double-fine posts

Double Fine has been getting questions for some time about why the developer founded by Tim Schafer doesn't make PC versions of its most recent games (only Psychonauts has been ported to the PC). In a recently revised version of the developer's "About" web page it devotes a question on the reason why it no longer makes PC games.

In short Double Fine says it would love to make PC games but its not its fault; it's the publishers that it works for. It states, "We have much of the technology in place to produce PC versions of all these games, but there is still some more work required to make them shippable and that costs money. So far, our publishers have not elected to fund that work. Not because they hate PC Gamers, but because they don't see enough financial reward." It adds, "If we ever get super stinking rich here, with enough money to fund PC versions of our games, then we will go back and make them ourselves! Oh man, wouldn't that be cool?."

Double Fine recently switched to making downloadable games like Costume Quest and the just announced Stacking for publisher THQ. So if you want to see PC versions of those games, email THQ execs.

[Via VG247.com]

One of the best game designers of all time is being rewarded for his efforts by the independent games event IndieCade. Tim Schafer, the founder of Double Fine, will receive the first ever Honorary Trailblazer Award for Lifetime Achievement during the IndieCade Awards Show on October 8 in Culver City, California.

Schafer is receiving the award because IndieCade wanted "to honor an individual who has displayed extraordinary vision and creativity in the field of game design, while serving as an inspiration to up-and-coming designers in the field." Schafer first gained fame in the 1990s by creating acclaimed PC adventure games from LucasArts including Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. He left LucasArts to create his own titles at Double Fine including the critically acclaimed Psychonauts.

On Monday, word got out on the information superhighway that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said some not so flattering things about Electronic Arts and developer Double Fine. Naturally the parties involved wanted some time to respond. Gamasutra got some comments from EA's communications VP Jeff Brown. Brown pretty much slams Activision Blizzard's franchise line up and Kotick's involvement with them, stating, " ... one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick's own hubris." We would assume that the games are World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero and Call of Duty, in that order.

And what about Kotick's comments about Schafer and Double Fine? Eurogamer got Schafer on the horn to state, "It's sad is that instead of just insulting me personally, he goes after the product of my hard-working team - a group of people he almost put out of work a while back." Hopefully this will be the last we hear about this issue, until the next time of course.

Two of the main creators behind some of the classic PC adventure games of LucasArts are officially joining forces once again. Kotaku reports that Ron Gilbert has now joined the team at Double Fine, reuniting him with his former LucasArts teammate Tim Schafer. Gilbert previousy worked at Hothead Games and was the main developer behind its two DeathSpank action-RPG titles (which hopefully will be released for the PC and Mac soon as indicated by their ESRB listings).

Double Fine recently decided to switch from creating big retail games to small downloadable game titles. However so far the developer has been silent on any plans to bring these games to the PC or Mac platforms. Gilbert did say his first game for Double Fine will be an original title adding, "Fans of those old adventure games will like it."

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is known for giving out opinions and quotes that can ruffle some feathers and hurt some feelings. In a new interview for Edge magazine, Kotick is at it again. In an portion of the interview on the Edge web site. Kotick slams the way Electronic Arts handles its internal developers, saying, "EA will buy a developer and then it will become 'EA Florida', 'EA Vancouver', 'EA New Jersey', whatever. We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that's what makes them so successful.'" To be fair to EA, they have in fact been renaming developers so they have unique designations (Visceral Games, Danger Close, etc).

Eurogamer has reported on other excerpts from the Kotick interview where he slams Tim Schafer's Double Fine studio. Activision once held the rights to publish the console-only game Brutal Legend and in his one meeting about the the game he was told by his execs, "He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game. We're going to cancel it." He also slams the founders of Infinity Ward, Vince Zampella and Jason West, once again. The creators of the Call of Duty franchise were fired back in March. Kotick claims, "We're a public company, we've got ethics obligations, and the things they did were... I would go to jail if I did them."

We are just a couple of days away from some interesting game announcements. Are you ready?

• Steam now has added the previously released Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition for PC and Mac to its library with additional Steam Cloud and Steam achievement support.
• In related news, Impulse has started adding titles from PopCap Games to its lineup
• Global Agenda is now on sale for 25 percent off.
• The free Moonbase Alpha game has a new bug patch update via Steam.
• The fantasy MMO game Alganon is moving to a free-to-play model starting on Friday.
• Double Fine reveals its upcoming downloadable game Costume Quest, except that there's no PC version mentioned. Ouch.
• Here are the currrent top 200 StarCraft II players online in North America. Fear them.

Steam's mid-week sale this week is an especially good one. From now until Thursday the terrific platformer title Psychonauts has a price cut to just $2. Yep, just two bucks to get one of the better games of the last decade from developer Double Fine, founded by game god Tim Schafer.

It's also the last PC game that Schafer has made. After helping to make some of the best LucasArts adventure titles, Schafer left to form Double Fine which released Psychonauts in 2005. Despite low initial sales it's been praised as a unique and fun game and is certainly worth far more than the $2 price. Double Fine's console only game Brutal Legend came out in 2009 to mixed reviews and sales but hey it would still have been nice to have that game come to the PC too.

We were not happy when we learned that Double Fine's next game, the long-in-development music-themed action game Brutal Legend, would not be released for the PC. However, Double Fine's web site still creates the occasional fun Flash based mini-game. This week, the site has a new game designed to give you the chance to help Tim Schafer.

No you won't be helping the legendary game designer with creating new games but you could help him find material for this week's Game Developers Choice Awards. Schafer is hosting the awards on Wednesday night at this year's Game Developers Conference and this simple graphical Flash adventure game will give you a way to asist in gathering stuff needed for him to host the awards. Which is fine and all . . . but, still can't we get Brutal Legend to the PC.

If you have been waiting on the edge of your seat to find out who will be hosting this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards...well, you need to get out more. However, we can tell you that actor-funny musician-panda voice guy Jack Black will be taking on the hosting duties for this year's event which the cable TV network will broadcast live on Dec. 14.

Black's appearance as host is almost certainly timed to work with some world premiere game footage of the long delayed Double Fine title Brutal Legend (Black is one of the voices in the game). Other games that will have new footage shown at the event include the game adaptations of the movies Terminator Salvation and Watchmen. New footage will also be shown of Mafia II, the Illusion Softworks open world crime action game that we haven't seen in a long time in any form. More surprise announcements are supposedly in the works. As we have previously reported, Sims and Spore creator Will Wright will receive the first ever "Gamer God" award from Spike TV at the event.

While we and the rest of the gaming world wait to see what fate will befall Brutal Legend, legendary game designer Tim Schafer has decided to give us a nostagia treat on the official Double Fine web site. Schafer has made a trip to his vaults and came up with the original design document for his acclaimed 1989 adventure game Grim Fandango.

The design doc, which is provided via an PDF file, is 72 pages of goodness for anyone interested in game design. It's packed with puzzles, designs, art sketches and more stuff that's didn't make the final product. The main character of Manny Calavera is still there and the game itself still takes place in the Land of the Dead but the design doc has a number of other characters with named like The Pizza Demon and Giraffe Lady that didn't make it into the final LucasArts published game.