Skaparen av The Sims räddade Double Fine från konkurs

Alla vet vi hur fantastiskt rolig humorn är i Tim Schafer-ägda spelstudion Double Fines samtliga titlar. Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, The Cave och Broken Age är alla spel som bjudit oss på upprepade gapskratt och enligt oss på redaktionen ska vi därmed vara glada över att spelindustrin rymmer en unik studio som den. Men det var inte alltid särskilt säkert på att Double Fine skulle överleva, speciellt inte efter att Psychonauts "lagts ned" av den initiala finansiären, cirka halvvägs in i produktionen.

Enligt en Kotaku-intervju försökte Tim och hans 30-manna-team desperat leta rätt på en ny utgivare men misslyckades gång efter annan, något som tvingade Schafer att ringa upp en gammal vän och fråga efter ett lån av modell större. Han ringde Sim City/The Sims-pappan Will Wright som för tillfället hade sålt sin spelstudio till EA och satt därmed på en hel hög med kosing. Wright erbjöds aktier i Double Fine men kunde inte ta emot dem eftersom han redan ägde delar av Maxis, något som enligt Kotaku-intervjun fick honom att helt enkelt skänka Schafer de pengar han behövde eftersom han ville se Psychonauts i färdigt skick och eftersom han inte ville att Double Fine skulle gå i konkurs. En underbart härlig historia, såklart.

Såhär skriver Kotaku i sin klart läsvärda artikel:
"I hope he doesn't mind me telling this story. It was Psychonauts, I don't know if you heard this, but it got canceled, the first game, in the middle. It was a bad time for the studio because we'd been crunching on that thing for four years, and we had about 30 people who were depending on it. And it got canceled. We tried to get it re-signed, dragged that demo all over E3 one year, and we talked to every single publisher and everyone passed on it, and the clock was ticking, and our money was going away and draining. We thought we had some leads, and it'd work out, but we weren't gonna make it that far. Our runway, as they call it, was not that long. And we were gonna crash, and go out of business. That game we were working on for the past four years was going to disappear. No one would ever hear of Double Fine. They'd be like, 'What was that game company—?' and we never would have made anything, and everyone would've been super sad. It was really gut-wrenching. I'd sunk my whole life savings into the company. Everything I made on Full Throttle, which was—it was great then, and then I sunk it in there, and it was at risk. I was really desperate, and I didn't want to make this phone call, but I did, I had to try to save this company. And someone I know pretty well had sold his company at EA— Oh wait, you already said the name. So you kind of spoiled that one.

Will. I called Will. I was like, 'He might have enough, but I don't know.' It feels so rude to ask for money. But it's either this or horrible things happen. So I called him, I said, 'Look Will, I hate to ask this, but if you can loan us this money to help us make this payroll, you can have 10% of Double Fine, I'll give you a chunk of the company.' He was like, 'Oh that's really interesting, I want to help but I'll have to check with the lawyers to see if I can do that.' And he called back and he said his lawyers had said he was not able to own stock in another game company—it'd be a conflict. I was like, 'Oh god.' And then he was like, 'So I'm just gonna give you the money.' And I was just so blown away from that." Länk