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45-560: OXM may refer to Official Xbox Magazine , a magazine published in the UK and US Object X-Machine, a variant of the X-machine Object XML Mapping , a software technique Ogg Extended Module , a lossy compressed file format for music Oxyntomodulin , a peptide hormone Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

90-493: A crowdfunded project for an unnamed adventure game via the crowd-sourced Kickstarter , using the placeholder title "Double Fine Adventure"; Schafer stated that he had found publishers extremely wary of an adventure in the current video game industry, and decided to turn to crowdfunding to seek player interest. The game and accompanying documentary were projected to cost US$ 400,000 dollars . Contributions exceeded that amount by more than three times in less than 24 hours, making it

135-454: A 100-point system, scoring games out of 10.0 with .1 increments. The games that received at least a 9.0 were given an Editor's Choice award. Beginning with issue #53 (Holiday 2005), the US OXM switched to a 20-point scoring system, scoring games out of 10.0 with increments of 0.5. The UK edition though switched to a 10-point scoring system, scoring games out of 10. This ratings scale was detailed on

180-471: A McCaffrey's co-host, but he left the magazine and podcast to work at Activision/Blizzard. The audio podcast featured a recap in the week's past events and game releases, two trivia contests ( Name That Xbox Sound Effect and Stick it to the Dan (formerly Dan's Useless Trivia)) for a prize (usually a tee shirt or Xbox Live Arcade game), and developer interviews. The show was produced by Andy Bauman . Until 2015,

225-496: A costume expansion to Dead or Alive 3 and Easter eggs unlockable via inputting a code via the controller. Some material seen only available for download on Xbox Live was included on demo disks. Until 2015, most US demo discs included gamer pics centered on a game. KOXM was the weekly Official Xbox Magazine podcast, hosted by OXM Senior Editor Dave Rudden. The show was previously hosted by Ryan McCaffrey until he left Official Xbox Magazine to work at IGN. Dan Amrich used to be

270-596: A crazy world that is.' It's so apart from everybody's life, and yet it's right there, it's so mundane in a way. And that's where Full Throttle came from." The press first previewed Psychonauts at the E3 trade show in 2002, where it won the Game Critics Award for Best Original Game. An hour-long episode of Icons on the G4 Network documented the last week of the production of Psychonauts and explored Schafer's career. At

315-613: A demo disc with both Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Arcade games. However, beginning in January 2012, OXM stopped including demo discs, saying "You've told us you don't want the DVD anymore, and we listened....". The final demo disc, #131, ended up being in that same issue. Each demo contained unlockable content like gamer pics and hidden demos. Gamers could play the games and view the videos on the disc to gain points. The points had another use in which gamers used their points to research and build equipment for

360-400: A larger corporation such as Atari and Hewlett-Packard , but he was rejected by these. He saw an offering at Lucasfilm Games , looking for programmers who could also write game dialog, which piqued his interest. During his application process for the job, he had a somewhat disastrous phone interview with David Fox in which he mentioned being a fan of Ballblaster . Fox informed him that

405-405: A number of other developers were leaving LucasArts as the studio shifted away from adventure games. Schafer was approached by his colleagues with the idea of leaving the company to develop PlayStation 2 games on their own; Schafer was initially wary of this believing he felt secure in his position at LucasArts. He left the company in January 2000, to found Double Fine Productions , where he created

450-466: A right-wing backlash against feminism, that started in August 2014. Schafer hosted the 2015 Game Developer’s Choice Awards on March 5; during the event one of his jokes referenced the #NotYourShield tag connected to the harassment Campaign. Gamergate supporters claimed #NotYourShield was used to demonstrate women and minorities supported their cause, but Schafer's remarks spoke to the wider assessment that

495-424: A three-point scale: Buy, Fanboys Only, and Deny. The exception was The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles expansion pack in issue 70, which, due to the game's size, being "much more than a simple map pack" was reviewed on the normal 20-point scale, receiving an 8.5 (Great). (The game was later released as an expansion on DVD.) Some disks came with additional material for Xbox games. Early issues' demo disk included

