Tim Schafer taler ud om Microsofts køb af Double Fine

For nogle år siden må Microsoft siges at have haft spenderbukserne på, for de købte nye studier i øst og vest. Blandt de største må siges at være Double Fine, et ret legendarisk studie der har produceret nogle ikoniske klassikere igennem årene.

Men hvordan så den her proces egentlig ud indefra? Det fortæller Tim Schafer lidt mere om i et nyt interview med GamesIndustry, hvor han desuden forklarer at Microsoft aldrig satte spørgsmålstegn ved Psychonauts 2.

"Acquisition was not something in our plans. I always wanted to be open to it. We've always maintained all of our intellectual properties at Double Fine, and we invested in our own tech for the first many years of our development. [...] There's been a lot of investment money going around in games the last five years. There's been a lot of talk of investment from overseas, and we were getting interested in what we could do if we had some kind of funds, what we could do for the game and how we could invest in and grow the studio. That just led to us talking to everybody, and we talked to Microsoft. But they don't really make those kind of small bets; they only make really big commitments to whole studios."

"So an acquisition wasn't on the plan, but when we heard about their philosophy starting with the acquisition of Mojang -- how they've had success by acquiring but not absorbing companies, not interfering with them and letting them be creatively who they are -- that's really worked out and been successful for them, and that seemed really appealing to us."

"We've been given so much creative freedom now. Nobody has probed Psychonauts 2 to second guess our decisions or anything like that. We've been trusted to handle the creative side completely, but we can opt-in to all these resources, like having it tested for accessibility and mental health checks. We had the resources but were left creatively to our own devices. And that's been great."

Det er ret interessant at høre om. Tror du at Microsoft vil købe flere studier lige foreløbig, eller er de færdige for nu?