In a new Kickstarter campaign, now-independent Double Fine has said it will develop Brütal Legend 2 if it reaches a $100 million stretch goal.
Double Fine split from Xbox earlier this year after mass layoffs and the closure of several studios, but now Double Fine is crowdfunding for its new game jam on Kickstarter. It’s a blast from the past for those familiar with Double Fine’s past, as they previously used Kickstarter to fund Broken Age.
$100M For Brütal Legend 2
At the time of writing (September 1), Double Fine has already raised $284,000 of its $400,000 goal, which is around 71%.
However, media coverage and headlines, including ours, are focusing on the more ambitious goal that Double Fine has set. In fact, the goal is that ambitious; it’s almost certainly a joke. I say almost certainly because, well, with the way that game budgets are at the moment, $100M for Brütal Legend 2 wouldn’t surprise me.
For those unaware, Brütal Legend released in 2009 and features the character of Eddie Riggs (voiced by and modeled after Jack Black), a roadie who is transported to a fantasy world inspired by the artwork of heavy metal album covers. In 2011, it was announced that the game sold 1.4 million copies.
Yesterday, Double Fine reiterated on X that it is still working on ‘bigger games’ and that the current crowdfunding campaign is a way to keep the studio open while it seeks funding for larger projects – a feat that many studios in the industry are currently struggling with as VC’s look elsewhere for easier returns, and publishers are taking fewer risks.
Double Fine will almost certainly not hit its $100 million goal, but then and again, weirder things have happened in this industry.
What do you think of Double Fine’s Kickstarter campaign? Do you think they’ll hit their $100 million stretch goal? Which one of the 25 games in its game jam will you support? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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They couldn’t do this at Microsoft where they had unlimited money? Kickstarter will not help them and these guys mishandle budgets look back at Psychonauts 2 Fig crowdfunding, Starbreeze, and then Microsoft and it still took like 10 years and no one cared. This studio needed to be shut down years ago.
Staying at Microsoft would have meant getting their studio shuttered. Microsoft only knows how to close studios.
Yea, this is kinda bullshit. While I love Tim Scaefer and Double Fine, they got a taste of the monopoly money with Microsoft, barely did anything with it and are now telling us it takes 100 fucking million dollars to do an indie game. Gtfo
They used Microsoft to fund games no one wanted without risk. Now that they’re responsible for their own funding they are gonna try to actually make money.
$100 Million as much as I like the sound of a sequel I don’t think it should cost anywhere near that much but before I say anything I would expect them to have something to show before shoveling money to a kickstarter where many game projects or go fund me’s end up nothing to show and mostly scams
It’s like all these companies believe everyone’s a millionaire or that we’re all so clueless that we don’t realize it takes 1/10th of a billion to develop a AA game. 🙄 Sheeeesh