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540-476: A world where that all happens. That all gets put together, the heavy metal, and the rock, and the battling, actually does happen. Let's not flirt around with this; let's just do it." During Brütal Legend 's development, Schafer had Double Fine's staff take two weeks away from the game's development to participate in Amnesia Fortnights once a year starting in 2007. This was an internal game jam where

585-644: The Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018. He received a BAFTA Fellowship as "a true pioneer of game design, who has pushed the boundaries of the medium through his extraordinary talents" at the British Academy Games Awards in April 2018. In February 2023, Schafer was recognized as "a beacon of creativity and innovation in the games industry" by being selected as a Hall of Fame Inductee at

630-511: The platform game Psychonauts . The game was first released on Xbox in North America on April 19, 2005. While the game was met with critical acclaim, including a Game of the Year award from Eurogamer , it sold poorly at its initial release and led to financial troubles for its publisher Majesco Entertainment . Double Fine reacquired full rights to Psychonauts by 2012, allowing them to release

675-555: The 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards , Schafer and Erik Wolpaw won the award for Best Writing for Psychonauts . Schafer and Double Fine Executive Producer & COO Caroline Esmurdoc also won the award for Best New Studio. In October 2006, Schafer received a BAFTA video game Best Screenplay award for Psychonauts . In 2012, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) organized the "Game Masters" exhibition, where Schafer

720-548: The Amnesia Fortnight as a yearly process; most of the games that result from these are led by someone other than Schafer. On February 1, 2012, Schafer returned to the role of director in the Kinect -based Double Fine Happy Action Theater , a game concept he devised based on Once Upon a Monster to be able to play a game with his two-year-old daughter that she would be able to enjoy as well. In February 2012, Schafer launched

765-477: The Lucasfilm Games title was Ballblazer , and that only the pirated version was known as Ballblaster , but despite the misstep, Fox asked Schafer to submit his resume for further consideration. To make up for the phone interview, Schafer sent in a comic of himself applying for and getting the job at Lucasfilm Games, drawn as a text adventure. Schafer was hired by LucasArts in 1989, and his first position

810-478: The OXM Video Podcast was updated much less frequently, with gaps over a month or more. The video podcast slowed until it was picked up again in the form of Inside Xbox, a short Xbox Live program that OXM became a part of in 2008. The OXM Report on Inside Xbox featured similar video content to the original video podcast, but with more timely information on games such as Gears of War 2 and Mirror's Edge It

855-534: The Tentacle , and assistant designer on The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge . He is well known in the video game industry for his storytelling and comedic writing style, and has been given both a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards , and a BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the industry. Tim Schafer was born on July 26, 1967, in Sonoma, California ,

900-654: The US and UK editions. The nine 10/10 games from the US edition included: Fight Night Round 3 , Gears of War , Fallout 3 , Halo 3 , Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare , Mass Effect , Gears of War 3 and Batman: Arkham City . Whereas the nine 10/10 games from the UK edition included: Grand Theft Auto IV , Project Gotham Racing 4 , Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 , The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion , Mass Effect 2 , Halo: Reach , Portal 2 , Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mass Effect 3 . OXM also had begun reviewing Xbox Live Downloadable Content (DLC), on

945-579: The Xbox gaming world. The column 'The Business of Xbox' was written by Geoff Keighley through the May 2007 issue, but until 2015, the column was written, on a less frequent basis, by Christ Morris . As of Issue #71, the end page rotated columnists, with guests including game creators Tim Schafer , Denis Dyack , and Randy Pitchford . UK and US Edition Until issue #52, the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) used

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990-515: The amount asked for, and a later decision to seek additional funding for the studio by offering the game's first half for sale on early access . Since then he continues to be an occasional target of harassment from either GamerGate supporters or those who were swayed by the campaign's claims. Schafer joined with other industry leaders with crowdfunding experience to help create the crowdfunding platform Fig in August 2015, serving on its advisory board until March 2020. Through Fig, Schafer announced

