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Posts

  • Michael HMichael H Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Rise of the Triad was my first free-look game and it blew my mind. Also, you could use two pistols. Two.

    Michael H on
  • BiopticBioptic Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Michael H wrote: »
    Rise of the Triad was my first free-look game and it blew my mind. Also, you could use two pistols. Two.

    Dog Mode uber alles. I didn't know that, early in development, it was actually the sequel to Wolfenstein 3D.

    Bioptic on
  • DisruptedCapitalistDisruptedCapitalist I swear! Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    So how well does Steam play with Impulse? If I install Impulse on my system (to get SoaSE) will they annihilate each other?

    DisruptedCapitalist on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    ...No

    captaink on
  • Vi MonksVi Monks Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    So how well does Steam play with Impulse? If I install Impulse on my system (to get SoaSE) will they annihilate each other?

    Impulse doesn't actually have to be running to play its games -- just to update and download them. So you can install them, then add them to Steam and it's almost exactly like any other Steam game. In other words, they work together just fine.

    Vi Monks on
  • Mustachio JonesMustachio Jones jerseyRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Around the time of the Windows 7 beta, you have people reinstalling to the new builds every time the leaked. If I recall, there were close to 10 different versions that ended up floating around before the RTM. Same thing is going on with Android 2.2. If someone can get something for free and it requires a little bit of upkeep to maintain it, they will do it. It might deter a small number of people, yes, but there will still be that crowd that doesn't mind the upkeep.

    Mustachio Jones on
  • DashuiDashui Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Well that was weird. I was playing Borderlands with another PA'er when suddenly he disconnected and Steam's friend list went down. I wonder why that would cause the game to disconnect.

    Dashui on
    Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
  • YggiDeeYggiDee The World Ends With You Shill Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Steam's servers periodically implode

    YggiDee on
  • Mustachio JonesMustachio Jones jerseyRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Sometimes it's daily.

    Mustachio Jones on
  • Road BlockRoad Block Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Think I was just targeted by a Phishing account. Some guy sent me a message saying that I could get a free Black ops beta Key. The site itself is a Hostweb site that asks for my steam details with the steam login screen copy pasted.

    Road Block on
  • LawndartLawndart Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Michael H wrote: »
    Rise of the Triad was my first free-look game and it blew my mind. Also, you could use two pistols. Two.

    The best thing about the old Id games on Steam is that they just cut and pasted the original selling points even when they make little sense 10-15 years later.

    Holy shit, if I play Hexen I can look around, including up and down?

    And I can play it with other people over a modem connection?

    STOP BLOWING MY MIND!

    Lawndart on
  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Would you argue that a soundtrack done by Nine Inch Nails is still a selling point?

    L Ron Howard on
  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Would you argue that a soundtrack done by Nine Inch Nails is still a selling point?

    Yeah, especially since the Quake soundtrack is pretty fucking awesome. NIN is still one of my favorite bands too.

    Darmak on
    JtgVX0H.png
  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Er.. I should learn to type.

    I meant to say it is NOT still a selling point. :P

    L Ron Howard on
  • subediisubedii Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Road Block wrote: »
    Think I was just targeted by a Phishing account. Some guy sent me a message saying that I could get a free Black ops beta Key. The site itself is a Hostweb site that asks for my steam details with the steam login screen copy pasted.

    Yeah that's a phishing attack alright. Just ignore it, or if you've still got the guy who sent it to you, go to their profile page and report them for doing it.

    subedii on
  • Road BlockRoad Block Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    subedii wrote: »
    Road Block wrote: »
    Think I was just targeted by a Phishing account. Some guy sent me a message saying that I could get a free Black ops beta Key. The site itself is a Hostweb site that asks for my steam details with the steam login screen copy pasted.

    Yeah that's a phishing attack alright. Just ignore it, or if you've still got the guy who sent it to you, go to their profile page and report them for doing it.

    Kudos. I've sent off that report via steam. Though the site seems inactive at the moment, just giving me a plain empty white screen.

