Moosferatu

Andy Rules

Recommended Posts

Check out Andy's update on Psychonauts over at Tim Fandango.

It's great to hear that they've got a publisher and a release date now. Interestingly enough, February is my birthday month (Doug, isn't it your's too?), and Psychonauts is certainly one hell of a present.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Why wasn't I notified of this earlier?

Crappy news collection services, may you collectively go to hell!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

great news!

but i'll repeat what i did before the release of grim: i try to get as less news about psychonauts (mainly story+characters) as possible to keep up the surprise. i did the same with grim and...uhhh...it was awesome!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Who is Andy? Why does he think I'm a liar? Why does everybody think this?

February is a bad month for me. I'll have no time to play it until Easter, because of my Exams and Work. Also, February is a bad month for Double Fine. Most games are sold around the Christmas Season, I believe, and February seems a little too far on the other side of Christmas to even benefit from exchanged unwanted gifts. Psychonauts will be full price where other stuff has come down in the sales, and everybody is back at school. And it's too far from any other holiday to benefit from those, either.

My money is on EA Games, by the way.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Who is Andy? Why does he think I'm a liar? Why does everybody think this?

I don't think that. Oh, wait, yeah I do. I was lying. HA! Now you know how it feels!

My money is on EA Games, by the way.

:frown:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hell, it was Microsoft before. I don't think EA Games is a step in either direction...

Besides, at least they'll have the resources to advertise Psychonauts as much as possible, to boost sales in what is otherwise a really bad time to release a game... I would have thought.

Quite frankly, as long as the Publisher has money and resources, who cares? It won't change the people behind the game. It won't change the developers, the designer, or the game itself. What's important is that Psychonauts gets a chance to live. Not much good being published by The Adventure Company when you're dead.

Hey, come to think of it... what about LucasArts?

P.S. I bet you can't think of a single time I have lied.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest James

This is a good sign, hopefully we'll be playing the game some day. Andy does indeed rock, excellent site.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't know. I think getting a Publisher is kind of a bad sign, really. I mean, when you think about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Besides, at least they'll have the resources to advertise Psychonauts as much as possible, to boost sales in what is otherwise a really bad time to release a game... I would have thought.

True enough. I don't know why they would chose February. You'd think they'd want to have it in time for the holidays, or, better yet, at least October. (Because we all know that once November 9th rolls around, there will be approximately one Xbox game that people will be buying for the next few months.)

Oh, and:

It's not my fault I live in San Francisco and you don't...

:ratched:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

See, here is what makes me think of EA Games.

Whoever the Publisher is, they must be pretty confident that they're going to be able to push Psychonauts far enough that they're going to release it in February.

There aren't many companies that would have enough money to be that confident.

Plus, I'd say Psychonauts was a pretty good catch for any Publisher. EA probably would have been one of the companies that could 'best accomodate' Double Fine.

The reason that it's not being released earlier is probably mostly because of packaging and distributation reasons.

Oh, and:
It's not my fault I live in San Francisco and you don't...

That's not a lie, though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

ea will publish psychonauts? okay, they have the money, but hopefully they'll give psychonauts enough time for being as perfect as possible. since they raped ultima 9 and origin i really really hate ea games.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No they... I mean... what I said was...

...ahhh...

....Yeah. EA, yeah. Dang, huh??

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

EA did recently pick up the new Oddworld game, however. A point towards that theory if you want to be all Stretch Armstrong about it. That said, I don't know anyone whos gut instinct tells them "EA and Psychonauts is a probable match," without some serious rationalizing. Well, except Yufster's apparently.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I bet you didn't know anybody who had a gut instinct about Oddworld and EA either.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ubisoft seems like a more likely match, if you ask me.

Furthermore, the games may sell around Christmas, but there will be a wee million new games on the stands, many of which will be overlooked for a few blockbuster titles. February may be a calculated risk.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

ea is a competent publisher, but they're very profit oriented, so that they sometimes sacrifice innovative ideas or development time for fast money. so is there for example a difference between the three(?) harry potter games? huh?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Who is Andy? Why does he think I'm a liar? Why does everybody think this?

