Double Fine Presents, the indie publishing arm of Psychonauts developer Double Fine, may not be long for this world. In an interview with Destructoid at PAX West, studio founder Tim Schafer says the company’s recent acquisition by Microsoft makes the publishing company somewhat redundant.
Schafer said that “It doesn’t make sense to do exactly the kind of publishing stuff if we can’t do it, like if the platforms are limited. From a business sense, I don’t know if it structurally makes sense to have a publisher within [another publisher]. It’s a complicated issue.”
But even if Double Fine is forced to drop its publishing arm, which began in 2014, it can still offer similar support to indie devs. Schafer says that the experience the company has developed – “that maybe a first-time indie dev doesn’t know about” – can still be provided by the company at large. “Whether or not we’re still hands-on publishing those games ourselves, we can still be fulfilling that mission of just helping indie devs even though we’re a part of Microsoft.”
Schafer also suggests that devs could stand to benefit from the change. With Double Fine’s support from Microsoft, there’ll be no need to take a share of the revenue from events such as Day of the Devs, potentially lowering entry costs for exhibitors.
Of course, there’s no official word on the fate of Double Fine Presents, and it may be that Microsoft is content to let the studio work however it pleases. That said, I think I agree with Schafer about the relevance of a publisher within a publisher.
When is the psychonauts 2 release date?
Pyschonauts 2 has been delayed a few times, but it’s now set to release in 2020.