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Microsoft acquires Double Fine Productions
- Thread starter Arm Van Dam
- Start date
My favorite aquisition for Microsoft yet.
I sincerely hope this means we finally get Brutal Legend 2.
I sincerely hope this means we finally get Brutal Legend 2.
I like Double Fine but I can't really think of a game they made where the gameplay shined. Massive Chalice might be the closest
Delighted for Tim and the team and delighted if this means an even better Psychonauts 2, the original is one of my all time favourite games. But slightly sad that it means no DF games on Switch after that.... it'll be PC only for me for DF from then on, which I guess is fine. Excited to see what they can do without constant budget worries
I don't think the episodic thing was born out of creative decisions. I honestly hope this works out for the team, they seem like good people.
Has DF made any episodic games? If anything, MS seems to like AA devs with multiple creative teams that can release games every 2 years or so.
I think the diversity was sorely needed and I'm looking forward to more to play between the big AAA games.
I forgot the name but they made something like that although that's 2 episode only. Yeah MS acquisition seems to target financially unstable AA devs, they aim to pump more games at fast rate than the usual 3-4 AAA product which makes perfect sense for gamepass
Broken Age's release was split into two parts because they were literally running out of money, and needed something to scrape by. I don't think it was by design.
No offense but you have no idea what you're talking about.
True but I think something like that would fit game pass, DF is an efficient studio
I agree. It fits in well with the GamePass library. But in all of the devlogs you could see that a lot of the team was really torn on having to release it in two parts. That's all I was replying to.
I don't disagree but I think it's less likely with ND than with DF.
Funny considering the history of Psychonauts 1.
Hey now! C'mon. Don't be that person.
.. did you follow the broken age production cycle? "Efficient" is not a word I would use.
Creative, anarchistic types with an independent streak do super well in a corporate environment /s
The long and short of it is, they didn't have to agree to be bought by MS if they didn't like whatever they were offered; it wasn't like it was a hostile takeover or a calculated devaluing of their company to force them to sell. Double Fine is a company that I think will thrive from a service like Game Pass, their games are perfect for it.
They potentially go bankrupt and lay off numerous people, and maybe some publisher might in the future buy one or two of their IP's and do a re-release of one of their old games some years down the line, while we all lament at the closure of the studio.
They agree to be bought by a publisher, granting them financial security for the future of their studio and employees, at the cost of their games releasing on slightly less platforms.
Pick one.
They potentially go bankrupt and lay off numerous people, and maybe some publisher might in the future buy one or two of their IP's and do a re-release of one of their old games some years down the line, while we all lament at the closure of the studio.
They agree to be bought by a publisher, granting them financial security for the future of their studio and employees, at the cost of their games releasing on slightly less platforms.
Pick one.
While I certainly feel that this isn't good news, I'd vastly prefer that they could stay independant. But, reality is another thing. The market hasn't been kind to them and hopefully this means they'll have the stability to continue making good games. That they're given room to invest.
MS has worked with them twice before. Last time was the seaseme street game for Kinect.
That was one game where they got carried away with Kickstarter stretch goals without doing the extra math to figure out the full cost of it. Look at everything else they've put out, and they are fantastic and making small games like Costume Quest, Hack & Slash, and Headlander which bring unique ideas and stay within a modest budget.
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I've loved his dark sensr of humour since the monkey Island games.
"We will make whatever you want us to, gears things, halo things, excel things"
Yeah this is job security for people at Double Fine.
I do kind of hope MS has the power to make another Monkey Island happen too.
"You don't know what you're talking about" is not a point. Its an ad hominem without back up.
This is worded so weird. It reads like you're going to say that you'd prefer they not be independent. You confirmed twice that you're against it. Usually when you say While in this sense you first mention that you don't agree with or that you're not happy with (vice versa) and then after the comma you say something that's against/counters what you mentioned before the comma.
Examples:
While I don't like Steam, I like the search functionality.
While I do like Steam, the search functionality has its issues.
What you're doing:
While I don't like Steam, the search functionality has its issues.
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That's not true. I was directly addressing the conversation and your current relation to it, not making an external and irrelevant judgment of you. And it's a bit rich that you're calling out my supposed logical fallacy by committing another (argument from fallacy).
More to the point, I've already backed up my point extensively over the last several pages. Which, again, shows that you don't know what you're talking about.
More than that even. MS was the original publisher for Psychonauts 1 before they dropped it. DF and MS made Iron Brigade/Trenched together, then the two Happy Action Theater "games" for Kinect, and, of course, the Sesame Street game you mentioned.
I'm wary of this acquisition in the coming years more than the immediate future. Sure, right now MS seems to be trying to bend over backwards to appeal to as many people as possible and get games out there, but what happens in a few years when MS is in a different place and maybe no longer sees a place for DF?
I mean they seem to have high quality product from the modest budgets they get. I remember broken age development problems but I think it was more on them being new on the crowdfunding (and pretty much everyone at that time)
Must've been a hard decision for Tim, but I'm happy for him. I know they've been through some hard times.
That's why I said maybe. Look at how many games MS announced and then cancelled at the start of this generation though. It's not an impossibility that it could happen again. They seem commited to avoiding that, but who knows if that will last.
MS should give Disney 100 billion for Grim Fandango. Won't make any of it back, but I'd be forever happy knowing there's a chance that something new in the Grim Fandango universe could happen.
Congrats Tim and the team! Congrats Phil and Xbox, great get. Hopefully there's also still some Lucas Arts remasters to come, though is every game where Tim worked as a lead already been remastered? Might be actually.
Oh man, would love this. Hopefully Tony Plana would be on board too!