Broken Age sales secure funding for Act 2 development

Double Fine's decision to release Broken Age in two halves is paying off, as Tim Schafer says that sales from the game's season pass has ensured funding for the remainder of the story.

10

Double Fine took a calculated risk by releasing Broken Age in two parts, hoping that the sales from the game's first half would offer enough financing to complete the rest of the adventure. The risk has paid off, as founder Tim Schafer has confirmed that Broken Age's first act has made more than enough money to allow the studio to finish development on the second half of Vella and Shay's story.

"We've made enough that we can make the second half of the game for sure," Schafer told Games Industry International. He did not specify sales numbers, but noted that Act 2's development is proceeding on schedule. He also expresses gratitude to the game's Kickstarter backers.

"We've shipped enough that people can see we weren't kidding, and that's a big relief," Schafer said. "Because I think there's a lot of pressure on Kickstarter projects, especially the really big Kickstarter projects, to just not screw it up for everybody else. It's such a great, positive thing for us, and being able to be funded by our fans opens so many doors for us to do original, creative things that we just wanted to live up to [expectations]."

Schafer adds that Broken Age on iPad is also on track, seeing it as a "really interesting platform" for adventure games. There's no date for the iOS version of Broken Age, which is intended to ship as a complete package. The second half of the story will ship to PC, Mac, and Linux later this year.

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 21, 2014 4:00 PM

    Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Broken Age sales secure funding for Act 2 development.

    Double Fine's decision to release Broken Age in two halves is paying off, as Tim Schafer says that sales from the game's season pass has ensured funding for the remainder of the story.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:05 PM

      Yay, best news all week!

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:07 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:08 PM

      That's great, but I hope it wasn't really ever in question. I think everyone that participated in the Kickstarter would have been pretty upset if all we got was Act 1.

      If they seriously considering not making Act 2 based on the sales of Act 1, then this game was pretty mismanaged.

      • reply
        February 21, 2014 4:15 PM

        That backers pledged $3,336,371 of the $400,000 goal and didn't get a full game should worry anyone about future projects.

        • reply
          February 21, 2014 7:08 PM

          while it didnt work optimally:
          -everyone will get a full game at a much lager scale than the originally planned game.
          -if anyone who doesnt grasp the concept of a kickstarter and its risks he should not spend money.
          you are funding game development not buying a game. if you want to buy a game wait for its release.

          doublefine, inxile obsidian and others that were "safe" bets have been very transparent about development and particularly doublefine deserves all the praise in the world in the way they have documented the development of the game and the work at a developer in particular.

        • reply
          February 21, 2014 7:42 PM

          Do you think the game they ultimately made was initially budgeted at $400,000? Honest question.

          • reply
            February 21, 2014 9:59 PM

            If they stuck to a budget of $400,000 and didn't expand their scope - I'm certain we'd have a totally different game than what has been delivered thus far.

            And I for one have been very pleased with what they have released thus far. Broken Age was an incredibly streamlined game (see: lacking in cliche inventory puzzles, had an effective UI) and the production values were top-notch.

            • reply
              February 21, 2014 10:02 PM

              You're quite right about that.

        • reply
          February 21, 2014 10:07 PM

          Or maybe $3.3 mil just isn't enough for the game that Tim was inspired to make.

          Don't forget, this crowdfunding thing is very much uncharted territory. The original proposal game was going to be in line with a cheap and dirty flash adventure game that would have been a much smaller experience. The only thing that should worry anyone is that maybe Tim can't design to fit a budget exactly, which is an absurd idea. I've never heard of a game hitting their original budget proposal without any issues. Double Fine just didn't have any Daddy Warbucks publishers to cover for budget overruns.

          • reply
            February 22, 2014 6:59 AM

            Also, lacking in a publisher means that DoubleFine has the ability to set their own deadlines and consider any project cuts at their own discretion. Had Act One not been as well received as it was, I'm certain that Act Two would still finish development but perhaps not with all the content that Tim would have wanted to include.

            I'll gladly support a project that may ebb and flow through development towards becoming a full product. It's certainly better than purchasing a game cut short under the heavy hand of a publishing body (IE: Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic 2).

        • reply
          February 22, 2014 8:08 AM

          Late people are late because they overshoot their target. If they had received double that with $6 million, they would still be over budget because they would have overshot the $6 million mark

      • reply
        February 21, 2014 4:22 PM

        Yes and no I guess - because they sensed a larger market for it they were much more ambitious with what they made compared to what they had planned on doing. I would have been satisfied with a pixel art, very small adventure game that still contained Tim's writing but I am very happy with what we got so far.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:11 PM

      Awesome! They seemed quite apprehensive on the documentary last episode, guess they`ll be able to breath a lot easier from here out. Hopefully that`s a good sign for sales to continue and they can start to build a bit of a war-chest to fund other things.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:21 PM

      That's cool and I love DF. I do think it would be a good time to sit down and plan something long term instead of all this touch and go stuff. Just for their own sake. Build some pillar franchise that makes money to do all this other stuff.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:43 PM

      Great news! Can't wait for Act 2. The art to this game is just gorgeous.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:45 PM

      Yay, awesome news. I love both the game and documentary series.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 4:57 PM

      I'm not digging Broken Age too much. It's kinda boring so far. I tried playing as the boy for a bit then switched to the girl's story. I'm only a couple hours in, though.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 5:00 PM

      You won't give me Psychonauts 2... and even if you did, you could never recapture the magic of the first.

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 5:03 PM

      That Amnesia Fortnight thing sure came in handy then.

      • reply
        February 21, 2014 5:21 PM

        That probably barely pays for the development time of the Amnesia Fortnight

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 5:23 PM

      YAYYYY!

    • reply
      February 21, 2014 9:27 PM

      this makes me happy.

    • reply
      February 22, 2014 7:51 AM

      game sounds fun but kind of the reason why i never bothered with the first part... yet. i'll buy it when its all out and done, not throwing my money away because they don't want to secure outside funding and would prefer free funding.

    • reply
      February 22, 2014 8:51 AM

      That is great to hear! I'm glad they made this statement because I've been thinking about it and worrying a bit. Hoping it worked out well for them.

      It's a relief to hear it.

Hello, Meet Lola