Tim Schafer is (finally) happy
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One of gaming’s most creative directors, Tim Schafer, was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame on Thursday night.
Speaking at the DICE Summit, he was quick to point out that such a formal award doesn’t mean the end of his career. After thirty-two years in the game business, Schafer seems to have found his footing.
“As you get older, your brain gets really smooth,” joked Schafer in a wide-ranging interview on stage. And there have been challenges through the years. “My advantage is I’m really forgetful.”
He recalled early days at the game studio owned by George Lucas. Schafer was hired because he was a programmer who could write as well. “Working at Skywalker ranch was not bad.”
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“It was a really amazing set-up, because we were sitting on a pile of Star Wars money, but we couldn’t make Star Wars.” This lead to LucasArts creating new intellectual property. “I guess I’ll make up other stuff with people’s money.”
“It seemed like all games were science fiction or fantasy,” he recalls of the time. The studio explored the unexplored, from pirates to bikers to the wild west. Says Schafer, “Now days, games are covering everything — which is what I like about the game industry today.”
He would go on to put his life’s savings into founding his own studio, Double Fine Productions. Schafer had watched others leave LucasArts and decided, “If they can do, I can do it.” But going in, he didn’t know if it would be
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