Psychonauts, Costume Quest and Stacking Coming to Retail
Double Fine’s finest games are finally getting retail releases after the developer regained the publishing rights to Psychonauts, Costume Quest and Stacking. The rights were originally held by the now non-existent publisher THQ and were acquired by Nordic Games during the THQ auctions. Now however Nordic Games have given the rights back to Double Fine and the pair are partnering for the retail releases.
Costume Quest and Stacking have only ever been available digitally, whilst Psychonauts was once a retail release but is also now only available digitally. However this is all set to change when all three games get physical releases on PC and Mac in the first half of 2014. All three games will launch in both Europe and North America.
President and CEO of Double Fine, Tim Schafer, had this to say about regaining the rights.
“I am pleased that we have regained full control over Costume Quest and Stacking, following a daring and top-secret midnight raid on the Nordic Games headquarters in Vienna,”
Lars Wingefors, Owner and CEO of Nordic Games then replied with this.
“We can’t wait to partner with Double Fine for this upcoming retail launch of three of its most excellent games,”
“However, I feel compelled to point out that we were happy to transfer distribution rights for Costume Quest and Stacking back to Double Fine in an entirely non-secretive and heist-free manner.”
Obviously not wanting to seem ‘uncool’ Double Fine’s business development VP Justin Bailey replied with this.
“Double Fine is dedicated to controlling its own IP, and we will continue working to bring all associated rights back in-house whenever possible,”
“no matter how many split-second security system hacks or painstaking tunneling operations we have to execute.”
But it was Klemens Kreuzer, Managing Director at Nordic Games who got in the last word.
“I just want to clarify, again, that we support the right of independent developers to control their own distribution, and we were pleased to have the opportunity to work with Double Fine,”
“No heists.”
