“I assume someone is being greedy somewhere” – Tim Schafer discusses current game industry woes following Double Fine’s split with Xbox

Tim Schafer – the founder of acclaimed developer Double Fine Productions, and the legendary designer behind the likes of Day of the Tentacle and Psychonauts – has spoken out about his studio’s recent shift to independence, as well as Game Pass, and industry woes at large.

In an interview with the BBC, Schafer was asked what changes at Xbox had, to his mind, resulted in Microsoft jettisoning his San Francisco-based studio. “Our mission in the beginning – seven years ago – was to really support Game Pass and fill it with as much goodness as we could,” he replied. “We put our back catalogue and new stuff, about 13 games on Game Pass.

Their model I think is changing. They’re going in a different direction with fewer, larger IPs. So our technique of making a lot of little IPs isn’t aligned with that. We wanted to keep doing that, so we went our separate ways.”

When asked what he thought about Game Pass now, and the subscription service’s sustainability, Schafer said: “I love it as an idea. I liked it for Double Fine games. If you’re sitting in a store and holding a disc, and it costs $70, and it’s about a walking lighthouse, there’s a barrier there. But if you’ve just got to download a game you’ve already paid for, it might lead people to trying weird games like Double Fine makes. So I’m very pro Game Pass, and hope it succeeds and goes forward.”

Schafer went on to praise Xbox’s support for Double Fine while it was still part of Microsoft, saying the company “let us completely be ourselves”, and enabled Double Fine to “be a bigger version of ourselves.” He also emphasised he had no regrets about partnering with Xbox at the time, so it seems as though there’s little ill will there.

As for Schafer’s thoughts on the industry at large, he told the BBC “I don’t understand the economics of making games. For years I understood them because there are layoffs – which are bad – and then the executives realise, ‘Oh we fired everybody, we need someone to make this game!’. Then they hire people back.

“So I assumed there was a cycle of ups and downs, but it’s been down for four years and I don’t know why. I really don’t because people are playing games, people are making money, so I don’t know why there is a big loss of jobs. I assume someone is being greedy somewhere.”

Still, Schafer has some optimism. “I hope it is a cycle and it bounces back,” he said. “There’s a lot of life, excitement, and creativity in the games industry now, especially in the indie space. I’m not one of those snobs who says only indie games are creative, I think a lot of triple-A games do a lot of great creative work, it’s just been a much more violent place to work.”

As of writing, Double Fine is in the midst of Amnesia Fortnite, a game jam in which its team creates four smaller-scope games. This year, these projects have been voted on by the public via Kickstarter, and include a city builder where structures move like giant robots and fight monsters, and a co-operative multiplayer bar crawl dungeon-crawler called Bard Crawl.