Tim Schafer says Double Fine's unique games can be commercial hits if they can

Diego Argüello,Contributing Editor, News,GameDeveloper.com

September 8, 2026

3 Min ReadImage via Double Fine Productions

Tim Schafer, the head of Double Fine Productions, says the studio hasn't tried to develop a game that it thought wouldn't be commercially viable.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Schafer provides insight about the studio's tenure under Xbox right until it was jettisoned at the start of July during the company's restructuring plan. Double Fine's newest titles, Keeper and Kiln, weren't a commercial success, and the studio wasn't profitable. Schafer said this unprofitability may have made some view Double Fine's output as prestige "arthouse" work—but he pushed back on that point of view, arguing there is market appeal for the team's catalogue

"We never actively tried to make a game we thought was going to lose money," Schafer tells Bloomberg. "I think people would say, 'oh, Keeper looks like this art house thing that no one expects to be a hit.' But to me it's the kind of game that someone who doesn't play games would love. I really think there's a mass market appeal to Keeper. If we could just get to those people, we could have them catch Lighthouse Fever."

The expectations under Xbox changed at the beginning of this year when previous Xbox boss Phil Spencer retired and was replaced by Asha Sharma. "We had a mutually beneficial mission, which is just to put great games on Game Pass, and then their mission changed," Schafer says. "I can't imagine any amount of profitability—unless we had a breakout, Minecraft hit that year—would've saved us."

Double Fine regaining its independence was seen as a positive move, but this wasn't without cost. At the end of July, the studio laid off 23 staff members. "As a small, tightly-knit team, these actions are not taken lightly," Schafer said in a statement at the time. "Only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful action. Our transition to becoming an independent company also means becoming a size that we can sustain."

Now, the studio is running a Kickstarter campaign intended to fund the studio's own game jam, Amnesia Fortnight. Then, the winner of the jam will be polished up to become a small game published under Double Fine Action Labs, a "new label for weird little games." At the time of writing, the campaign has way surpassed its $400,000 goal with over 20 days left to go.

As Bloomberg reports, Double Fine is exploring other ways to generate revenue, such as ports and remasters, while Schafer pitches new games to potential investors. Whatever the next game might be, it sounds like it will retain the Double Fine signature, regardless of how it eventually does when it's out in the market.

"After all these years, how little I understand about the business just shows how hard it is to know," Schafer tells Bloomberg. "That's why I'm focused on keeping my team alive. That's why we do these creative things all the time. If we stopped doing these wacky creative things, we'd eventually be like, 'Who cares?' These games aren't lucrative enough to make up for how hard they are. They have to also be really fun and rewarding to make."

XboxTop Stories

About the Author

Diego Argüello

Contributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.com

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.

See more from Diego Argüello