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# Think Kickstarter frees creators? Tim Schafer says otherwise.
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/how-crowdfunding-undermining-creative-talents-minds-tim-schafer/
- Published: 2013-12-31T21:00:42.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T16:22:32.000Z
- Description: It’s generally accepted that crowd-funding services are invaluable to games, allowing creative types to get things done without the oversight of a greedy publisher, who’d typically push for safe bets. However, in a recent interview, comments by Tim Schafer of Doublefine, whose game Broken Age was fu
- Author: Jason Johnson
- Tags: News, Adventure Games, Kickstarter, Tim Schafer, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

It’s generally accepted that crowd-funding services are invaluable to games, allowing creative types to get things done without the oversight of a greedy publisher, who’d typically push for safe bets. However, in [a recent interview](http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/25859/page3?ref=killscreen.com), comments by Tim Schafer of Doublefine, whose game *Broken Age* was funded on Kickstarter and is under development, shed a little doubt on the wisdom of the crowd:

> *I guess I would say I do have an idea for how I want the game to be, but a lot of stuff that fed into the forming of that idea came from feeling like I knew the backers, from reading their comments on the forums. That they liked adventure games. … They were mostly very supportive, “you guys just do what you do,” and of course everyone has their opinion of “I think you should have a verb coin” or “I think you shouldn’t,” but I got a sense that they weren’t looking for a reinvention of adventure games.*

Wait a minute. Wouldn’t we rather see the savant of adventure games reinvent the adventure game? True, his previous effort *Brutal Legend* underwhelmed, but that had the air of executive tampering. Before that, *Psychonauts* undersold but was inventive and beloved by all who played. Of course, Schafer’s classic adventure games are legendary, but even *Grim Fandango* pushed the form into new territory. It seems like a tragic mishap that one of the brightest creatives in the medium would be told by his biggest fans to quit innovating and get back to lock-and-key puzzles. In the words of George R R Martin, “Art is not a democracy. People don’t get to vote on how it ends.” Unless that art is funded on Kickstarter, apparently.