Tim Schafer, the founder and creative director of Double Fine Productions, recently opened up about how his studio managed to stay afloat after a wave of layoffs at Xbox, emphasizing that "no one puts Double Fine out of business except for me." In a candid conversation with Bloomberg, Schafer detailed the steps he took to protect the company’s intellectual property and secure the funding necessary to regain its independence. "You start thinking, ‘Hold on, we’re not just going to fold,’" Schafer explained.
"Some people said, ‘I’m out, this is one too many battles for me.’ But for the rest of us, it felt like a creative rebirth." The studio’s journey back to autonomy began after Microsoft’s 2019 acquisition, when Xbox chief Phil Spencer expressed confidence that Double Fine’s titles would thrive on the Game Pass platform. However, when Spencer stepped down in February and Asha Sharma assumed a more prominent role, the strategic direction shifted, especially after the under‑performance of titles like Keeper and Kiln. "Our original mission was a simple, mutually beneficial one: put great games on Game Pass," Schafer said. "Then that mission changed.
I can’t imagine any amount of profit—unless we had a breakout hit on the scale of Minecraft that year—could have saved us." He added a memorable line that underscored his resolve: "No one puts Double Fine out of business except for me. Asha isn’t going to shoot my dog; I would, but not because I want to see it succeed. A lot of people just want to walk the dog." Since re‑establishing its independence, Double Fine has trimmed its workforce by 23 positions, bringing the staff count to just under 70 employees. "We grew under Microsoft, but now we’ve returned to a sustainable size for an independent studio," Schafer noted.
The company is actively presenting new game concepts to potential investors, a process Schafer described as "really interesting after seven years of being under a larger corporate umbrella." Schafer reflected on how dramatically the industry landscape has changed, admitting that his own understanding of the business side remains limited. "That just shows how hard it is to grasp the full picture," he said. "That’s why my priority is keeping my team alive and continuing to create the wacky, experimental games that define us. If we stopped taking creative risks, we’d eventually be asking, ‘Who cares?’ These projects aren’t lucrative enough to offset their difficulty; they also have to be genuinely fun and rewarding to develop." When asked about the studio’s approach to pitching games as an independent entity, Schafer emphasized that Double Fine has never deliberately set out to make a money‑losing title.
"People might think ‘Keeper looks like an art‑house experiment that no one expects to hit,’" he said, "but to me it’s the kind of game that could appeal to someone who doesn’t even play video games. I truly believe Keeper has mass‑market potential.
If we could reach those people, we could spark a ‘Lighthouse Fever.’" In addition to its core development work, Double Fine recently announced the fifth installment of its Amnesia Fortnight event, a tradition where small internal teams prototype new game ideas. This iteration includes a Kickstarter campaign and a documentary produced by 2 Player Productions, offering fans a behind‑the‑scenes look at the creative process.
Schafer summed up the year’s challenges with a mixture of frustration and determination. "We’ve been through a lot this year—soul‑sucking internal conflict, threats of termination, lengthy negotiations, tough legal trade‑offs, and a lot of demoralising moments," he said. "But this is the good fight.
Can we dream up a great game that fits a realistic budget and catches the eye of a publisher who loves this kind of experience? Solving problems with creativity is what gets us out of bed each morning.
It’s hard, scary, and stressful, but at least it reignites a fire in the team and in me."