1035-596: The best Forza Motorsport 2 car designs that people have made), a section for competing against the OXM crew in games like Lost Planet , Halo 3 , Gears of War , and more, 'Media Ho!' (a section that talked about movies, books, and other items related to games), 'Live Space' (a section which showed gamers' Xbox Live gamertags, 'Ask Dr. Gamer' (a section in which gamers would ask Health doctor, Freddy Chen, gaming related information), and 'The (insert something here) of Xbox' (a section that talked about business and other things of

1080-428: The company was split into four teams to make a pitchable game prototype, an idea he compared to what film director Wong Kar-Wai had used previously. After Brütal Legend 's release, the game had generally positive reviews but did not perform as well as expected, and Electronic Arts cancelled the preliminary work Double Fine had started on the sequel. To keep Double Fine above water financially, Schafer went back to

1125-410: The engine to set up rooms and puzzles. Later, Gilbert approached Schafer and Grossman, offering them the chance to work on his new project, which would ultimately become the pirate-themed adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island . According to series creator Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman were responsible for about two thirds of the game's dialogue. The Secret of Monkey Island became one of

1170-522: The financial security needed for Double Fine to be able to concentrate on developing a quality product. Through this support, Double Fine was able to retain several gameplay elements within Psychonauts 2 , which was eventually released on August 25, 2021, to critical praise. In an interview at the Game Developers Conference in 2003, Schafer stated that he strives for integrating story into

1215-597: The first Kickstarter project to reach a $ 2 million figure, and the second most successful project on the website at the time. When the project ended on March 13, funding reached a level of $ 3,336,371 in Kickstarter with an additional $ 110,000 from premium pledges. Ultimately, the project culminated in Broken Age , released in two acts over 2014 and 2015. Schafer and Double Fine had been able to negotiate with The Walt Disney Company , who acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, to obtain

1260-473: The game with improvements for modern systems, and in that year, Schafer stated that "We made more on Psychonauts [in 2012] than we ever have before." On March 7, 2007, he hosted the annual Game Developers Choice Awards . He later hosted it again in 2009. To coincide, Double Fine released a free Flash minigame entitled Host Master and the Conquest of Humor , a pastiche of Schafer's LucasArts games in which

1305-502: The gameplay, setting a creative goal of someday creating a video game without any cutscenes at all. Furthermore, he said he often sets a story in an established world: "[O]ften, the world is the initial inspiration for the game. One day I was listening to someone tell me their stories of spending the summer in Alaska. They had hung around this one biker bar, with these people with names like Smilin' Rick and Big Phil. And I thought, 'Wow, what

1350-546: The highly acclaimed Grim Fandango , a noir adventure game set in the Aztec afterlife featuring characters similar to the papier-mâché skeleton decorations from the Mexican holiday Dia De Los Muertos . Grim Fandango won many awards, including GameSpot 's Game of the Year award of 1998. Schafer worked on an unannounced PlayStation 2 action-adventure game at LucasArts, but it never entered production. Prior to his departure,

1395-416: The in-game game 'OXM Universe'. 'OXMU' was discontinued in OXM's 100th issue. A section which contained Xbox business articles, gaming news, 'Hard Stuff' (a section that reviews contraptions related to an Xbox console), '2,000 Pennies or Less' (a section that showed the best cheap games that can be bought for either Xbox or Xbox 360), the codes of the month, 'Forza Showroom' (a brief column that showed some of

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1440-536: The introduction page to every issue's review section. A score of 10.0 was not considered perfect, but is called "Classic" and is considered to be "one of those rare and very best of games." OXM' s review scale did include a score of 11.0 (termed "Mecha Godzilla's Choice") as "Perfect," however the description for that score was "The unicorn. Will never happen. Never." Twenty games received a 10/10 score from OXM, but only BioShock , The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto V had been given this score by both

1485-417: The most acclaimed games of its kind. The same team created the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge . In his first lead role on a game project, Schafer co-designed (with Dave Grossman) Day of the Tentacle , a time-travel comedy adventure and the sequel to Ron Gilbert's Maniac Mansion . Schafer's first solo project, the biker adventure Full Throttle , was released in 1995. He went on to design

