Exclusive: Notch no longer funding Psychonauts 2

After a year of hope and speculation, GamesBeat has learned that Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson will no longer personally finance a sequel to Double Fine's much-loved action/platformer, Psychonauts.

[NagaSotuva]

I never played Psychonauts. Is it really that good?

[SybaRat]

It is that good, and I CONDEMN YOU TO HELL FOR NOT PLAYING IT.

[dboyman]

I know, I picked it up on PS+ sale the week before when it was only $2.50. Great deal for a great game...

[illegalyouth]

I've never played it, either. It just never seemed that appealing. Schafer games are too narrative-driven for my tastes.

[r21]

Play it man, it has one of the most unique settings and worlds you'd ever imagine. Plus its got quirky and whacky fun dialogue and powers to mess with :D

[Venoxn4g]

oh yea, very good game indeed :)

[Christopher]

To be honest, $18m for Psychonauts 2 does seem high unless they are moving away from the old graphics style and going with a full 3D engine. Don't know why they'd do that, though. Just use a modern version of the old engine.

[SybaRat]

Inflation?

[Christopher]

I'm not seeing even that. Similar games to Psychonauts are being developed now for $1-3m.

[Korda]

Psychonauts WAS fully 3d and $18m is not as much as you would think Considering a low wage for someone in the games industry is $50,000 and you would want a dev time of 2-3 years that's at least $150,000 per person. Double fines simple kickstarter adventure game got over $3 million dollars and they are struggling with that budget.

[Christopher]

**Crap, I was thinking of a completely different game, it was 3d***

Even then....

$25m is the price to make a AAA game like CoD today. The majority of the rest of the money is solely in advertising. That's with hundreds of people working each year to make the games. Most games don't cost more than $10m to make today.

Even if you paid everyone $50,000 per year for a standard 40 person crew to make the game, it would allow for 9 years of development. A figure that's very far fetched. Sorry, that number is very high for the type of game it is.

Ratchet & Clank games don't cost that much to make, for example.

As I said, people making similar games today do it for less than $5m. I believe what they wanted to do is taking it much further than it was and use current (or possibly even next-gen) technology.

[Bimkoblerutso]

There hasn't been any indication that they're struggling with their budget, only with their time frame. How could they possibly be having problems with a budget that was 8x what they were asking for?

[SilentNegotiator]

50 grand? What, is Double Fine made up entirely of QA testers? Entry personnel make $60+ and the average is over 70K.

Double Fine has about 65 people. 65 times 70,000 average times 2 years....Over $9 million without marketing or anything.

So....

@Korda
You aren't wrong that 18 million would be a fair number *IF* Double Fine were to go all the way with development and make a big AAA game with lots of marketing. But Double Fine is a lot more "indie" than that.

@cgoodno
"people making similar games today do it for less than $5m"
Sure, but with lower production values and smaller teams.

[r21]

Someone fund this sequel! I want it now!

[Swiggins]

To Hell with Waiting, I'll fund my own Psychonauts Sequel!!! With Blackjack and Hookers!!!

[SybaRat]

I want to play Blackjack and Hookers!

[r21]

Bubbed up for that Futurama reference XD Love that show :D

[LouisGarcia]

Sad!