    Road Block on
  • LeracasLeracas Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I've got two copies of Borderlands left from a 4-pack. Anyone willing to trade for the DLC, Monkey Island or anything else interesting in the 10$/€ range?
    Send me a PM if you're interested.

    Edit: All gone.

    Leracas on
    steam_sig.png
  • LewiePLewieP Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I know someone who wants it, hang on a sec.

    LewieP on
  • CentipeedCentipeed Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Painkiller Black Edition is reduced from $9.99 to $5.99 on GOG.com until the 26th.

    If you go here:

    http://www.gog.com/en/promo/gamescom

    And deselect the titles you don't want (At first I thought you had to buy them all to get the discount, but you can select whichever games you want).

    The other titles on offer are:

    Gothic 2
    Realms of Arkania 1+2
    Realms of Arkania 3
    Spellforce Platinum
    The Guild

    Centipeed on
  • MusanMusan Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Looks like that steam sale where all of Introversion's games were on sale $5 saved the company from closing down. I still have to play more of their games in depth, but good for them.

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-19-steam-saved-our-bacon-introversion

    Musan on
  • FatsFats Corvallis, ORRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Musan wrote: »
    Looks like that steam sale where all of Introversion's games were on sale $5 saved the company from closing down. I still have to play more of their games in depth, but good for them.

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-19-steam-saved-our-bacon-introversion

    Jesus, I had no idea they were in such dire straits. I didn't really like Darwinia, but everyone should own Defcon and Uplink.

    Fats on
  • FatsFats Corvallis, ORRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Here's a copy/paste of the entire Introversion interview, if anyone's interested (fuck free registration paywalls):
    In the past few years one name in particular has been synonymous with the UK's indie scene -
    Introversion - with a string of original titles, including Defcon and Darwinia.

    At this year's Develop conference we caught up with MD Mark Morris to find out how things had been going
    in the past year, only to discover that the answer was somewhat unexpected.


    Q: How has the past 12 months been for Introversion?

    Mark Morris: It's been quite a difficult year, actually. We launched Darwinia+ in February and we had really
    high hopes for that, while we were - in crude terms - right at the end of our money, we were really running
    out.

    We found out two days before Christmas Eve that we'd passed certification, so that was nice - it was a
    happy Christmas, as it could have gone the other way - then we had a break. After that we went into the
    crazy marketing push for the launch.

    Now, we haven't been particularly vocal about this, but Darwinia+ didn't sell enough - we just couldn't carry
    on trading in the same form that we were in before. I think it probably took us about three or four weeks
    to accept that, because you just don't want to. And it looked at one point as if we were going to be close
    to achieving what we wanted to.

    So the first thing we had to go was get rid of the staff, which was a sad thing. I'd never done that before in
    my career - it was hard, because they'd all been working hard on the product. We didn't put in too much
    crunch, but after working so hard to basically say "Thanks for all your hard efforts, by the way now you're
    out..."

    It's part of working in the games industry, but it's never nice - and we shut down the office as well, and
    kind of crawled back into the core Introversion team of just myself, Chris, Tom and Johnny... the original
    four directors, back in our bedrooms again.

    Once the dust has settled, that was actually quite a good place to find ourselves, because the burn rate
    had gone through the floor and working and managing are two very different jobs - while we're quite good
    as a management team, implementation is what we're best at - we started working very efficiently again.

    We were looking at trying to create Steam achievements for Defcon - because we wanted to get Valve to
    run a Defcon promotion, as a good way of generation some revenue, but also because we were a little bit
    done with Darwinia and we were looking for a new push.

    At the same time we were also hoping we could do something with Microsoft to see if maybe the poor sales
    for Darwinia+ were down to the price point - because it was expensive, 1200 points, for quite a strange
    game. We thought if we could get down to maybe 400 or 800, we might pick up more people.

    So we integrated the achievements, took it to Steam and asked if we could use it as a promotion - and they
    did the Valve thing of not responding.

