Psychonauts 2 and Psychonauts: Rhombus of Ruin

[Nz17]

Psychonauts 2 announcement, videos, links: http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/help_us_make_psychonauts_2/
Rhombus of Ruin info: http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/announcing_psychonauts_in_the_rhombus_of_ruin/

Basically, Psychonauts 2 will be crowdfunded through a combination of backers, investors, Double Fine, et al. For some reason, DF is using Fig.co instead of Kickstarter this time (probably to let people be investors in addition to being backers). The game will continue the story from the previous Psychonauts title.

Psychonauts: Rhombus of Ruin is not being crowdfunded but financed in the normal fashion, probably paid for in part by a big chunk of change from Sony. Rhombus of Ruin is basically Psychonauts 1.5. Interestingly, it will not be a third-person action platformer, but instead it will be a first-person virtual reality game. This is probably being done to promote Sony's PS4 VR units. This game's story will act as the bridge between Psychonauts 1 and 2.

Psychonauts 2 and Psychonauts: Rhombus of Ruin are due out sometime in the unspecified future. My guess is it will be late 2016 to summer 2017 for Rhombus of Ruin, and 2018 to 2020 for Psychonauts 2. I believe both of these games will eventually be available for Linux, Mac, Windows, Steam, PS4, and XBone, though the console versions will be a timed PlayStation-exclusive for a while.

[Nz17]

As of right now:
20,090 backers
$3,279,645 raised of $3,300,000 goal
6 days left

[Tupin]

I'd trust Tim Schafer with my money like I'd trust a starving dog with a Porterhouse. The fact that he's basically been lying to investors and saying that basically giving away Psychonauts is basically "proof" that it has a fanbase plus the skeevy nature of that Kickstarter clone that he helped create really makes it worse.

Kotick was right about him.

[Nz17]

Instead of throwing accusations all over the place, perhaps you should read the hard numbers on the dollars and statistics.

And in other news, Double Fine is over 100% of its goal of $3.3 million for Psychonauts 2 now.

[Tupin]

Considering what happened money wise with Broken Age I'm not holding my breath.

[Nz17]

Considering that I got years of entertainment from the updates, screenshots, photos, videos, blog posts, and feedback (Many of my suggestions got integrated into the game itself.), plus early access to Part 1 and Part 2, and got copies of the game for multiple operating systems, all for $15, I'm very satisfied that I got my money's worth out of Broken Age.

[Gameguy]

For some reason, DF is using Fig.co instead of Kickstarter this time (probably to let people be investors in addition to being backers).
Actually it seems that Tim Shafer is directly connected to this Fig company as he's on the advisory board. An accountant goes over this in detail(link below), it seems there's great risk in "investing" with this and very little chance that anyone can earn a return with how it's set up. You would actually be investing in the Fig publishing business rather than directly with Double Fine, this publishing business is already losing money so there's a great chance that it will go bankrupt within 12 months(it's just being propped up at this point). It's just set up in a way that Tim keeps the money no matter what happens, even if the publishing company goes out of business it's basically just a shell that funnels money through it, it's just legally if it goes under you get no protection and you'll lose everything "invested" in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFX0f_YUn1I

[Tupin]

Actually it seems that Tim Shafer is directly connected to this Fig company as he's on the advisory board. An accountant goes over this in detail(link below), it seems there's great risk in "investing" with this and very little chance that anyone can earn a return with how it's set up. You would actually be investing in the Fig publishing business rather than directly with Double Fine, this publishing business is already losing money so there's a great chance that it will go bankrupt within 12 months(it's just being propped up at this point). It's just set up in a way that Tim keeps the money no matter what happens, even if the publishing company goes out of business it's basically just a shell that funnels money through it, it's just legally if it goes under you get no protection and you'll lose everything "invested" in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFX0f_YUn1I
Yeah, this video is what solidified my opinion of Schafer and why I was "throwing accusations all over the place." The one about him fluffing up Psychonauts' popularity to investors is in there too.

Yes, a lot of people will buy Psychonauts for $2 during a Steam sale or for practically nothing when it is in a ton of "Indie" bundles. I'd bet far fewer people would pay $60, or even $50, $40, or $30 for a sequel to a decade old game that again honestly is only owned by so many people because it's basically a bargain bin title in terms of value. Of course there are die hard fans, I'm sure they'll buy it though.

[Nz17]

I figured that Tim Schafer was connected with Fig.co. I mean, why else skip Kickstarter, the most popular crowdfunding Web site, and Indiegogo, the second most popular?

As far as sales and prices go, I know I picked up both the pre-Double-Fine-owned Steam copy of Psychonauts (before Double Fine bought back the publishing rights from Majesco), and the $50 XBOX version of Psychonauts back when it was new.

And as far as that YouTube video, let's have Tim and Justin Bailey (Fig CEO and Double Fine employee) answer some of those concerns via a Reddit AMA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/40i8ej/iama_tim_schafer_creator_of_psychonauts_ask_me/
https://www.reddit.com/user/Fig_JUSTIN_BAILEY