Double Fine is an exploitative, incompetent, and irredeemable developer. They represent the worst of the jackals of nostalgia, using past accomplishments to peel money from loyal fans.

Several times now they've screwed over their customers with soddy poorly realized products, the most famous and recent of which is Spacebase DF-9, which hung in early access limbo for a long time before before shoved out the door in barely patched up alpha state, despite them flat out saying that they would never do something like that in another announcement earlier. This is hardly the only time they've screwed up, however even that has still been overshadowed by the Broken Age fiasco, a truly ridiculous spectacle that has caused irreparable harm to crowdfunding at large (AKA small struggling devs). Despite being the most famous of the gaming kickstarters and gaining several times the asking amount, they decided to misuse and squander the millions they got. The end result is a soddy low production value portion of a game, thrown out to the backers like a meaty bone to dogs with the vague promise that It'll be finished later with the sales of part one. It's been a year and that hasn't happened, and they released or "released" several games since with little to no mention of working on Broken Age.

Despite their self-made image of being a pro-gamer company they've consistently abused their customers and left them in the dust the moment their games aren't financially rewarding anymore. They are not a trustworthy developer, plain and simple. Make no mistake, the Grim Fandango and the planned Day of the Tentacle rerelease is nothing more then a desperate and manipulative cash grab to save their failing company by reminding people of the great games they USED to make. Don't be fooled. If you want to play Grim Fandango then hunt down an old copy, don't buy this revision. They're not worth it. There's no reason to think they won't just use the money to keep screwing over gamers beyond rose-tinted glasses. Better companies have died from doing less then they've done.

There are countless articles and vids supporting what I'm saying. Do some research and then draw your own conclusions, just don't immediately click that order button just because you loved Grim Fandango back in the day.

Nice for you.

And they can't make a game if they can't fund it.
They also had to fire several people at double fine around that time because they lost another project including the person that was the project leader of DF-9.
Should they have just keep funding DF-9 and go broke.

Also broken age isn't a fiasco maybe for the impatiant 3 years is a fine development time for a game.
And they update the backers still perfectly fine with the videos.
The second part is probably going to be between 9-13 hours play time and will be finished somewhere around march april.

How were the costumers screwed? Spacebase DF-9 was an Early Access game with open ended development. The rules were explicit from the very beginning to those who wanted to invest money on it. 'Screwed up' by making a bigger and better game that what the backers would have gotten? You should check the definition of 'screw up'. Opinion noted. They would have to screw over gamers first to begin with, something they've yet to do.



I never said it was black and white. There's no perfect company and they did (and still do) have communication issues. Still, I feel I need to reply to some false and/or subjective claims regarding the company, its games and what actually happened.

I liked Stacking, The Cave and first part of Broke Age (I'm eagerly waiting the second part), so I have all the reasons to support Double Fine. I also like the original Grim Fandango (which I have on disc), so for me this was instant pre-order.

I was super excited when I saw they were releasing a remastered Grim Fandango. Then I watch the promotional video and see Double Fine there... I'm sorry but I have no trust for this people anymore. Best of luck for them, but I fear it will be a terrible release.

Funny how some people are eager, at the first sight of one problem, to put any company in one big category of "greedy companies that only live to make profit and screw with their customers".

Keeping alive a company is not simple, especially when you're independent, a position that has its advantages and inconveniences as well.

I think Tim Shaffer's only (honest) mistake in all this (and he recognized it himself, several times), probably responsible for most recents issues with the company, is to have seen too big for Broken Age, overwhelmed by its initial Kickstarter campaign's success. The game revealed itself to require much more time, people and funds to be completed, and along the way, especially in this time between the two episodes, they had to make some decisions to be able to make some money to survive. And all this is pretty clear in their regular videos addressed to their backers.

Double Fine is simply one of the most dedicated dev studios that I've seen. The mistakes they made so far are mainly due to some inexperience with being totally independent. And the impression that some people have right now (I've seen similar reactions to other KS funded games) is that crowdfunding now let the players be witnesses of all the development process, its several issues and the changes being made along the way, changes that have always existed in most of the games made for years and years. We just didn't see all that before.

So why shouldn't i buy this game? It does look like a violent video game to me.

I'm increasingly having problems with plain hyperbole in games discussion. Apparently developers are either creative angels or perverse crooks. I don't think Double Fine is either.

