Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer confirmed on the Kinda Funny Games Daily podcast that the studio now owns the intellectual property and publishing rights to the games it made during its time under Xbox, including Psychonauts 2, Keeper, and Kiln. Schafer said, "the transfer of the IP came back to us. We have the publishing rights back to our games." He noted that some storefronts, including Steam, still list Xbox Game Studios as publisher for certain titles, but said that's simply because "it just takes a while for it all to process."
Schafer emphasized that buying Double Fine's games now puts money directly into the studio's hands. "When people buy our games, it supports the studio," he said. "So if you're curious, buying any of our games helps support the studio, and we can turn that money into revenue that helps us extend that runway." Compulsion Games, developer of South of Midnight, was cut loose from Xbox in the same restructuring and has similarly confirmed it retains ownership of its IP and publishing rights.
Alongside the publishing rights news, Schafer announced that Double Fine will revive its long-running Amnesia Fortnight game jam as a live, publicly streamed event tied to a new Kickstarter campaign. Titled "Amnesia Fortnight 2026 - Indie Reboot," the campaign begins August 31 and runs into September. Backers will get to hear pitches from every team at the studio, vote on which four ideas become prototypes over two weeks, and then vote again on which prototype gets further polish and an eventual release as a small game. The event will be filmed by 2 Player Productions for a new documentary, following past collaborations including its documentary on Psychonauts 2's development.
Amnesia Fortnight has a long history at Double Fine, having been run publicly in 2012, 2014, 2017, and 2019. Previous jams have spawned full games such as Costume Quest, Stacking, Spacebase DK-9, and Headlander, and inspired sections of other titles like a level in Psychonauts 2. Schafer compared the studio's current situation to the period after Brutal Legend's sequel was canceled, when smaller projects born from Amnesia Fortnight helped keep the studio running.
Schafer described the studio's newly regained independence as a limited window rather than a permanent solution, saying, "It's a runway, not a freeway, it doesn't go forever. It's just a little patch where we can take off on our own power, and we want to extend it a little bit." He said Double Fine is working on multiple projects and hopes to sign new game deals soon.
The good news follows a difficult stretch for the studio. Sources differ slightly on the scale of Double Fine's own layoffs, with some describing it as roughly a quarter of its staff and others specifying 23 people out of approximately 90 employees; Schafer previously said the cuts were necessary to reach "a size that we can sustain." The layoffs came amid a broader Xbox restructuring that, according to different reports, affected either around 3,200 roles across the division or 1,600 people company-wide, and also saw studios including Compulsion Games, Undead Labs, and Ninja Theory spun off from Microsoft while retaining their IP.