Tim Schafer, the man behind the recent Brutal Legend, has announced that his studio is currently signed on for four games at this time. Announced during the Develop Conference amid ‘other remarks,’ the news comes off the heels of a confirmation that Brutal Legend will not be getting a sequel.
"We got a phone call from a publisher saying 'we're not going to do a sequel to Brutal Legend.' My fault was that I had not prepared for that, so we did not have a project ready to go," he said at the Develop conference in Brighton this morning.
"So we picked the best four, took them on a road show and showed them to publishers," he said. "In a couple of months all four games got signed. So we became officially a multi-project studio. Trying to kill us made us multiply." Schafer noted that some of the games are downloadable, and some are retail.
Schafer also touched on the development process for Brutal Legend as a time drain for the studio, citing the four and a half years it took to create the title; he added that game cancellations and publisher interference didn't help matters. Schafer sees that “going small” is the way to go with game development. Through trial and tribulation, the future of Double Fine is in smaller projects. “We have as a company found our way as a result of this challenge,” he said.
"We've seen the benefits of it right away. The advantages of doing small budgets means there's less compromise. Publishers are not as afraid of doing something unusual with smaller budgets, of $2 million or less. They're less likely to grab your IP rights if you're only asking for a small amount of money.”