    Q: It's not an uncommon problem.

    Mark Morris: The way you work with Valve is that you fire things at them, and when you get a response you
    know they've bitten. They don't tend to discuss with you... They do say yes if it works for them, but actually
    everything we do with Valve seems to work out quite well - so we're happy.

    Anyway, we ended up about six weeks ago with Darwinia+ as Deal of the Week, in with five other games at
    800 points. The needle moved, but not much. It was interesting as well, because we were around sixth or
    seventh in their download chart, so comparing the numbers we were seeing at our end... it was
    interesting, it makes me think that maybe there's a very sharp drop from between the top two and the rest.

    Q: Sounds a bit like the core games market at the end of 2008.

    Mark Morris: I found that interesting - people who are looking at that from the outside world would have
    thought that Introversion was doing okay. But if they'd correlated that with the leaderboard score, they'd
    see it's not a lot to be seventh on the platform.

    But the Valve sale - it was just phenomenal. A couple of statistics that I'm sure Valve won't mind me
    sharing: We've now sold more than $2.5 million through Steam, which is pretty good for Introversion,
    through life. Not all of that comes back to us, because sometimes it's been in bundle packs, and we've
    gotten less. But basically it equates to almost bang on £1 million, so we're really pleased.

    The sale did in the ball park of $250,000 - so when you're back to being a team of four people, that's a lot of revenue.

    Q: It's a lifeline.

    Mark Morris: Yes, it is - for the first time in a long time we've got a cash flow that extends out for two years
    at our size, which is nice. We've got two projects on the go at the moment - Subversion, which we're
    talking a lot about at the moment. It's new IP, very interesting stuff, but still not fully worked out in terms
    of which way the game will go... even on a daily basis Chris decides more about what the game is going to
    look like, but we're still not quite at the point where we can put together a production plan and say "It's
    coming out in two years".

    We've also been working with Sony on Defcon PSN - given our Darwinia+ experience we're a little bit less to
    just jump in bed with Sony if we can't find someone to share the development risk there. My original
    thinking was that the consoles open up and pour more sales into your existing market - but that just
    wasn't true with Darwinia+, it was such a tiny movement in scheme of things.

    I know that Sony is a different platform, Defcon is a different game and the price points are different - so I
    am confident. But at the same time...

    Q: I guess of you look at the other kinds of games that are on there, they're a little bit different - PJ
    Shooter, Flower - they seem to be quite successful there. XBLA seems to favour slightly more traditional
    games, if you're being general about it.


    Mark Morris: And the original Darwinia was such a different product for its time, back in 2004-5 - it could be
    the case that it's just too old. We got a lot of love I think because we were the only indie studio that was
    putting out big triple-I titles - that's why we wont he awards and got so much attention.

    But if you look at where we are now, with things like World of Goo, Braid, Trials, Joe Danger - they're
    similar-sized games to Darwinia, but they have higher production values and are more accessible.

    We set up Introversion primarily to work on new games, and I wanted to take the studio in a direction
    where we were able to put these games out on different platforms - but our first attempt at that hasn't
    really worked. So going forward I think it's more important for us to make Subversion and put a new game
    out there for people to play - another 80-90-plus Metacritic game, so people can see we haven't lost our
    touch.

    That's more important to me than expanding is now, and working with Sony - but at the same time, if we
    can find funding for it, because I think Defcon PSN is a good bet, then I want to do it. I'd quite like to see
    Subversion on PS3, or maybe XBLA, who knows? Once it's a little more concrete, maybe it's an avenue we
    can go down.

    Q: You mentioned that you'd done some marketing for Darwinia+ - how do you effectively market digital
    games, do you think, when visibility can be tough?


    Mark Morris: I don't agree with that. For Darwinia+ we didn't have anything new - it was just Darwinia on
    Xbox - and we were covered by every major XBLA site. They all played it, and all reviewed it strongly, and I
    was quite surprised, because internally there was a bit of concern that journalists weren't going to be that
    interested.