February is a bad month for me. I'll have no time to play it until Easter, because of my Exams and Work. Also, February is a bad month for Double Fine. Most games are sold around the Christmas Season, I believe, and February seems a little too far on the other side of Christmas to even benefit from exchanged unwanted gifts. Psychonauts will be full price where other stuff has come down in the sales, and everybody is back at school. And it's too far from any other holiday to benefit from those, either.

My money is on EA Games, by the way.

Andy is Andy Mishler who goes by amishler in forums (including this one, but he doesn't post much here). He updates news and writes content over at Tim Fandango. Speaking of content... I need to get on the ball and finish up DotT...

Actually, I think it might be better for Psychonauts if it comes out after the holiday season. Just look at what happened to poor BG&E, and you can't say that it didn't have the backing of a major publisher either. Like OftenK pointed out, this holiday season is going to be ruled by Halo 2, Fable, PoP2, etc. It'd be burried. I'd hate to see Psychonauts met the same fate as BG&E.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
ea is a competent publisher, but they're very profit oriented, so that they sometimes sacrifice innovative ideas or development time for fast money. so is there for example a difference between the three(?) harry potter games? huh?

Yeah, but the point is that they aren't developing it, and they can't really screw with the developement process much at this point because the game is near complete. Probably the worst they could do is release it to early and full of bugs, but even that seems unlikely considering how long Psychonauts has been in developement.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Aye, they're still creating 'new builds', whatever that means.

But they are testing! That's good.

Haha, I bet Chris can't post in this thread. I am gonna to put "psychonauts" in the title of every thread I start from now on.

...Well, nothing new there.

You are right about February being a calculated risk. I never thought about it like that. Well, that's made be a lot happier.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Christmas seems like a bad time for a game like Psychonauts... BG&E and Armed & Dangerous both came out as possibly holiday games and were promptly ignored by all the moms and grandmas who were buying Christmas gifts for their kids. It seems like Christmas is the time for huge franchise games that parents will recognize, while a few months afterwords, kids will be out looking for something new and possibly picking it out themselves. That's when you spring giant tea drinking robots, government conspiracies, pic mechanics, and psychic summer camps on them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Yeah, but the point is that they aren't developing it, and they can't really screw with the developement process much at this point because the game is near complete. Probably the worst they could do is release it to early and full of bugs, but even that seems unlikely considering how long Psychonauts has been in developement.

yeah, but nevertheless i'm always having this ultima 9-nightmare in my mind, although it is hard to compare with the situation of psychonauts, but ea gave the designers and programmers of ultima 9 too less time to complete it, so that for instance they had to cut down the plot and put rendersequences together (because they had to put them into the game somehow, because they're expensive...) and release it with around a million of bugs in the us, blablabla. and when i read (around a year after i finished ultima 9) about the story and design that was planned for the game and what ea indirectly did to it i was pretty shocked. ultima 9 is a great game, but it could have been one of the best games ever made. since then i don't trust into ea any longer.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
it could have been one of the best games ever made.

HA HA HA HA!!!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

pfffft...if you have some time left you could have a look into the production history of u9: http://members.aon.at/hacki-ultima/english/articles_orig.htm

or if you have a lot of time left you could also have a look into the original story of ultima 9 from 1998: http://members.aon.at/hacki-ultima/english/articles_orig_plot.htm

[...]

In early 1999, there were again changes made to the team, and EA set Origin a deadline for the game. That was the point when everything went down the hill. There were major changes made to the plot (because it wasn’t possible to implement the original plot into the 3D engine without much more work), and the engine was left hilariously buggy in many places. When the game was released in late 1999, it became infamous for its many bugs. But not only the engine was buggy; the plot, the characters, and the dialogues were left unfinished as well.

[...]

oh, btw, ultima 9 is a great example for bad project development...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.