It’s important to break down the Psychonauts sales numbers. What are the chances of the game becoming profitable? One of the ways Double Fine is using to instill confidence in investors about hitting its revenue goals is using sales figures from the first Psychonauts game. Calculated out, it amounts to $0.00000146 earned per $1 of adjusted gross revenue. After the game becomes profitable, a $500 investment is going to earn $1 for every $68,376 of adjusted gross revenue (total revenue minus shipping and handling, taxes, customer returns, etc.). Once the project does break even, the sky is essentially the limit. The impact is most often incurred by the developer for digital copies and even for boxed copies it can be spread back up the supply channel. In other words, when you find a game in the physical or virtual "bargain bin," the situation is more complicated than the retailer or storefront simply reducing the price. Rice says that amount essentially takes into account an average sale price of $30 inclusive of bundling and discounts that are industry standard. In order for an investor to break even, Double Fine needs to sell 693,638 copies at the average wholesale price of $21.
PSYCHONAUTS 2 PHYSICAL COPY FULL
If Double Fine opts for a full $60 price tag, each copy will contribute $42. If Psychonauts is priced at $40, wholesale jumps to $28. "That $21 wholesale price the calculator defaults to is a number Fig provides that is based on industry standard pricing for a game of Psychonaut's size over the first few years of its lifetime." "The retail price of the game will be higher than the $40 price point we're offering in our Fig campaign," says Double Fine's Greg Rice. Double Fine affirmed this estimation, but also pointed out that it isn't implying that Psychonauts 2 will be sold at launch for $30. Multiple developers and publishers tell us that a unit wholesale price represents 70 percent of consumer sale price on Steam and console storefronts. The calculator defaults to a wholesale of $21. There, you can play around with the wholesale price (the revenue Double Fine will earn on a copy sold via a digital distributor). In order to assist new, non-accredited investors understand how the system works, there’s a calculator featured on the site (and pictured immediately above). The amount you're legally allowed to invest is based on a calculation that takes into account your net worth and annual income. For those that don’t meet the lofty accreditation requirements, for the first time, investment opportunities are available between $1,000 and $10,000. It also marks the first time non-accredited investors (those who don’t have a net worth of at least $1 million and earn more than $200,000 per year) can earn a return should they choose. The campaign is off to a strong start, bringing in more than $1 million from investors and traditional backers in the first 24 hours. Fig is different than Kickstarter because it only features one game at a time and also allows investment in addition to traditional backing. This time, it'll be using the new Fig platform, which includes Double Fine's Tim Schafer, Obsidian’s Feargus Urquhart, inXile’s Brian Fargo, and Harmonix’s Alex Rigopolus on the advisory board. Rather than pursue a traditional publishing arrangement like it had with Majesco a decade ago, Double Fine is following its trend of crowdfunding.
Last night at The Game Awards, Double Fine announced that it hopes to finally deliver a sequel, but it's going to need some help from fans. Ever since its release in 2005, fans have been clamoring for a sequel to Double Fine's charming 3D platformer, Psychonauts.