Double Fine Schafing At The Bit To Do Psychonauts 2
Update: Minecraft-master Markus 'Notch' Persson has been publicly trying to get Tim Schafer's attention today, saying "Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen" and confirming to us that he's serious. Who knows what, if anything, will come of this - but how exciting, eh?
Ah, the fine art of reporting on non-events: not news as such, but they make us go all misty-eyed and slightly sad. In this case, it's Double Fine's Tim Schafer revealing that he would gladly make another Psychonauts game, but no-one will give the studio the money they need for it. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!
"I would love to do Psychonauts 2, he told Digital Spy. "I’ve actually pitched that to publishers several times and no-one has taken the bait so far... I’d have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars. That’s all.”
OK gang, I'm going to leave this hat on the ground, and whatever you can spare...
I know Psychonauts was far more of a cult hit than a commercial one, but even so I'm amazed, given the fanbase and awareness it's built up over the years, that some publisher doesn't see it as a surefire way to make at least some money. I guess it's not simply a matter of being commercially viable, but that the margins aren't deemed to be colossal enough in this more cautious financial age.
Perhaps, one day, there'll be a firm willing to take a chance - or Double Fine themselves can have enough money in the bank to self-publish it. Naive of me? Oh, very probably. I JUST LIKE TO DREAM.
Oh, and Schafer's reason for considering a sequel - something Double Fine's never done before - is that the studio is now big enough to work on multiple games simultaneously. Until fairly recently, "if I did a sequel to any of the games I had before, it would have prevented one of the [new games]... if I did a sequel to Full Throttle there wouldn't have been Grim Fandango, and so on and so on down the line." Now, the bigger team "opens up a lot of possibilities." Oooh! Tell you what, I'd love to see a more fleshed out and varied follow-up to Costume Quest: that was really onto something, despite being such a slight affair.