If ever proof was needed of how important Valve's Steam platform has become to many PC developers, look no further than the tale of Introversion, the developers of Defcon and Darwinia, whose company was saved by a Steam sale.
Despite a string of cult successes like Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon (pictured), the British developers had run into some tough times recently, and had gone from being a "proper" studio, with an office and staff, to having to fire most of their workers, sell their furniture, move out of their office and code from their bedrooms.
In desperation, one day they decided to add some Steam achivements to Defcon. Doing so meant Valve gave the team some promotion on Steam, and that promotion turned into sales.
Valve okayed the promotion and even though it didn't focus on DEFCON we were happy that we had achieved our core objective. This was the game-changer. When we started Introversion we'd had a string of successes and believed we were undefeatable, but it was a long time since we'd had a victory and we really needed one. Right on cue, Valve delivered. The promo exceeded all of our expectations and when combined with our low burn rate (no office or staff now) we had gone from being fearful about paying our mortgages to having a year's operating capital in the bank.
Great news for Introversion, as they thoroughly deserve it. It'll also hopefully give them the coin to continue development on Subversion. But for everyone else...Valve may be in most people's good books, but it's still a little frightening to think that a single company can play Kingmaker with the fortunes of developers across an entire platform, so dependant have so many PC publishers become on Steam for legitimate sales.
http://kotaku.com/5620259/steam-sale-saves-developer
My opinion: Its nice to see that Introversion survived because I love their games. It also shows how effective those 75% off Steam sales are.
My only current complaint about Steam (and other DD services) is that their sales and income numbers arent available.
Just wait until Gabe dies (the guy must weigh 300+ pounds) and a new CEO is appointed to Valve. It's all going to go downhill...
Or another way to look at this story is that perhaps the developer should have made their game available through additional channels. They were unwilling to put their titles onto Impulse.
I thought this was a nice story either way. These are not my kinds of games at all, but I love Steam sales. Because of heavy discounts, i've encountered some indie games that I loved and never heard of before.
God knows if i ever finish a bigger game i would want to see it in Impulse!
I have the skillz, but not the team
Q: How many channels is Elemental going to be available from in addition to retail and Impulse?
loooooooooooooooooolz
Stardock makes its money from other things than video games. Stardock doesn't need other outlets. Impulse needs Elemental though.
I'm not complaining about how we're about to go out of business.
If Stardock was on the verge of bankruptcy, do you not think someone would say "They should have put their games on Steam."?
hehe, true
Btw.: will this forum ever be able to quote other users posts properly?
Agree with the OP on both angles - I think Steam and Impulse are VERY important for several reasons:
1: Platforms that are as easy - or easiter - to use as the premier game distribution platform, The Pirate Bay.2: Game distribution the way it should be - updated in the background, always up-to-date, no hassles, no DVD that must be in the drive, and unnoticeable CD-keys. 3: Portable game library. Install steam/impulse, download, done. Anywhere, any time. New PC, old, holiday, no problem.
And with that said, Steam has a too prominent position. There is no practical reason that I can see for them to sell games at MORE than retail box prices. Or even on par with them. (That goes for Impulse too, but at least here, their prices tend to be lower. Tend to. Not always.
That sales pay is no surprise at all, why do you think retail shops has had sales since forever?
As for Defcon, it's a cool game. Take a look. "The world's first genocide-'em-up.'. Unless that's changed, the single player (demo) version is free.
http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/
The sound is pretty brilliant. It starts off peaceful-like, but as you get nuked more and more into oblivion you start hearing wailing parents, desperate crying, and so on. Pretty depressing in a way, but very well done.
As for the game that got 36000% increase, it is, of course, NOT a well known game. It's a game that sold nada before - probably indie - and with the sale it got both publicity and came down to a reasonable sale. Tank Universe or something, I'd guess. (Good game, too, btw.).
Yes.
imo, Uplink: Hacker Elite is their best game.
Why was Introversion unwilling to put their titles on Impulse?
This goes to show you that the biggest problem some of these indie studios have is publicity. A good game that nobody knows about won't sell very well. But toss it up on the front page of the Steam store with a sale price? That's a lot of eyeballs.
Star Ruler is doing well similarly (though they couldn't get on Steam for some reason, they're just selling everywhere else instead).
i heard steam refused to sell star ruler because it was too similar to another game on steam....which ever game that is....i dont know it.
which is complete nonsense if you look at the amount of games on there anyway.
Excellent question. I bought their pack off Steam when it was on sale (for $5 I'll buy most any Steam game, even though I don't care for the service much), but I would have happily bought them off Impulse instead.
Yeah that's kind of silly considering how many random generic FPS games there are.
That would be a terrible reason to refuse a game on the service. Does that mean if anyone ever copies TF2 or L4D they are going to get a no go from Valve? And people wonder why funneling everything to one service is a bad idea.
Unless thats a game called St4r Ruler that looks almost the same, that sounds a bit fishy.
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