Double Fine is pitching new games after Xbox split

Schafer praised Xbox's treatment of the studio during its ownership. He said Microsoft let Double Fine remain itself, enabled it to pursue larger creative ambitions and helped the team finish and improve Psychonauts 2 after it lost its previous publisher. Joining Xbox was “exactly the right thing” at the time, he said.

Small experiments are part of the plan

The newly independent studio is already testing ideas through Amnesia Fortnight, its recurring two-week game jam. Schafer said Double Fine has about 60 employees and split them into four teams. Kickstarter backers chose four concepts from 26 pitches, and they will later vote on one prototype to receive another month of polish and a release through the studio's new Double Fine Action Labs label.

That process fits Schafer's interest in making more bets at a smaller scale. He said established series such as Psychonauts or Brutal Legend could return, but the studio is currently concentrating on original work. No sequel was announced in the interview.

Layoffs remain the larger worry

Schafer was less certain about why the wider games business continues shedding jobs. He said he once viewed layoffs and rehiring as a cycle, but believes the downturn has continued for roughly four years even as people keep playing games and companies keep making money.

His explanation was deliberately speculative: “I assume someone is being greedy somewhere.” Schafer said he hopes the cycle reverses and stressed that creativity still exists in both independent and major-budget games. In his view, however, large-studio development has become more stressful, with workers sometimes laid off after shipping a game, while independent teams face their own risk of running out of money.

He connected those pressures to broader problems involving public companies, wealth concentration and economic inequality. That analysis was his interpretation, not a documented account of any one company's decisions. For Double Fine, the immediate task is narrower and more concrete: secure partners for the next games without giving up the smaller, stranger ideas the studio separated from Xbox to keep making.