TB's WTF is Broken Age and Double Fines Fund mismanagement.

[wulf3n]

So I just watched Total Biscuits WTF is Broken Age. Overall it's pretty good on par with the rest of his WTF is... Series, with the exception of one thing, the idea that Double Fine squandered/mismanaged their funds.

This to me seems blatantly wrong. Looking at the quality of the game from the gameplay, to the art work, to the music, to the voice acting and it's clear that the game we received exactly what we paid for.

Don't get me wrong I understand where I think TB is coming from, the idea that those who kickstarted were doing so for a "game", specifically a complete package, and not the first part of two parts.

I believe this has more to do with people not understanding what exactly they were backing. There was no outline of what the game would be, just a vague notion of "I wan't to make a old-school Point-and-click Adventure without a publisher sticking their fingers into everything.

Backers weren't funding an already designed game, they were giving Tim Schafer money to let him do what he does without restriction. In that sense we got exactly what we paid for.

What are your thoughts Escapists? Do you feel the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter was mismanaged? if so why?

 

[Yali]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

 

[shrekfan246]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

Well, that's pretty much all that needs to be said.

Don't get me wrong, OP, I'm sure Schafer and Double Fine used all of the money they got on the game they've created, especially with all of those high-profile voice actors they shoved in there.

But that still doesn't mean they didn't horrendously mismanage the money they got to make it in much the same way as people usually complain about the development costs of AAA games.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Ummm...boo-fucking-hoo, I guess? So they used MORE money than the backers were expecting on the game they backed? I don't really understand why anyone is complaining. From what I've heard, the game itself is rather good. And so what if it's coming out in two parts instead of one, what's the big deal? It's a frickin' Kickstarter, not a preorder, nobody knew for certain when the game was gonna come out anyway. I don't particularly like the term "gamer entitlement", but this sure sounds like a case of people complaining when there isn't a whole lot to complain about.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

As far as I am aware Schafer actually went back and decided to make a bigger game when he saw how much money was donated, I can see his position in some ways I mean he could have just delivered his 400000 game and pocketed the rest of the cash but that may have annoyed some so he went for a bigger and I suppose in his mind better game and from the sounds of it got carried away.

If the full game is coming out though I see no problem with what is happening or is he asking for more money to finish?

 

[Bombiz]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

how do you have 3,300,000$ and still manage to run out of money?

 

[StriderShinryu]

I think there are a few questions that really should be answered, and none of them have anything to do with the quality of the product that Double Fine released. No one is saying that the game doesn't look like it was worth the amount they received, and no one is saying it's a bad game. The questions are really all about the actual planning and accounting at Double Fine. I would like to know what the $400K game would have been like, and if there was any actual plan in place there for completing that on budget. I would like to know what the differences were between the $400K and $3M game. I would like to know what the actual plan was for the $3M game once they had that amount and what actually went wrong to cause them to need more.

Basically, at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether Double Fine can be trusted with crowd funding. Once the game releases it's likely to be good, sure, but there do seem to be some pretty major issues involved in how Double Fine actually plans out their development process. If I'm going to be investing in anything, and that's what Kickstarter is, then I think a big part of my decision making process should revolve around how my/our money is being spent not just whether I get what I want once all is said and done. That's not being overly critical or cynical, that's just being a smart investor.

 

[Altorin]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

how do you have 3,300,000$ and still manage to run out of money?

by making a completely different game.

when they were requesting 400,000 dollars, they were probably intending to make something along the lines of Day of the Tentacle, like sprite based 2d-in-3d plane game. Getting 3.3million required/allowed them to make something different, adding full 3d areas and characters.

I'm not commenting on their success in any case, but Broken Age as it is couldn't have been made for 400,000, and whatever they were planning to make for 400,000 would look silly if they spent 3.3million on it. that's my take away at least.

