Double Fine has turned away from traditional big projects and instead gone for downloadable titles, like Costume Quest and Stacking. Happy Action Theater made because asking was small.
They prefer safe bets than gambling on a new property, says Schafer. ”Publishers often don’t want to release anything new, I mean they’re scared of new IP, and Double Fine specialises in new IP.”
”That’s always been our challenge, is getting a publisher to invest millions of dollars in something brand new like Brutal Legend.” The console action game starred impressive vocal talents and was well received by critics in general, but it fizzled in sales and a sequel was never sought out.
”It has helped to have games that are smaller, like digital download games are smaller so the budgets are smaller, like Happy Action Theater. The whole reason it got made was that I was asking for very little money to get it made,” Schafer continued. Happy Action Theater is aimed at a very young audience with Kinect.
”And once it proved the power of it, money was invested in it, but the original thing that we were asking for was very small.” Have you snapped up any of Double Fine’s new digital line of goods, video gamer?
