Double Fine's Kickstarter Drives Towards Unprecedented $1 Million in Donations

[Shawn Zipay]

Tim Schafer has an idea for a game, an adventure game no less, that he just could not get funding to develop. Publishers laughed at his idea and essentially threw him under the bus. That's when Schafer took a chance on starting up a Kickstarter page to raise the $400,000 from fans to get the game developed and with a special documentary filmed and released with the game by 2 Player Productions.

Over a six-to-eight month period, a small team under Tim Schafer's supervision will develop Double Fine's next game, a classic point-and-click adventure. Where it goes from there will unfold in real time for all the backers to see.

2 Player Productions will be documenting the creative process and releasing monthly video updates exclusively to the Kickstarter backers. This documentary series will strive to make the viewer as much a part of the process as possible by showing a game grow from start to finish, with all the passion, humor, and heartbreak that happens along the way. Double Fine is committed to total transparency with this project, ensuring it is one of the most honest depictions of game development ever conceived.

Double Fine, 2 Player Productions, and Tim Schafer not only raised the $400,000 in record time, they demolished the goal and left it in the dust. The goal was hit in just eight hours after the page went live with donations coming in from all over. At present, the Kickstarter fund is rapidly approaching $1 million in donations from almost 26,000 backers. Even Schafer can't believe the generosity.

We did it! 100% funded in just over eight hours. You people are amazing! But it's not over yet. The number keeps going up and now the question is just how much news do we want to make with this? We're getting a lot of attention already and it seems like this little project could have an impact beyond itself.

All money raised will go to make the game and documentary better. Additional money means it can appear on more platforms, be translated into more languages, have more music and voice, and an original soundtrack for the documentary, and more!

Your backing and comments have been truly inspiring to me and the team, so on behalf of Double Fine and 2 Player Productions I want to say THANK YOU!!!

I can't wait to see where this thing can go!

Many pledge levels provided special incentives for donators, including a special upper plateau tier of $10,000 offered up to just one person. That person will have lunch with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, be given a tour of the Double Fine offices, and all of the goodies offered up to the pledge tiers below that. Lower tiers, such as the lowest at $15, offers up donators a chance to get into the game's beta and essentially pays for their game already as they will all receive a free copy of the game through Steam.

I would not be surprised if $1 million was raised in the few minutes after this news goes live. Double Fine has a proven track record with fans which has certainly helped their fundraising campaign considerably.

[Shawn Zipay]

And just like that

[Linux]

Just donated money; I can't wait for this. I remember all his old games when I grew up this is so exciting!