Introversion the makers of the fantastic hit indie games - Darwinia, Defcon, Multiwinia and Uplink, agreed to answer a few of our questions. Check out Steam (www.steampowered.com) to download and try out their games. Thanks Introversion! Hit Read More to check out the interview.
1) With a few titles under your belts now, how do you feel about where the company is headed?
Well that is the big question at the moment. We are still very clear on the fact that we want original video games to be at the core of our existence. We never wanted to go down the perpetual sequel route and our view hasn’t really changed. That said we do need to find a way to break the kind of boom (game launch) and bust (end of development just before launch) cycle that we keep finding ourselves in. Right at the moment we are running at breakneck speed, sprinting to get Darwinia+ (Darwinia and Multiwinia out on XBLA) so we don’t really have the time or the frame of mind to think too much about what the future holds. It’ll be a combination of new games and something else, something more transactional. We have some ideas, but we won’t really be able to work them up until Microsoft finally says it’s all done!
2) How did you actually manage to break into the industry – do you feel Steam was the main helping-hand for your breakthrough?
Introversion was founded way back in 2001 by myself, Chris Delay and Thomas Arundel. We broke into the industry with our unique espionage cult classic ‘Uplink – Trust is a weakness’, we then went on to create the award winning ‘Darwinia’, smash hit ‘DEFCON’ and the infamous ‘Multiwinia’. When we first started out, we never would have thought we would have achieved this level of recognition. There is no doubt that Steam has been our strongest partners over the years and we hope they will remain to be so in the coming years to come. Darwinia was actually the second external game released by Steam so we have both grown up together like family.
3) How do you feel about your decision to remain as a smaller indie developer rather than expand?
The answer you get will depend on who you talk to within the company. Personally I have been very keen to expand Introversion. My personal vision is one of multiple small teams working on different games – some brand new, some conversions. Other people are happier with the current size, but I think expansion is important to keep people interested and engaged but also to generate more revenue which should lead to the holy grail of Financial Stability. I’ve been pushing in this direction, but we have been limited by our business model – we need to make enough money from a game to be able to fund the development of more than one product – and the protracted development of D+ has held us back a bit. I’m hoping that 2010 will be the year that Introversion finally takes over the world!
4) Would you ever consider expanding or joining with a larger publisher?
Well never say never, but to be honest I don’t think that would work for us. We are very passionate about making original games and it would be probable that we would lose much of our creative freedom in a merger. That said, if the right offer came along…
5) How do you feel about both the community’s response and the critical response to your titles so far?
We’ve had a great response from our fans that have been loyal and consistent in praising us with complements throughout all our projects and especially with Darwinia+. We have made sure that the communication with our community has remained a two way process. We have created a Darwinia+ website dedicated to showing our community what is involved in creating an Xbla title and also what it’s like working with Microsoft. http://www.introversion.co.uk/darwiniaplus/. In general, all of our games have been well received – 75%+ on Metacritic and of course we are very proud of this track record.
6) With Darwinia+ on the way how have you found expanding into different platforms?
It’s been a tough learning curve for us. We were able to get the game up and running reasonably quickly, but the biggest difficulty was compliance. Microsoft have a ton of technical requirements that you need to meet and to do so means you need to have a solid understanding of their code and systems. When you are learning these you can make mistakes that manifest themselves as issues later on. It’s been a difficult ride, but we are nearly there now and D+ is looking spectacular.
7) With Darwinia what actually inspired you to create such a unique game?
It really evolved out of a lot of experimenting with game ideas. We first had the idea of putting tens of thousands of sprites on screen after seeing the Indie Game Jam, and from there we just messed around for about a year trying to come up with a really cool game. The final gameplay mechanics evolved out of those experimentations. Darwinia is Introversion’s longest running project and you can imagine the game has changed hugely from the initial idea.
8) Can we expect to see any changes to Darwinia+ when it hits the XBLA or simply a combination of Darwinia and Multiwinia?
We’ve given the whole thing a massive shake up whilst trying to stay loyal to the original concept. This was a real challenge – there are new tutorials and effects and the whole Darwinia campaign interface has had a massive overhaul. It’s the Darwinia and Multiwinia that you know and love, but polished until it gleams like a magnificent star.
9) How has your experience been working with Microsoft, when in the past you have published your own titles?
Microsoft really raised the bar for us. They have driven us to make a much better game then our original concept and whilst this has been tough, they have never asked us to do anything that impinges on our creative vision for the game. They have consistently helped us to understand the deficiencies in the game and worked with this to overcome them. Darwinia was a fantastic game, but a little obscure and very, very hard to understand and get into. Microsoft has helped us to remove that barrier to entry and create a really accessible game that will allow us to bring Darwinia and Multiwinia to a whole new audience.
10) What can we expect to see for the future of Introversion?
We will continue to create highly creative video games and keep pushing those boundaries. Subversion will be the next release after Darwinia+ and we are all really excited. Subversion was originally started as our second game, way back in 2002, and has started and stopped many times since. It’s certainly our biggest project to date and our most ambitious, and we’ve been slowly experimenting with different ideas and prototypes. For the first time ever we’ve opened up the process we go though, and we have been writing publicly about Subversion for a couple of years now. You can read about it on our blog at www.intoversion.co.uk/blog.
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