Double Fine Kickstarts Game Donation Drive for $400k, Raises $1.75M and Counting

Turns out, gamers actually will pay money to get a new adventure game. If it’s by Tim Schafer, they’ll even crowd fund it before production even begins. The folks at Double Fine opened a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a budget of a combined adventure game/documentary production. The Adventure Game+ project’s goal was to raise $400,000 ($300k for game, $100k for documentary) by March 13th. The surpassed that goal after just eight hours online, and at the time of this report, are fast approaching the $1.75 million mark.

No details on the game have been announced yet, as we assume the folks at Double Fine are still in a perpetually dumbfounded state  over their rising numbers. Those that have donated to the campaign will gain access to a private community where they can contribute feedback to the project (and eventually play the beta), as well as watch its episodic documentary produced by 2 Player Productions (“Penny Arcade: The Series” Season One, “Minecraft: The Story of Mojang”). The company has stated that any revenue above the target sum will be put into additional game content, localizations, and platform releases.

“At Double Fine we try to be as creative with our business and funding ideas as we do with our games. So we are happy to announce that we will be using the crowd funding innovators Kickstarter to fund an honest to goodness adventure game,” said Double Fine’s Greg Rice. “Double Fine will use Kickstarter to gather funds for the game, offering the project’s Backers rewards in exchange for their contribution. Rewards include advance access to the game, original art from its development, and a bowling night out with the team.”

“2 Player Productions, creators of the Kickstarter-funded documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, will be filming the team throughout the process,” continued Rice. “They will create a unique, serialized documentary available only to Backers. The 2 Player crew has been granted full access to the Double Fine studios, and their documentary will provide never-before-seen look at the real game production process at Double Fine.” (via IndustryGamers)

No word yet on whether the Twitter-promise of fellow Double Fine-er Manveer Heir – that once the project outgrossed $1 million, Schafer would make a $100k snuff film – will be honored once production begins.

Happy to see Schafer back in the Adventure Game business? Does the success of Double Fine’s crowd funding of the project mean a potential future for this kind of fan-lead budgeting? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below, EGs!