Double Fine to sell first half of Broken Age through Steam Early Access

Double Fine has announced on the backers’-only section of its Kickstarter blog that it will be selling the first half of its Kickstarter-funded adventure game—Broken Age—through digital distribution platform Steam’s Early Access service.

In the post, studio founder Tim Schafer stated that Broken Age needs further funding to finish on time. Rather than going back to Kickstarter or asking a publisher, Double Fine has decided to offer half of the game through Early Access. With this, Schafer hopes that it will help improve the project's efficiency without having to cut anything out of the game.

The game revolves around two characters living parallel lives

The first half of the game will be hitting Steam's Early Access service in July 2014, and the full version will be released some time in 2015.

"We were always planning to release the beta on Steam, but in addition to that we now have Steam Early Access, which is a new opportunity that actually lets you charge money for pre-release content," Schafer wrote. "That means we could actually sell this early access version of the game to the public at large, and use that money to fund the remaining game development."

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"Backers still get the whole game this way — nobody has to pay again for the second half," he continues, in an attempt to appease to the backers. “Backers will still receive exclusive beta access before Double Fine sells the early release. The second part of the game is expected "a few months down the road, closer to April-May."

Broken Age was funded last year through Kickstarter under the name Double Fine Adventure. Thanks to its massive success, it opened up the doors to let other developers have their games funded through Kickstarter without having to approach publishers.