I think it would be a tad fair if you heard that Thimbleweed Park 2 is in the works and thought, “who funded that?” Not because it doesn’t deserve funding, but because adventure games aren’t exactly in vogue (even though it’s not as dead a genre as many think), and also there’s that whole video game industry crumbling around us day by day thing. When it was announced last month, creator Ron Gilbert said that it was thanks to the help of a private investor, and now the developer has shed a bit of light on how that came to be, and how that relationship works.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Gilbert explained that when he decided to make the sequel, he didn’t want to go the traditional publisher route because of how much money they often want. “I don’t mind the publisher earning back their money. It’s just that once they have earned back their money and become whole, they still want the majority of the money,” Gilbert explained. “Or there are really goofy terms, like you don’t make anything unless it’s a major hit. I always felt that was unfair.”
After coming up with the idea, which was based partially on sort of solving the reaction to the end of the original game (that I won’t spoil here (“I had this weird brainstorm, so I wrote it down, this one-page story,” Gilbert said of the idea)), a friend contacted him saying there was someone not in the industry that wanted to fund it, they were just loaded, like adventure games, and loved Thimbleweed Park. Gilbert was suitably wary – “This is not the first time this has happened,” – but he asked for the benefactor’s email anyway.
And so, Gilbert whipped up a budget, “a very realistic one,” that would cover two years of development, costing more than the $1 million budget the original had to account for inflation and paying everyone that’s working on the sequel better than last time. The investor felt happy with everything, and the pair agreed on all the terms. “This deal is a lot more fair in that he gets whole very quickly, and then it’s a reasonable split.”
The whole thing sort of reminds me of the bygone era when eclectic rich folks would pay people to make art just because, and I do wonder at a time where it’s so hard to find funding if we’ll see this crop up more here and there. If you have to be rich, why not throw it into a pit that’ll at least get you a game catered to your tastes?
