Schafer: 'I Already Love' Splitting Into Four Teams

Author: by Staff

Double Fine founder and studio creative director Tim Schafer tells Gamasutra that so far, his decision to split the studio into four small teams and concentrate on downloadable products is working out ideally. "I already know. I already love it," said Schafer, when asked in a new feature interview when he'll know if the strategy worked. "I already love my position of being, instead of the bottleneck that everyone was waiting for... I am now being a helper. Everyone's working. I'm not stopping it from working." Schafer's creative control over the company's previous shipped titles, Psychonauts and Brutal Legend, was tight and exacting. He has said he was also forced to deal with business external to the games' development, as both titles lost their original publishers midway through. However, it's not just this, nor the small team creativity which he said reminds of him of his early days at LucasArts. It's business reasons, too, which make the change appealing. "I like already the stability it brings us of having four revenue streams from different companies, instead of one," he says. "Just from a business sense, it's more calming to know that if one hose shuts off, there's other... It's like having an airplane with four engines, one of them can blow up and you can still stay in the air." The full interview, which goes into greater detail on the studio's new direction, and discusses the creation of Costume Quest, due next week on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, is live now on Gamasutra.