{"id":88943,"date":"2026-09-04T20:03:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=88943"},"modified":"2026-09-04T22:41:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:41:40","slug":"no-one-puts-double-fine-out-of-business-except-for-me-tim-schafer-explains-how-he-kept-double-fine-afloat-after-leaving-xbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=88943","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;No One Puts Double Fine Out of Business Except for Me&#8217; \u2014 Tim Schafer Explains How He Kept Double Fine Afloat After Leaving Xbox"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\">\n<p>Tim Schafer, game designer and founder of Psychonauts developer Double Fine, gave a strong response after Xbox divested the studio as part of its massive restructuring efforts this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with Bloomberg&#8217;s Jason Schreier in a September 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2026-09-04\/how-double-fine-escaped-the-xbox-bloodbath\">interview<\/a>, Schafer admitted that he knew something was up before Xbox\u2019s divestment was officially announced \u2014 but he wasn\u2019t about to go down without a fight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You\u2019re like, &#8216;Wait a second, we\u2019re not going out like this,'&#8221; Schafer explained. &#8220;Some people said, &#8216;I\u2019m checking out, this is one too many battles for me.\u2019 But for the rest of us, it\u2019s like a creative awakening.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No one puts Double Fine out of business except for me,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Asha\u2019s not going to shoot my dog. I\u2019m going to shoot it. But I\u2019m not going to shoot it, because it\u2019s going to do great. A lot of people want to walk the dog.&#8221;<\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"ignvideo\" data-slug=\"psychonauts-2-how-double-fine-cooked-up-its-most-unexpected-level-art-of-the-level\" data-loop=\"\">\n<p>Thankfully, Double Fine was able to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/double-fine-owns-ip-and-publishing-rights-for-all-of-its-games-following-xbox-split-psychonauts-studio-confirms\">retain its intellectual property<\/a> and become fully independent, though it did have to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/xbox-speaks-out-after-double-fine-lays-off-25-percent-of-staff-in-transition-to-independent-status\">lay off a quarter of its staff<\/a> as a result of this change. That isn\u2019t stopping it from making more games, though, as the developer recently published a Kickstarter for its next<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Schafer, game designer and founder of Psychonauts developer Double Fine, gave a strong response after Xbox divested the studio as part of its massive restructuring efforts this summer. Speaking with Bloomberg&#8217;s Jason Schreier in a September 2026 interview, Schafer admitted that he knew something was up before Xbox\u2019s divestment was officially announced \u2014 but&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":88945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88943"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88943"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88947,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88943\/revisions\/88947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/88945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}