 

[sonofliber]

3.3M is around 76000 copies at 40 dollars, it isnt really that much

 

[GiantRaven]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

The original $400,000 game was going to be a simple flash game, not Broken Age. The scope of the Kickstarter was increased hugely when they got the amount they did.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

A few things I want to say:

As others have said, any plans that they had before the Kickstarter launched were basically thrown out the window as soon as the Kickstarter started exploding. They said that their original ideas were more akin to some cheap iPad game than what we actually got. So it really wasn't a case of they spent $3 million to make a $400,000 game by any stretch of the imagination.

They didn't actually have the full funds of the Kickstarter to actually develop the game. Not only were there the Kickstarter fees and backer rewards, but they also spent a substantial portion of the funds on the documentary (which is excellent, by the way).

Double Fine was in uncharted territory with the whole crowdfunding thing. Nobody had done crowdfunding for video games before except super small indie studios. It's not exactly surprising that they ran into a few bumps when they were doing something that nobody had done on that scale.

Throughout the development, they made a point to not ask for any additional money from the community, and not do a second crowdfunding campaign, even though it probably would have given them quite a big percentage of the money they would have needed. The same can't be said for a lot of Kickstarted games.

A Kickstarted game running out of money and needing to sell the game before it's completed isn't an uncommon thing at all. Looking at the early access page of Steam, under the featured plane, I know at least five of those games are Kickstarted games. Wasteland 2 went up on early access, and I don't think I heard anybody make a fuss about that one. Hell, it isn't even unique to Kickstarted games, I would be willing to bet that most games made by major publishers end up going way over the initial budget.

Ultimately, funds were mismanaged to an extent, but I would much rather they go over budget than sacrifice any of the quality of the final product.

 

[BrotherRool]

As long as they release a complete game in the end, then they haven't squandered backers money. In fact if it does turn out that they ran out, but they still manage to release a full game, it means backers get a bigger game than their money was worth because Double Fine invested their own profits into it.


The time thing we're going to have to get used to, developers don't know how long a game is going to take before they start making it. They definitely don't know before they've actually been given a budget.

These kickstarter games work on old-school game economics. It's a small amount of dedicated people working over a full development cycle (so multi years) to produce a high quality game. It's not the modern 'chuck hundreds of people in to pump it out in a year'. So time aside, it's only whether the game will be completed, and it almost definitely will, so I don't see where the complaint could be

 

[wulf3n]

All good responses.

The questions are really all about the actual planning and accounting at Double Fine. I would like to know what the $400K game would have been like, and if there was any actual plan in place there for completing that on budget.

There wasn't a plan, that was very clear from the get go, there was just a vague notion of making a game without publisher interference.

I would like to know what the differences were between the $400K and $3M game. I would like to know what the actual plan was for the $3M game once they had that amount and what actually went wrong to cause them to need more.

Nothing went wrong, Tim Schafer said in one of the documentary episodes that after he started working on it he didn't want to handicap the game by limiting to a $3m budget, and so they not only added more funds out of the companies pocket they looked to alternative non-publisher avenues of funding.

There's the notion that Double Fine at some point went "Oh no! we ran out of money. Release what we have and make the rest later" which wasn't the case.

Basically, at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether Double Fine can be trusted with crowd funding. Once the game releases it's likely to be good, sure, but there do seem to be some pretty major issues involved in how Double Fine actually plans out their development process.

The double fine kickstarter was a radically different beast than most kickstarters as they clearly stated they had no plan whatsoever on what the game is going to be. It was more of an experiment than anything else, to see what Double Fine could produce without restriction.

The reaction of mismanagement, especially from backers, seems to me as though people didn't fully read the initial kickstarter pitch.

 

[omega 616]

Double Fine asked for 400.000$ and got 3.300.000$ from the backers and they still ran out of money. Either the initial sum was waaaay off or they got too carried away while making it. Either way, somewhere someone forgot to hire an accountant.

how do you have 3,300,000$ and still manage to run out of money?

