On Wednesday, Tim Schafer, founder of the Double Fine game studio, posted an announcement video to YouTube, devoting a full minute of it to a recent spate of stories about another well-known game maker who had recently taken a dive into Kickstarter – and who had as a result much less success and acclaim.
“I’d like to express our support for our friend and fellow developer Peter Molyneux,” Schafer said, calling out “extremely rough treatment…in the Internet and the games press” over broken promises, terminally incomplete features and stranded “God or Gods” competition winner around the crowdfunded game Godus.
“I think it’s really unfortunate and unfair, and I don’t think it’s healthy,” Schafer continued. “Obviously things didn’t go as expected with his game. That’s why people make nasty accusations about Peter – and I can really relate to that, believe it or not!”
Indeed, Schafers Broken age project has had its own issues with budget overruns and delays, but in the case of his game, those woes came to light thanks to Double Fine’s aggressive PR efforts, active message boards, and candid Kickstarter-funded documentary series. In addition, Double Fine has been careful not to remove or modify it Broken age‘s promised, announced features, while the release of major components of Godus– the multiplayer part in particular – may never appear, based on feedback from its own developers.
“I’m not saying developers like Peter and I shouldn’t be responsible, and accountable to deadlines,” Schafer added. “I’m just saying that the response to recent events and the tone of that response is really disproportionate to the seriousness of the events themselves.” Schafer concluded his statement by pointing out Broken age‘s documentary series and invite more game makers to “remain transparent and continue to engage players in our development” so fans can “see and understand the process of how games are made, what goes into them, the work and the cost.”
The rest of the video was devoted to the news that the second half of the Kickstarter-funded game Broken age had gone into beta. With all the dialogue recorded and most of the gameplay completed, he said, the team behind the point-and-click adventure game was now fully engaged in bug testing to get the game ready for shipping.
This isn’t the first time Schafer has spoken out on behalf of fellow game makers. He has eagerly taken to social media to oppose the recent threats and harassment sent to game developers by those linked to the GamerGate hashtag.