Schafer makes history as Kickstarter hits $1m

Veteran adventure game makers Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer have brushed the publishing industry aside in a dramatic 24 hours where they amassed $1 million through crowdfunding.

Yesterday their studio, Double Fine, launched a public campaign to finance a new adventure game. Thousands of fans from around the world each made their own donation to reach a $400,000 target in the space of nine hours – some thirty days ahead of schedule.

Now, in less than a full day, the combined funds have soared past one million dollars with no signs of slowing.

Sailing on the wings of public interest after Minecraft developer Marcus Persson made an offer to fund a sequel to Double Fine’s Psychonauts, the studio’s Kickstarter campaign has broken several platform records, and gained the attention of the international games community.

"The number keeps going up," said Double Fine on its Kickstarter blog, "and now the question is just how much news do we want to make with this? We’re getting a lot of attention already and it seems like this little project could have an impact beyond itself."

The industry is divided on what the impact will be. Some claim this means traditional publishing is a thing of the past, others have pointed out similarities with funding models already recieving mainstream attention, and say larger projects will always need publisher backing for a AAA budget.