How Double Fine Survived The Xbox Bloodbath | Jason Schreier Tim Schafer Quotes: “The games industry is full of terrible things and I can't change most of them. It's like I'm a captain of a little fishing boat and it's like whether worrying about whether the ocean is fair. Not much I can do about it. Just keep this little boat aloat. Keep trying to see if that's a reef or is that a bunch of fish? Is that money over there?” “No one puts Double Fine out of business except for me. Asha is not going to shoot my dog. I'm going to shoot it, but I'm not going to shoot it because it's going to do great. A lot of people want to walk the dog.” “We never actively tried to make a game we thought was going to lose money.” I think people would say, “Oh, Keeper looks like this arthouse thing that no one expects to be a hit. But to me, it's the kind of game that someone who doesn't play games would love. I really think there's a mass market appeal to Keeper. If we could just get to those people, we could have them catch Lighthouse Fever.” “After all these years, how little I understand about the business just shows how hard it is to know. That's why I'm focused on keeping my team alive. That's why we do all these creative things all the time. If we stopped doing these wacky creative things, we'd eventually be like, who cares? The games aren't these games aren't lucrative enough to make up for how hard they are. They have to also be really fun and rewarding to make.” “We've been through a lot this year. A lot of it is very soul sucking stuff. Inner conflict, threats of extermination, long negotiations, strenuous hard tradeoffs with lawyers, tons of demoralizing stuff.” “This is the good fight. Can we think of a great idea for a game that we can actually do for the right budget that can get to this publisher who's interested in these types of games? This kind of problem solving is soul enriching. Using creativity to solve problems is what gets us up in the morning. So, it is hard and it is scary and it is stressful, but it's at least putting some fire back into the bellies of the team and me.” What they’re doing now: • Microsoft cash gives limited runway. • Cut 23 people, down to just under 70. • Shadow-dropped Keeper on PlayStation. • Exploring remasters/ports. • Pitching new games to investors. • Kickstarter for Amnesia Fortnight 2026 already passed its $400k goal; backers vote on prototypes; Two Player Productions will film Amnesia Fortnight. • New “Double Fine Action Labs” label for small, weird, short-timeline games. Article: bloomberg.com/news/newslette… piped.video/watch?v=3Bk_AFXv…

Xbox’s Millennial C.E.O. Isn’t Playing Around | NYTimes Blurbs Asha Sharma, the 38-year-old chief executive of Microsoft’s Xbox division, approaches questions with the camera-ready positivity of Zohran Mamdani and the corporate pragmatism of Sam Altman. Like those other millennial leaders, she answers swiftly, with proverbs on demand. “Great things happen over time, and I think most people quit too early,” said Sharma Sharma gave her personal cellphone number to journalists and influencers. Her new chief strategy officer tutored reporters on the company’s economic challenges. She skillfully dodged questions about her predecessor’s strategic blunders. “In life there is only winning and learning,” Sharma said in her office, manipulating a NeeDoh stress ball and producing one of her Confucian managerial maxims. “I’m learning every single day.” “Despite the reset that we are going through, we still have 500 million players every single month,” Sharma said in New York this summer. Now an early riser with three children and intense hobbies like boxing and racecar driving, Sharma has a singular focus on success. “All I can do is look at it from a first principles perspective,” she said. “And I think the industry will require disruption.” “Xbox is not for sale,” Sharma said. “We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that.” “We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft,” Sharma said, “and we’re going to take the long-term view.” “Clarity is kindness,” Sharma said “I have to create clarity so we can confront the challenges and go solve them.” “This is an Xbox.” Sharma flipped the perspective by saying she would provide “the ability to play anywhere.” “We have always said play is a basic human need, but I think creation is a basic human need,” said Jason Ronald “I think the lines between players and developers are going to get blurrier and blurrier.” After hours of diplomatic conversation about her competitors, Sharma had a rare moment of speechlessness when discussing the deal for Kojima’s upcoming stealth game Physint. She laughed at the idea of apologizing to Sony before shrugging and saying she was happy Kojima chose to work with Xbox. The agreement was substantially below what Xbox would typically spend to develop a premium game, according to people close to the agreement, and included film and TV rights. Sharma also clarified that work with Sony would continue: “Competition and collaboration can coexist.” “I don’t think you sign up for roles like this for work-life balance,” Sharma had said weeks earlier with a little swagger. “I think you signed up for them because you believe in the mission and you do what it takes.” via: nytimes nytimes.com/2026/09/30/arts/…

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