Tim Schafer says he does not know why the games industry has not recovered
“I just assume someone is being greedy somewhere.” That is how Double Fine Productions founder Tim Schafer explained continued job losses across video games.
In an interview with the BBC, reported by Video Games Chronicle on 23 September 2026, Schafer said the industry has been down for about four years and he does not know why it has not recovered. People are still playing games. People are still making money. Yet jobs keep going.
He does not have an answer. He said he hopes the downturn is a cycle and that it bounces back.
Schafer drew a distinction between different corners of the business. Layoffs tend to be more vicious in the AAA space, the big-budget end where teams can run into the hundreds, he said. Indie developers face a different pressure: the risk of running out of money after shipping a game.
The comments follow a sharp change for his own studio. Double Fine said on 6 July 2026 that Double Fine Productions will be an independent studio again, in a post titled “Double Fine is Independent again”. The studio said it was thankful to everyone at Xbox, according to Double Fine.
Double Fine was granted independence from Xbox alongside Compulsion Games, the developer of South of Midnight, according to Game Informer. After the split, Double Fine owns the IP and publishing rights to all of its games, meaning the characters, worlds and right to sell them, IGN reported on 21 August 2026. That same reporting said the studio laid off 25% of its team after returning to independent status.
Schafer said he first thought Double Fine would be shut down before realising there were other options to survive. He described the studio as worth fighting for after its danger of closing.
The studio is already signalling what comes next. It has announced Thank You Bus Driver, a game from its Double Fine Action Labs group, according to Double Fine. The player takes the role of a town’s bus driver.
For fans, this means a familiar studio with a new shape: full control of its games, a smaller team, and a smaller-scale idea to start with.
