I think it would be a bit fair if you found out that Thimbleweed Park 2 was in the works and thought, “Who funded that?” Not because it doesn’t deserve funding, but because adventure games aren’t really in fashion (although it’s not as dead a genre as many think), and also this whole video game industry is collapsing around us day by day. During the announcement last month, creator Ron Gilbert said it was thanks to the help of a private investor, and now the developer has shed some light on how it came to be and how that relationship works.
Talk to BloombergGilbert explained that when he decided to make the sequel, he didn’t want to go the traditional publisher route because of the amount of money they often wanted. “I don’t mind the publisher getting their money back. It’s just that once they get their money back and they become whole, they still want the majority of the money,” Gilbert explained. “Or there’s some really crazy terms, like you don’t do anything unless it’s a big hit. I always thought that was unfair.”
After coming up with the idea, which was partly based on sort of resolving the reaction to the ending of the original game (which I won’t spoil here (“I had this weird brainstorm, so I wrote it, this one-page story,” Gilbert said of the idea)), a friend contacted him to say that there was someone who wasn’t in the industry who wanted to finance it, they were just busy, like adventure games, and loved Thimbleweed Park. Gilbert was quite cautious: “It’s not the first time this has happened” – but he still asked for the benefactor’s email.
And so Gilbert came up with a budget, “very realistic,” that would cover two years of development, costing more than the $1 million budget the original had to account for inflation and paying everyone working on the sequel better than last time. The investor felt satisfied with everything and both men agreed to all the conditions. “This deal is much fairer in that he gets his agreement very quickly, and then it’s a reasonable split.”
It all sort of reminds me of the bygone days of rich, eclectic people paying people to make art just because, and I wonder, in an age where it’s so hard to find funding, if we’ll see this pop up more here and there. If you’re going to be rich, why not throw it into a pit that will at least give you a game suited to your tastes?
