Double Fine founder Tim Schafer has been focusing on more efforts to keep the company independent, and that means self publishing. As such, he’s waiting for Microsoft to reassess its policy and allow indies to self publish on the Xbox One.
“Sony has reached out to us and asked us our opinions about what we’d like to see with new platforms and they’ve been really good with indies – allowing them to self-publish and entering into partnerships and stuff like that,” said Schafer. “Microsoft has been focused elsewhere up until now, I’ve kind of had my fingers crossed that hopefully they’ll change their minds about that because I think it’s really critical.”
Schafer noted there are many easier alternatives for independent developers. “Steam is huge, mobile and all of those things are really profitable for indies so there’s too many reasonable and successful alternatives for indies to look towards,” he said. “We don’t really need to go through the arduous process of acquiring a publisher that we don’t need just to be on a certain platform.”
While Schafer led the Kickstarter charge for gaming, he’s wary of Kickstarter fatigue among backers. “I think some of the Kickstarters are overcomplicated, or seem to be treating it like it’s a store, or milking it for easy money,” said Shafer. “That’s why we’re putting a lot of thought into this project – it’s not another told timer coming back from the nineties, like me, and not an old game or tried and true license, but actually a risky and new IP.”
Source: Edge