Double Fine's Tim Schafer On Microsoft Acquisition: 'I Think It's Perfect for Us' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 January 2020 / 2,633 Views
Microsoft announced at E3 2019 it acquired Double Fine Productions to join the growing list of developers that are apart of Xbox Game Studios.
Double Fine CEO and President Tim Schafer speaking with GameInformer discussed the acquisition, saying "I think it's perfect for us, because we can just focus on doing our inspired weird games, and not worry about how we're going to get our next deal. We aren't chasing down our next funding and thinking about how many more months of funding we have all the time."
"We weren't really looking to get acquired, but we were talking about other things and [Microsoft] mentioned they were doing this with other companies and those other companies seem like they have very strong identities, like Ninja Theory," he added. "These aren't companies that are looking to make money on Microsoft products. We asked [Microsoft] why they were looking to acquire companies, and they talked about creating diverse, wide ranging content for Game Pass.
"I was very concerned about our culture and identity. They explained the new way they're doing these acquisitions with unplugged studios that are not integrated into Microsoft. They're left alone, they do their own thing and stay independent, but are well funded. It sounds like a good deal."
The next game from Double Fine, Psychonauts 2, will launch for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC in 2020.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Given the games will also be on PC and potentially Switch, that atleast lowers the risk of being only on Xbox consoles. That goes for all the studios MS purchased.
Buy outa can be scary bur in some cases like these they give smaller studios a chance to shine. MS are willing to fund Double Fine to create games which is more than a privilege for them. Tim also has a great personality.
This sounds like a fair plan. 343 Industries, The Coalition and Turn 10 will likely be the ones Microsoft exert more control over. They were created internally and manage MS' key franchise.
But it makes sense to let the other maintain their own identity.
Game pass is just another word for digital content. They must have really studied the average gamers playtimes and believed game pass was not only lucrative but also a convincing intro to digital content.
Of course it's good for Tim. He'd be able to leech off a lot of MS cash.
