some, Kickstarter and other crowd funding platforms mark the beginning of the end for game publishers.
But for the developer who has benefited most from the emerging money-making system, it's a case of much ado about nothing.
Tim Schafer, currently over $2 million up after launching a Kickstarter campaign for an old school point and clock adventure game, reckons the likes of Activision and EA aren't worried by the potential impact crowd funding will have on traditional game publishing.
"This is just one of our projects," Schafer told our friends at Rock, Paper Shotgun.
"We have four teams here. Those other teams are still out there pitching new games to publishers, and their response has always been, 'Oh that's great - congratulations on that. Now let's talk about games like we always have.'
"I don't think any publishers are quaking in their boots - they're like, 'Oh, two million dollars, that's cute! That's the marketing budget for the little game I'm working on.'
"It's not a big amount of money for them. It's a big amount of money for us though."
The Psychonauts developer has now raised a whopping $2,271,237 - well beyond the $400,000 it was originally asking for. That's with 14 days to go.
The haul means Double Fine can expand the scope of its adventure game, release it on more platforms and include English voice over.
Schafer's success with Kickstarter has sparked other developers into similar action - Fallout: New Vegas developer Chris Avellone has mulled the possibility of using crowd funding to get an old school isometric role-playing game off the ground, and veteran RPG designer Brian Fargo intends to launch a drive to raise cash for a Wasteland sequel.
