[quote name='meager']I think Double Fine's Kickstarter method might hurt their chances of getting traditionally funded in the future.
They'll be giving out thousands of free codes to download this game, as per the arrangement with their Kickstarter donators. Surely these free code downloads are tracked and counted seperately than paid downloads, right? How do they determine if the code user was an early supporter, or just a guy who won the code in a contest?It wouldn't make sense for industry watchers to count 100,000 downloads of a normally for-pay product as the same as 100,000 downloads of a free CAGcast.
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XBLA sales numbers are often not disclosed to the public.....Steam sales figures are also often not disclosed to the public . This isn't anything new in digital distribution. If the game is successful, it will show in the double fine's balance sheets, which future funding sources will be far more concerned with than what the public thinks their sales numbers were.
[quote name='Porksta']If you want to show support for a company, you buy their games. Nobody bought Psychonauts, which means not many people support Double Fine.[/QUOTE]
If the Wikipedia page it to be believed, in physical retail copies (ie, non-digtial),
Psychonauts sold 400K by 2007. That is quite a lot of "nobody". Now was that enough to cover their production costs? Almost assuredly no. But I guess they are the odd man out in the industry, given that absolutely no one else lost money on a game. I mean, come on, everyone bought
Shenmue back in the day, didn't they?
But I get it.. In your view, if you can't sell out stadiums, don't even bother to try.
Jonathan Coulton should just hang it up already. I mean, $500K a year is just chump change. If you can't beat Transformers at the box office, you shouldn't be even in the film business at all.
And why do you even care in the first place? If you like Double Fine's style of kool aid, and want to buy some more, people can now do that....if you don't, don't buy it and move on....no one is trying to pour it down your throat.