Well, imagine budgeting for $400,000 and getting WAY more than it, you can't make your $400,000 game any more 'cos people would be thinking "this game cost $3 million? Really?" so you make everything bigger and better and then you realize you've over spent by going too insane.

If you watch any programme where they do up homes or build something, they always go over budget. It's not so much about mismanaging your budget but problems can arise, all of which can add significant cost.

Little less on topic. I think people need to stop giving TB so much credit, he is just some guy after all ... a journo with an esports team, he isn't a gaming oracle or really in the biz. He is big on youtube but he isn't IGN or machinima. I think all of success has gone to his head.

 

[omega 616]

snip

Wasn't thinking about credibility, I was thinking about the ability to get information. IGN and the like are just like automatically green lit to certain events, like of course IGN are going to be at E3 and every other big gaming event. TB is like "well, I might not got to this one due to X and Y".

All he does is spout his own opinion like pure fact, like he is the holy oracle of gaming. He gives good insight to games but he LOVES the sound of his own voice and can prattle on about 1 tiny thing for 10 minutes without a problem.

 

[shrekfan246]

Little less on topic. I think people need to stop giving TB so much credit, he is just some guy after all ... a journo with an esports team, he isn't a gaming oracle or really in the biz. He is big on youtube but he isn't IGN or machinima. I think all of success has gone to his head.

He's got as much 'credit' in the industry as anybody working for this website. And is, in fact, "in the biz" as much as anybody working on this website. If he doesn't go to an event, it's usually by his own volition, not because he was blacklisted or passed over.

 

[BrotherRool]

All he does is spout his own opinion like pure fact, like he is the holy oracle of gaming. He gives good insight to games but he LOVES the sound of his own voice and can prattle on about 1 tiny thing for 10 minutes without a problem.

He spouts his opinion in the belief that thousands of people are going to be interested in it enough to watch it and sustain a comfortable living for himself. And he's right

I mean I totally get why you might not enjoy it, and even be irritated by it but I don't really think he's overstepping himself or anything if people want to pay him intention. He doesn't inflict his stuff on people, he sticks it on a channel with his name on it and you have to have sought it out to hear it.

 

[omega 616]

snip

No offense to this site but that's why I didn't mention it and instead chose IGN ...

I know he isn't black listed or whatever but he has admitted to being just a 3 or 4 man band, running round with a tripod and basically making do.

snip

Believe it or not, I am actually subbed to him on youtube and have been for some years (since he was doing his wow stuff and his avatar dancing on mailboxes).

Like I said, he gives good commentary on games, which is why I mainly watch his WTF series but his vlogging and soapbox stuff is obnoxious to me. I think he honestly believes he is the one true voice gaming, a beacon of honesty and truth in gaming (slight hyperbole there) but I think he is very arrogant and self righteous ... especially when talking about consoles.

He is like the boastful guy who is always going on about how he has the latest tech, the biggest house, the nicest car etc and you know it all and just want him to shut up about it. You know the ones who say "pc master race" and when you call them on being elitist say "come on, I'm only joking".

 

[StriderShinryu]

Basically, at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether Double Fine can be trusted with crowd funding. Once the game releases it's likely to be good, sure, but there do seem to be some pretty major issues involved in how Double Fine actually plans out their development process.

The double fine kickstarter was a radically different beast than most kickstarters as they clearly stated they had no plan whatsoever on what the game is going to be. It was more of an experiment than anything else, to see what Double Fine could produce without restriction.

The reaction of mismanagement, especially from backers, seems to me as though people didn't fully read the initial kickstarter pitch.

Certainly not the impression I got, but I wasn't a backer on the project and didn't follow it closely at all. If all was made clear up front, then it really is on the backs of the backers, so to speak, and I think it is fair to say that they should have known what they were buying into.

I can definitely say that I would never invest in a project with that sort of "plan" but that's just my perspective.