I read the announcement.. Can't even believe the horseshit excuses. Tim Shafer was really going to fund this entire game's development through early access sales, and cuts it off the second it's no longer in the black? Does he even fucking know how game development projects work? Who the fuck would pay for a game with no content?
And yes, Tim Shafer did plan on milking early access money out of people for 5 years. That's gall. Almost as if they weren't ever planning on making it a real game, just string along buyers with 'sales' and updates that aren't really material in any way.
I saw this on steam forums and it is highly appropriate. When you can say "'Bobby Kotick' was right", there's something really fucked up about a situation.
Tim Schafer is not doing the business/funding decisions at Double Fine, if he did, they wouldn't be here. They have a person who's job is to make sure they make enough money to keep going. Schafer also doesn't have anything to do with SpaceBase, except that his company is making it. Not like his feelings would be hurt or anything, but you should be angry at Double Fine, not Tim Schafer.
I do understand everyone being mad at Double Fine for all the unfilled promises, but there's not much to fix it now. Can't really expect them to be making at a loss in the hopes that 3 years down the line suddenly people start buying it. The only thing to be said about this is that it was a failed experiment. If would have worked, awesome. Now it just kinda sucks for the fans and Double Fine. The only way to fix the situation was that SpaceBase was never even started, which wouldn't have been that much better.
Also, to ask who would pay for a game with no content. We are at the forums of a game that was receiving donations before the game even launched, and it received a substantial amount of them when there was way less content than there is now. So, to answer your questions, some fans of Dwarf Fortress might be the people to pay for the promise of an amazing game instead of a game with tons of content. It is naive and risky, but hey, DF.
I'm sure JP LeBreton, the lead designer of SpaceBase actually wanted to make a great game, not just string people along in hopes of sales. He's probably even less happy than the fans about the plug being pulled on the project.
Color me unsurprised. I always found it very fishy that Double Fine ran out of money on Broken Age, but suddenly announced 3 new projects.
Double Fine is going under, and they're running the gaming equivalent of a ponzi scheme in order to bring in enough money to finish their older projects.
There's dozens of people working at Double Fine. Only 10 or so work on Broken Age. The announcements of the other games were very likely related to the other people needing something to do.
Also, I'd like to point out that Double Fine successfully launched
a full version of a game that started on Early Access two and a half weeks ago. So all the talk that Double Fine can't handle Early Access seems slightly silly. SpaceBase met an unfortunate end because of too little interest. Does that make Double Fine an evil money-hungry company? Maybe it does, but I'm not convinced yet.