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Comment by bishnu | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually quite shocked that game publishers aren't lining up to give Tim Schafer all the money he wants. But I don't really know what's going on in that industry.

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Tim Schafer is a reinvent-the-wheel kind of guy, and most of the giant publishers prefer to polish their existing wheels. They run very risk-averse business models -- preferring to milk big, cash cow franchises for all they're worth before being dragged, kicking and screaming, into new IP. They'd much rather invest hundreds of millions into Sequel #235 of Big Franchise X than invest even a fraction of that budget across a spectrum of innovative, but less self-evidently commercial titles. It's not at all dissimilar to the way the big-studio movie business works.

Schafer is the kind of guy who wins awards and accolades, but doesn't move as many millions as, say, "Call of Duty 45: Modern Ware 38: Future Warfare." His stuff is wildly inventive, but it's quirky and plays to a (relatively) niche audience.

But I'd argue that Schafer and Kickstarter are a great pair, precisely because of that dynamic. He's got his fanbase. While that fanbase is smaller than the Big Studio Franchise customer base, it's much more devoted. And if he can work directly with his loyal fanbase, ideally even growing it in the process, then he can do well financially and operate with greater creative freedom.

Industry insiders correct me if I'm wrong, but Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales. Simultaneously, it was a true masterpiece - one of the best in the genre. So it's not surprising that lots of people grew up loving adventure games and now have the disposable income and the nostalgia to fund a Kickstarter project, while at the same time making this a risky project for a game publisher.

> Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales.

Not precisely since it was followed by Escape from Monkey Island, but yeah Grim basically shuttered LucasArts adventure games, which in turn shuttered the adventure games genre until its revival starting ~2007 (Zack & Wiki, Broken Sword, Sam&Max Save the World, Strong Bad, Tales of Monkey Island, Machinarium, ...)

Interesting that the Wiki entry continually calls out a commercial failure and goes on to say:

Total cumulative worldwide sales are estimated

between 100,000 and 500,000 units. [61] The game is commonly considered a commercial

failure, [62][63][64] even though LucasArts has stated that "Grim Fandango met domestic expectations and exceeded them worldwide".

I wonder if it's the Radio Shack problem. Why make only a little money selling electronics components when you can make a lot more money with the same resources selling cell phones? See also adventure games based on new IP vs. FPSes based on Star Wars IP.

I once spent an incredibly frustrating period trying to sell a game demo to a number of publishers, all of whom thought it looked and played great, but didn't have a slot for it because their slate was full of licenses and franchises.

Publishers are ever-increasingly risk-averse - particularly when modern console games cost as much as they do to produce (eg. >$50MM). Movie licenses and sequels tend to do well, so that's where bulk of the money goes.

More innovative/creative games, (and Double Fine's are definitely in this category), are often critical successes, but perform poorly in financial terms. (We could argue as to whether this is due to people simply not wanting those kind of games, or whether it's due to publishers not committing to really pushing them).

I'm really glad to see Tim trying something like this, and really, really hope it works out. I'd love to see another viable mechanism for indie game development.

I believe that its because his games typically don't sell as well as the publishers' other games. Psychonauts, for example, was a critically acclaimed game, but flopped commercially.

People like to chalk this up to the publishers being stupid or conservative, and there may be some elements of that. But I doubt a publisher would leave money on the table if it was as sure of a bet as the internet community makes it out to be.

For all the talk of folks crying out, "bring back adventure games". The simple fact is that many many times more people queue up to buy the latest Call of Duty than will ever buy any adventure game.

No different than the movie business. Publisher's want $100M hits, not $10M hits.

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