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Tim Schafer: Creative Genius or Overrated A-Hole?

Tim Schafer: Creative Genius or Overrated A-Hole?

I noticed people were calling out Tim Schaefer on Twitter and Facebook again for his less-than-spectacular reputation with crowdfunding, so I decided to stand on my platform, which is conveniently shaped like a chair and within close proximity to the keyboard and mouse that I use to interact with people on the Internet, to offer him some defense – kind of like how my colleague Ben Maltbie defended Telltale recently. According to a vocal minority of upset gamers, Tim Schafer is guilty of releasing incomplete games and is unable to properly budget the development of his games. It’s a bit more complicated than that.

I think what I find most fascinating about this debacle is how Tim’s reputation, built on decades of experience with LucasArts, is instantly ruined in the minds of fans disappointed that things weren’t smooth sailing for Broken Age despite it earning $3.5 million instead of its proposed $400,000 budget. Schafer is the brilliant, imaginative mind behind the likes of Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle , let alone more modern classics like Psychonauts , all of which contributed to LucasArt’s legacy for pushing storytelling in gaming. Somehow, after two crowdfunding campaigns, to these people, Schafer has become your friend to whom you should not loan your money, even if he insists he’ll pay you back on Tuesday. It’s true that you should never give your friend your money, but Tim Schafer is not that kind of friend – although he’s also not your friend. If you feel like his reputation for delaying his Kickstarter games is too risky for you, then you’d be wise to wait until you see them on digital store shelves.

But you know what? I don’t think Tim Schafer really needs my defense; I think he’s done a great job rationalizing his actions on his social media feeds. Regarding the Broken Age criticisms (I wish I could dig up his conversations on Facebook and Twitter but I’ve already blinked and I can no longer find them) he’s calmly responded with the reasonings behind his botched release. And the game isn’t incomplete – he finished it, and released the second half as a free update (I say free, but buyers pretty much paid for the whole game and had to wait for Schafer to deliver the rest).

He didn’t take your money and move to an island, or, perhaps more fitting for Schafer’s mind, build a whimsical lair in an inconspicuous spot on the moon full of delightfully weird alien creatures.

Discussion of the true costs of Kickstarter projects has only recently begun to surface. The controversy regarding the crowdfunding campaign for Shenmue 3 revealed that publishers are willing to exploit the system in order to gauge interest in an upcoming game. When Kogi Igarashi launched his campaign for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night , which was the highest earning Kickstarter game before Shenmue 3 , he revealed that he too was merely asking for $500,000, which would have covered approximately 10% of developmental costs , and admitted that upfront from the start.

Tim Schafer: Creative Genius or Overrated A-Hole?

Whether this is ethical I’ll leave to someone else on staff, but what I wanted to highlight is that the cost of designing games is immense, and the budgets that indie developers ask for is usually too modest. Polygon provided some somber costs of game development and how crowdfunding helps to alleviate some of the expenses. In short, at such low crowdfunding goals, indie developers risk disappointing their backers and closing shop. Just the costs of office space and employee salaries are disheartening. As seen with Broken Age ’s development being split in half despite earning well over its proposed goal, even Double Fine wasn’t immune to this.

That said, fans have legitimate complaints . According to the GamesRadar article, Tim Schafer has a history of failing to reach milestones, underestimating his budget, and taking too long to develop his games. He is a creative in charge of a business, and must take that as seriously as his projects. Schafer is often compared to Molyneaux for how he notoriously fucked up Godus ; however, at least the former delivers on his projects – well, eventually.

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