Psychonauts Publishing Rights Revert To Creator Double Fine

Double Fine Productions now owns the publishing rights to its cult hit 2005 action-adventure game Psychonauts, and will directly benefit from all future sales. That is according to senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis, who Tweeted the news on Tuesday afternoon. According to separate Tweets from Kipnis, the publishing rights for the game "reverted" to Double Fine, and she suggested that its contract with previous publisher Majesco has expired. Note that the only change here is Double Fine's ability to publish the original game: the actual IP rights to the Psychonauts franchise belonged to the company from the beginning, and it is free to create additional games in the series. In the near future, all digital sales of Psychonauts -- including those on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace -- will directly benefit Double Fine, according to Kipnis. [Update: Double Fine head Tim Schafer has clarified this new arrangement to Gamasutra, saying that while rights have reverted, the company is not yet going to receive all the money for the game. Kipnis' Twitter post was the result of "an excited team member jumping the gun a little bit." Schafer told us this in an email: "It's true the publishing rights have reverted to Double Fine, but there are some more deals that need to be worked out and contracts that need signing before that actually means anything, financially. After that's all squared away, we will have some fun stuff to announce! (And no, it's not Psychonauts 2.)"]