Double Fine Productions has regained ownership of its intellectual property and publishing rights after leaving Xbox.
CEO Tim Schafer noted during the Kinda Funny Games podcast that some of Double Fine’s games “still say ‘Microsoft’ […] but it just takes a while for it all to process. When people buy our games, it supports the studio.”
Double Fine, along with Compulsion Games, was spun out of Xbox Game Studios following layoffs that affected over 3,200 employees last month.
Compulsion Games officially separated from Xbox last week. CEO Guillaume Provost said “the team told [him] we would rather eat rocks and drink gasoline than be split up.”
Double Fine also announced its fifth Amnesia Fortnight event following its independence from Microsoft.
Each year, employees form small teams to design and build game prototypes over two weeks. Some prototypes have become full projects, including the recently released Kiln.
This year’s event, ‘<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/amnesia-fortnight-2026-indie-reboot” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Amnesia Fortnight 2026 – Indie Reboot: A Double Fine Productions Game Jam Documentary and Kickstarter Campaign,’ will launch on August 31.
Double Fine will host a live Game Jam, with backers having the opportunity to choose which idea gets made into four new prototypes. They will then “decide which of those four will become a real (small) game.”
“All alongside the process, 2 Player Productions will be filming all the fun to produce one of their award-winning documentary spectaculars,” the studio said.
Per Kotaku, Schafer stated the goal “is to get one Kickstarter project supported to help give the studio financial runway post-separation, so that it can have time and stability while it works on other projects.”
Last month, Double Fine eliminated 23 positions after its full separation from Xbox.
“As a small, tightly-knit team, these actions are not taken lightly,” said Schafer. “Only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful action.”
