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Lots of Psychonauts 2 money temporarily stuck in legal limbo 25 May, 2016 / 1 comment

You'll recall that the Fig campaign for Psychonauts 2 was an immense success, raising $3.8 million to produce the long-awaited sequel, currently due out in 2018. However, according to Polygon, Double Fine is unable to actually collect about $1.8 of that dough, for the moment.

You might be aware that the main thing distinguishing Fig from Kickstarter - and indeed its primary mission statement - is that it offers the option for backers to invest invest in the project (which means potential, eventual profit participation) along with the usual donation choice, which often gets you fun rewards.

However, allowing investments from unaccredited investors (like you or me) requires a review process with the SEC, a process Fig obviously intended to get through by now. The Psychonauts 2 campaign was the first of its kind in offering an investment opportunity from pretty much anybody, and I suppose when you're the vanguard you get to be the first to learn certain painful lessons like these delays.

Per the article, Fig is hopeful to have the matter resolved soon, though technically there's no guarantee that every backer who's been waiting these months for their money to get collected will hold to their commitment until the gates finally open. It'll likely all end the way everyone wants, but it will still have been another interesting challenge faced by Double Fine, a studio continuing to tighten its commitment to the constantly expanding landscape of game crowdsourcing, a landscape they played a pretty direct part in paving.

Source: Polygon

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    KestrelPi on 07 Jun, 2016, 17:00…
    Of course one of the big reasons that the potential investors may not hold to their commitment is that it isn't in fact a commitment, something that I found confusing during the campaign as it all sort of gets conflated in the campaign total. What they have is $2 million in pledged money plus about $1.8 million in investor interest, which the website was very to point out does not constitute a pledge or a commitment at this point.

    Buuut a lot of time has passed, and when I registered my interest, it was not clear to me this would be added to the campaign total, and it was so easy to do (and actually impossible to undo!) that I wouldn't be surprised if a significant chunk of that money never shows up.

    Not to imply any wrongdoing on Double Fine or Fig's part here, but the site could have been much clearer about what that investment amount really represents, especially now that unaccredited investors are in the mix.

    I've fed this back to them, and they seemed receptive. I very much doubt the entire project hangs on the ability for the whole of this $1.8 to be collected, but I do hope that if the amount actually recieved is disappointing, this doesn't cause too much strain on the project.

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