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Double Fine COO wants to keep indies premium with consistent pricing
Double Fine chief operating officer Justin Bailey expressed a desire to maintain premium status for indie-developed games in a recent interview with USgamer, explaining that a continued "race to the bottom" in terms of pricing could prove disastrous for the developing marketplace. "I think what indies really need to watch out for is not becoming the new casual games," Bailey said, referencing a looming indie bubble and casual gaming's free-to-play shift. "I don't think that's a problem from the development side. Indies are approaching it as an artform and they're trying to be innovative, but what's happening in the marketplace is indies are being pushed more and more to have a lower price or have a bunch of games bundled together." In an effort to stave off marketplace dilution, Bailey says that Double Fine will encourage its publishing partners to maintain consistent pricing without spurring sales through bundles or deep discounts. "Double Fine wants to keep indies premium," Bailey stated. "You see that in our own games and how we're positioning them. We fight the urge to just completely drop the price. That's one of the things we want to encourage in this program. Getting people to stick to a premium price point and to the platforms that allow you to do that." Double Fine recently kicked off its indie publishing initiative with Escape Goat 2, providing creator Ian Stocker with "promotional assistance and distribution" at launch. "Our biggest interest is to have a vibrant indie ecosystem," Bailey said. "Our thought is the best people to provide that are going to be the indies. We'd like to help make other indies successful, keep them independent, and have a place where they can go and in turn, help out other indies. That makes the ecosystem stronger." [Image: Double Fine]
Double Fine to publish indie games, starting with Escape Goat 2
Double Fine may be known for creating games like Psychonauts, Brutal Legend and Broken Age, but it's expanding its efforts to add indie game publishing to its repertoire. Its first act as an indie publisher is to provide "promotional assistance and distribution" for MagicalTimeBean's Escape Goat 2, COO Justin Bailey told Game Informer. "Our goal is to help indies build their own community and empower them with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed on their own," Bailey said, adding that multiple indie developers have approached Double Fine to ask for publishing assistance. "They all had a unique request and that's where we started to see there was a real need for the knowledge we've gained over the last 14 years on how to prototype, fund, develop and publish our own games." Double Fine's publishing ambitions boil down to the efforts of two individuals: Bailey and senior publishing manager Greg Rice, who will offer advice for crowdfunding hopefuls as well as development feedback, platform porting advice and promotional assistance. "We're open to working with each developer and figuring out how we can help make them successful," Bailey added. Double Fine recently teamed up with MagicalTimeBean to create a quirky promotional video for Escape Goat 2. The game launched yesterday on PC, Mac and Linux via Steam, GOG and the Humble Store for $10. [Image: MagicalTimeBean]
