Psychonauts on Steam

[Roderick]

HOLY FUCK! Minecraft's millions put to great use! This keeps getting better and better.

[Lu]

So the way shit is nowadays, what's stopping fans from paying for the development of some games?

[Roderick]

I think it's the sheer numbers required. Something like Kickstarter, which crowdfunds projects including games, is great for projects ranging anywhere from 1,000-100,000 Dollars, but if you need millions I doubt you'd ever get there. That sort of cash requires private investors, or, you know, benefit concerts.

[Thyroid]

Funny thought of the day: the entire world knew about this before Tim Schafer did, hee.

[Roderick]

Stevan and Rusalka!! Boot up the ol' Cult of Tim again! And someone get Remo into those test chambers - Psychonauts has returned!

[Nappi]

WHHAAAAT??

[toblix]

I would totally purchase a pre-alpha Java applet Psychonauts 2.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Or Notch: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/07/notch-says-to-schafer-lets-make-psychonauts-2-happen/

I've always thought gaming would be a much more interesting place with a few more eccentric millionaires in the funding pool.

Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! :tup: How utterly wonderful that something big might be created for the love of it, rather than because marketing says it's "viable".

I think Psychonauts 2 should probably be episodic. Just my 2c.

Now I feel totally happy about paying $20 for Minecraft.

Also, somebody buy Notch a copy of Firefly.

(Has anyone else wondered what they'd fund if they suddenly became Warren Buffet? There's so many wonderful things that could exist if people weren't so hung up on making a profit -- and Psychonauts 2 could easily make a profit, if you ask me.)

[Gwardinen]

(Has anyone else wondered what they'd fund if they suddenly became Warren Buffet? There's so many wonderful things that could exist if people weren't so hung up on making a profit -- and Psychonauts 2 could easily make a profit, if you ask me.)

On the games front, my first thought is Dungeon Keeper 3. I've hoped for it for years, and a recent game called Dungeons appeared that was clearly an homage to it but just made me unhappy because it failed to live up. I'm convinced it can still work.

[ThunderPeel2001]

For me, I'd probably: Buy Monkey Island on the condition that Dave Gilbert and the other two agreed to work on it together.

Buy Grim Fandango and give it to Double Fine.

Buy Halo Jones and give it to Alan Moore.

But number one: I'd fund Firefly -- but that would likely be a LOT more expensive.

[Gwardinen]

But number one: I'd fund Firefly -- but that would likely be a LOT more expensive.

That was actually the very first thing I thought of, but I wonder if it's too late now. I wonder if the people have just moved on a little too much at this point. For one thing, both Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin are major characters in other TV shows now.

Nice to dream, though.

[ThunderPeel2001]

That was actually the very first thing I thought of, but I wonder if it's too late now. I wonder if the people have just moved on a little too much at this point. For one thing, both Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin are major characters in other TV shows now.

Nice to dream, though.

Yeah, but both of them still would like to do it... Even the actors miss the show a huge amount. Where there's a will, there's a way

[Thyroid]

Dave Gilbert

[ThunderPeel2001]

I never get tired people thinking that's an accident...

[Donk]

How much money are we actually talking about? Anyone think Notch will see any returns if they actually go forward with this?

[BigJKO]

This is so wonderful and makes me happy!

I love how a person saying "I'll use my money to fund a sequel to a beloved game" somehow still manages to get negative comments on Rock Paper Shotgun.

[Tanukitsune]

I was wondering why this thread was resurrected...

I'm not keeping too much track on what they are saying to each other, but "Notch" suggested an episodic game in the last tweet I saw.

Just how rich is Notch? Are there still people out there who would want Minecraft, but haven't heard of it? Do people love him so much they buy several copies or donate?

Frankly, I don't know how excited I should be, since it's still something that may or may not happen. Or at least, that what I'm going to keep telling myself until it's confirmed.

Hmm... I wouldn't mind to finally see the Shenmue trilogy completed, didn't the author say that all he needed was funding too?

[Thrik]

Sweet Jesus, you mean I might actually get to do something with Psychonauts.net again?!

Just how rich is Notch?

In short: very.

Slightly longer answer: Minecraft was first available as an alpha for about €10, and later as a beta for about €15. Around the end of last year he reported that he's sold about 4,000,000 copies, meaning he's sitting on at least:

• €40,000,000
  
• £33,000,000
  
• $53,000,000
  

That calculation is made with the assumption that all sales were €10, whereas in reality many if not most of them were probably €15 — so you could very easily add another €10m or so onto that. Also these sales figures are from last year, and he has no real publishing costs to deal with. He's been splashing out a bit on extra developers and stuff but I think it's fair to say he's sitting on a pretty fuckin' big pile of cash.

So, yeah. Pretty much the ultimate indie developer dream. But don't forget that Minecraft was literally a phenomenon, so it's certainly an unusual case.

[Roderick]

It's a good sign the other informal investor dude, the one who made Psychonauts for the Mac happen, is now interested as well. Notch doesn't have to put up all the money: even if he were to invest a moderate sum, it would get a party like Microsoft or EA interested to bear the rest of the burden. These things have a way of snowballing. I can't interpret this in any other way than happiness.

(And yes, it's amazing that a bunch of absolute nincompoops take this joyous news as a pretext to start armchair-philosophizing about how much of a 'one-hit wonder' Mojang is and how Notch will inevitably be ruined and a joke. The fact of the matter is, there is zero reason to assume any of this either way, and it's infuriating internet idiocy at it's finest by a bunch of meretricious nimrods!)

[Nachimir]

If they do go for something with Psychonauts, I hope they're careful. Those amounts of money would be surprisingly easy to piss away in game dev for console and PC nowadays.

[Thrik]

Double Fine seems to have gotten quite good at producing wonderful things on small budgets, hopefully that experience will carry over into getting their big projects done in less insane amounts of time.

[Tanukitsune]

Would we really want some AAA company's hand on such a project?

Remember what happened to Brütal Legend when the publisher tried to convince everybody it was an action game and not an RTS?

Speculation is fun! I'm going to bet they'll have DLC skins for every store! Buy it at GameStomp for a Grim Fandango skin, at BurstBuy for a Purple Tentacle one!

[Nachimir]

Episodic Psychonauts: CONFIRMED.

[Thrik]

To be honest I don't think EA could have done much better than they did, it was a fairly excellent marketing campaign — an infinitely better effort than the laughable approach taken by Majesco. The real problem was that Brutal Legend wasn't that sellable and actually not as good as it could have been, so no marketing campaign could really have saved it.

Of course this is a totally separate discussion.

[syntheticgerbil]

I'm kind of disheartened by a suggestions for "Psychonauts 2" because I think this universe would be perfect for continuous episodic content as suggested before by Double Fine (or you guys?).

I already played the original in bite size chunks as it is because of the level structure and different play styles employed. I found this made the game uneven, but in an episodic context it's perfect. Plus Double Fine could make more money off of chunks instead of a big budget game title that drops to $20 in price in a matter of three months.

Edited February 8, 2012 by syntheticgerbil