1530-439: The music and art of heavy metal and featured voice acting from actor/musician Jack Black and cameos from rock musicians including Lemmy Kilmister , Rob Halford , Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford . Schafer said "For Brütal Legend , I've always seen this overlap between medieval warfare and heavy metal. You see heavy metal singers and they'll have like a brace around their arm and they'll be singing about Orcs . So let's just make

1575-488: The past Amnesia Fortnight projects and selected games they could reasonably expand into full releases. From these, four smaller games were picked up by publishers, and were the first games in Double Fine's history to have project leaders other than Schafer: Costume Quest , Stacking , Iron Brigade and Once upon a Monster . The titles helped to keep Double Fine financially stable, and Schafer has continued to implement

1620-457: The player takes on the role of Schafer backstage at the GDC Awards. Schafer led the development of Double Fine's next game, Brütal Legend , released on October 13, 2009, after a tortuous development route due to having its original publisher Vivendi Games drop the title following its merge with Activision in 2008 to be picked up later by Electronic Arts . The game was Schafer's tribute to

1665-433: The rights to three of the titles that Schafer had directed there: Day of the Tentacle , Full Throttle , and Grim Fandango , by 2014. Double Fine subsequently released remastered versions of all three games over the following years. Schafer stood in support of Anita Sarkeesian and other game developers that were being harassed by supporters of Gamergate , a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign and

1710-511: The sequel Psychonauts 2 in December 2015. In June 2019, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Double Fine as part of Xbox Game Studios . Schafer stated that while he had not been looking to be acquired, he found the opportunity in his talks with Microsoft to be promising; the acquisition would not affect Double Fine's independence and would still allow the company to publish its pending titles on its own choice of platforms, and would provide

1755-460: The tag's use was largely composed of sockpuppets , which was later proven to be true. Following the event, Gamergate supporters targeted Schafer for harassment by claiming he had been making a joke that mocked the minorities using this hashtag. Gamergate supporters also found other opportunities to target Schafer for harassment, including a decision to expand the scope of Broken Age after its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign raised far more than

1800-460: The title OXM . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OXM&oldid=1183531176 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Official Xbox Magazine The magazine

1845-440: The youngest of five children. His father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse. While studying computer science at UC Berkeley , Schafer became interested in writing, and took inspiration from Kurt Vonnegut , who while a publicist at General Electric wrote short stories in the evenings. Schafer opted for a similar course, interning to help develop databases for small companies while trying to position himself for an opening in

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1890-606: Was as a "scummlet", a programmer who helped to implement features and ideas proposed by the lead game developers within the LucasArts SCUMM engine. He, alongside Dave Grossman , helped to playtest Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game and implement the NES version of Maniac Mansion . Schafer and Grossman, along with two others, were taught by Ron Gilbert as part of a "SCUMM University" on how to use

1935-542: Was featured as the creator of Grim Fandango , among a few other visionary designers, credited for having "pushed the boundaries of game design and storytelling, introducing new genres, creating our best-loved characters and revolutionising the way we understand and play games" In 2015, he won the Vanguard Award at Bilbao's Fun & Serious Game Festival . Schafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award from

1980-645: Was posted on Xbox Live every other Sunday. On October 12, 2007, the UK edition was awarded 'Best Xbox Magazine' at the Games Media Awards. Tim Schafer Timothy John Schafer (born July 26, 1967) is an American video game designer . He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts . Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games Full Throttle , Grim Fandango , Psychonauts , Brütal Legend and Broken Age , co-designer of Day of

2025-587: Was shut down in April 2020 by owners Future Publishing, in a review of titles. The COVID-19 pandemic was given as one of the reasons. A Chinese version of the magazine was released at the "XBox Summer Video Game Show" held by Microsoft Taiwan on August 21 and 22, 2004 at the Third World Trade Center in Taipei . It was limited to 200 copies. On the Disc (Discontinued in 2012) Each issue originally contained

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