Double Fine has abandoned the DF-9 development, that is true. Yet that is absolutely the concept of Steam's Early Access, so please, go ahead and at least give Valve the finger as well for hiding themselves and their business clients from any kind of financial or moral responsiblity. And with that in mind, Double Fine has made a comparatively classy retreat, with a fully playable game and ample modding opportunities should DF-9 somehow turn into a cult classic one day.

On countless occasions I have also remarked on how Double Fine seems to need absurd sums of money for anything they do. One pillar of that waste is certainly the SF bay area, another the adequate payment of employees (which e.g. Telltale Games does not), but I can not but see a heavy third problem in project management. When Broken Age is finally completed, it will easily have cost 10 million $, and it DOES look rather low budget for a mere 2D adventure game. However, that is Double Fine's problem and not a rip off on the side of the consumer. If they can't make a 2D adventure game on a fan provided three million dollar budget and instead waste their own money to finish the product, the consumer isn't exactly ripped off. DF will always be on the brim of bancruptcy that way, but still: their problem.

Grim Fandango was only touched with a feather duster, that is very true. And certainly I would have wished for more, at the very least backgrounds in high res. But, all right then, they didn't do that. Yet whatever I did since abandoning Windows 98, I haven't been able to get Grim to run properly, owning the original 97 release. If the Remastered edition runs, and with point and click to boot, it was a great purchase.

We've been waiting for a Grim Fandango release on GOG since time memorial. Here it is, mostly in original form.

If you've been waiting with me, I don't see a reason not to buy it.

I'm really not Tim Schafer's biggest fan anymore with his statements in recent months and Double Fine's inability to produce Broken Age considering, quite frankly, other companies produced more with less off of kickstarter funding (Shadowrun Returns, Tesla Effect and Broken Sword 5 were all much more satisfactory products than Broken Age).

However. As far as Grim Fandango Remastered goes, if they've put in the work to make it work well with modern systems, added some different control options and are willing to resell it as a digital DRM free release, I think it's okay to buy it. Even if you don't want to otherwise support Double Fine.

They've got the rights to it, it was creatively Tim Schafer's work, it was an excellent game. It does need an update because getting the original to work is a nightmare on newer hardware. If these issues are solved, I truly believe this is only a love letter to the fans who want to play this game without these issues and it shouldn't really be turned into a political statement about Double Fine's current state.

@OP, if you are asking not to support Double Fine, you basically are saying we should support you in your campaign to complain about whatever your problems are with Double Fine. You are going to have to do with a lot more than the Spacebase DF-9 case and the Broken Age, which are far from complete failures, and you should probably keep your post balanced by also mentioning that there are gems from Double Fine but you somehow think that they are not worth your time. And probably try to come across way less... sentimental.

I have backed (what is now) and followed closely Broken Age (+dev log and documentary) and I have not backed Spacebase DF-9, nor Massive Challice because I didn't like the pitch/projects enough. I also enjoyed Psychonauts a lot and I am currently trying Brutal Legend.

I have also watched the videos and the interviews about the remastered version of Grim Fandango, and I am as excited about this release as when it was announced back in last summer. I can't wait to replay the game (...). (I have the original version as well, and I have gone through a lot of hoops to make it playable on recent Windows OS (32bit, haven't tried 64bit) and it still has some issues).

There is nothing in your post that is going to convince me that I should now hate Double Fine.

It's not impossible, but playing it requires occasional use of third party software, like slowdown utility. And with 64bit systems you also need third party installer as the original doesn't work. Even then you might experience occasional crashes with some modern computers, but other than that it works just fine. Although I agree that the remastered version should make life easier.

I have SpaceBase DF-9 on steam and I have to admit that this piece of crap si a shame to video games and it is unfinished product.

Fortunately, I didn't paid the full price and I paid around 11 euros when it was on sales on early access.

But I'm very disappointed with the final product and the catastrophic AI. And all promises gone about the game.

Personally I don't buy early access games, because there's always risk involved with them. Everyone who buys those should be aware of the risks before investing any money. But at least Double Fine offered playable (even if it has plenty of flaws) product, unlike some other early access failures, who didn't give anything. While it's unfortunate for the customers, I understand why DF abandoned the sinking ship.