Psychonauts 2 is nearing its Fig goal of $3.3 million. It’s been making headlines lately after reaching the $3 million mark in its crowd and investment funding on the new platform. The $3 million from the community will go toward another $10 million provided by outside investors and Double Fine Productions.

PC GamesN brushes over some of Tim Schafer’s sketchy past while highlighting a tweet from the designer who celebrated the $3 million milestone.

Psychonauts 2 hit $3MM! Thanks to the backers, investors, and people who wore tin foil hats! https://t.co/yAWJckJzvT pic.twitter.com/EK1DYo9YFn — TimOfLegend (@TimOfLegend) December 28, 2015

While crowd-funding is definitely a great option for many developers to have, part of the problem is that Schafer’s history with not delivering on projects and over-shooting the budget has a lot of people worried. Double Fine Productions’ space rendition of Dwarf Fortress in the form of Spacebase DF-9 was patched together and practically abandoned during the middle of development, as noted by PC GamesN.

The fact that they also had to break down the release of the point-and-click adventure game Broken Age due to over-spending the $3 million they accrued through Kickstarter also did not sit well with a lot of gamers. They used the revenue from the first half of Broken Age’s release to fund development for the second half. A lot of this is covered in explicit and near academic detail by YouTuber Bitscreed in a video titled “Pixel Burn – The Psychonauts 2 Shill Game”.

PIXEL BURN – The Psychonauts 2 Shill Game This week’s episode of Pixel Burn looks at a few things the games press might not be telling you about the crowdfunding campaign for Psychonauts 2. UPDATE: Well this escalated quickly! A humongous thanks to everyone who’s watched, commented, liked, subscribed, shared and all that jazz.

The video covers how just about every major gaming outlet out there “shills” for Tim Schafer’s Psychonauts 2, with the only mainstream gaming outlet dropping a warning for gamers being Game Informer.

Then again, Game Informer’s Michael Futter was usually the one to speak up about issues in the Game Journo Pros when he felt things were becoming a bit too unethical.

Nevertheless, Bitscreed wasn’t the only one to point out Tim Schafer’s history of burning through cash and under-delivering.

YouTuber Dangerous Analysis also did a piece about the worrisome aspects of Schafer’s handling of money and some of the equally worrisome policies of Fig, for which Schafer is a member of the board and an investor in the parent company, Loose Tooth Industries.

DA- Psycho ‘frauds’: A DoubleFine Mess #FigOff Burning your money would at least guarantee you some warmth. Sources Another Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=645rgR1JoEQ&feature=share History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Schafer …

The issue that both videos point out is that investing in Fig may not be all its cracked up to be. On the investment front, accredited investors who either make $200,000 a year as a single-income household or a collective $300,000 a year in a multi-income household will have an opportunity to invest in Psychonauts 2’s Fig campaign as an accredited investor for a minimum of $500.

Fig is utilizing the new Obama initiative Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which goes into full effect 180 days after January 29th, 2016, as noted on the SEC website. Basically it’s setup where those who registered with the Securities Exchange Commission will be allowed to sell securities to individuals through crowd-funding… just like what Fig is doing, as detailed in their SEC filing.

In plain ‘ole English, you can pay real money to invest in the development of Psychonauts 2 and potentially make money back on it, just like any other investment on the stock market.

According to Fig, for each $500 invested, investors will receive $2.50 for every $68,376 in adjusted gross revenue until the game has a revenue of $13.33 million in sales. Following the $13 million figure, investors will only make $1 for every $68,376 the game makes in sales in adjusted gross revenue.

According to Dangerous Analysis, they calculated that the game would need to sell approximately 693,000 copies at $21 before the investment would be paid off at $500. As you can imagine, the game would have to sell well over a million copies at $21 for anyone who invested $500 to actually see a significant profit on that investment.

That’s not to mention that the game doesn’t launch until 2018… or at least that’s the estimated launch window.

Potential returns on investment or profit gains are the least of some gamers’ worries.

One of the biggest issues is the difference between Fig and Kickstarter. An anonymous tipster pointed out how in the “IMPORTANT MESSAGE” section of the site on the about page, it lists that Fig is not to be held responsible if the investments don’t reap any results or the project turns out to be a failure…

“All investors using the Site must acknowledge and accept the high risks associated with investing in the Securities. These risks include holding your investment for periods of months or years with limited or no ability to resell and losing your entire investment; you must have the ability to bear a total loss of your investment without a change in your lifestyle. “The Securities are being offered and sold only in jurisdictions where such offers and sales are permitted; it is solely your responsibility to comply with the laws and regulations of your jurisdiction of residence. You are strongly advised to consult your legal, tax and financial advisors before investing.”

This is opposite of Kickstarter, where if the project creator fails to deliver, the FTC can legally come after the project creator and enforce the law to prevent the project creator from getting away with fraud. This was exemplified when the FTC cracked down on a board game creator and went after him for the $111,793 he tried to scam out of backers.

Opposite of Kickstarter, there’s a frightening clause in Fig’s terms of service agreement under the “Rewards Requirements” section that reads…

“Contributions should be considered a gift or donation rather than a purchase, as Fig can make no assurances that the Campaign Owner will be able to produce the Rewards in a timely fashion or at all. Rewards are not refundable. Fig makes no representations about the quality, morality or legality of any Campaign, Campaign Owner or Reward.”

Clearly Fig doesn’t have the kind of oversight that Kickstarter does, but it comes with inherently far greater risks than Kickstarter. This also means that whatever you invest could be lost on a project that has even fewer guarantees than Kickstarter to deliver what’s promised.

This is not to say that Tim Schafer is out to scam people, or that Double Fine Productions is evil, or that you should not invest or back Psychonauts 2, especially if you have a deep desire to do so. This is not to smear Psychonauts 2, Double Fine Productions or Tim Schafer… this is a warning; Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.