    But actually there's a kind of professionalism - they're Xbox journalists so they're going to review a new
    Xbox game. If you've got a lower barrier to entry with a platform like Steam, you're going to find it harder.

    So we did what we always do - and we are good at it, but it's fairly simple to me. We put together a
    physical book about Darwinia+ with all the information, and we physically mailed that out to all the
    journalists - which is what we've always done, because even in the digital world physical things have more presence.

    We organised a press tour in the US, which we'd never done before, and going from no XBLA knowledge to
    a successful tour... we spent about four days over there - it was quite an experience, but not as hard as I
    thought it would be.

    At one point we were going to use a PR company to organise it for us, but we didn't really have the money.
    I wouldn't recommend it now - if you've got the time and you're our kind of size, do it yourself. It is a bit
    more hassle, carrying dev kits around and so on - you've got to know where you're going next - but we did
    it. We were quoted $30,000 for a PR company to basically pick us up from the airport and ferry around...
    and you don't need to spend that.

    Q: What was the total marketing budget?

    Mark Morris: We probably spent less than £10,000 in total marketing Darwinia+. We had a launch party at
    BAFTA too, which was quite fun.

    Q: So you got a lot for your money, just by doing it yourselves?

    Mark Morris: It's not that expensive. We didn't pay an awful lot for BAFTA, because they're trying to get into
    the games scene. Channel 4 are good people at the moment - I'm sure if somebody wanted to launch a
    game at Channel 4 they'd love to have you. So you can do all this stuff.

    Maybe it's because of our status, I don't know. Maybe they take a call from Introversion because it's a call
    from Introversion, and it might be harder for other people - I don't know.

    Q: There is a track record there.

    Mark Morris: Maybe - but if you make the approach well, so they have the information they need, a demo,
    copies of the game, and you think about the package they're sending through... I think most journalists are
    journalists because they're interested in playing games - so they're going to put your disc in, or whatever,
    and that's your foot in the door.

    Q: Maybe a call from the head of a studio just gets more attention than a call from a PR person?

    Mark Morris: It's possible - I think PR companies have their place, but I do tend to think that sometimes
    there's just a template that they'll use for sending out a game press release, and that's a tried-and-tested,
    metricated method that's 'guaranteed' to work.

    But what it means then is that every journalist receives the same press release from the same people...
    whereas if yours is slightly different, you're going to get a bit more attention.

    Q: Steam's been a good platform for you, based on this year's experiences - would you go so far as to
    recommend it to other independent developers?


    Mark Morris: I'd go so far as to say that if you're not on Steam, then you're not an indie game developer of
    any note. You absolutely have to be on that platform at the moment. Steam doesn't ask for exclusivity, and
    I know it's hard to get on there - Valve doesn't make it easy - but that's part of the challenge. If you want
    to run a company you have to find a way of getting your game on there.

    Part of the reason for that is that Valve regularly runs promotions that mean you can really capitalise on
    your back-catalogue, and you don't have that control with the consoles. Thinks like the iPad and iPhone, I
    think they're too crowded, and awareness is too difficult.

    And the other thing I'd say is that we've been doing a lot of work on the Introversion website recently,
    metricating it and putting all the analytics in place - we sell via our own site. I've always said this from the
    start, and still do - you have to be selling from your own website as well, because you see 99 per cent of
    every transaction that goes through there, so every piece of marketing that you do links back to your
    website.

    A regular Steam month is about a fifty-fifty revenue split between Valve and our website, because although
    the volume isn't anywhere near what they're doing, the money coming through is enough to even it out.

    Fats on
  • DrakeonDrakeon Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    So, question, anyone had any problems with their paypal accounts after paying for any of the $1 stuff from Ubisoft's screw up a few days ago? Had a friend find his paypal account hacked, but it might have been from when he got his WoW account hacked, which was also recently. Just wondering if anyone had experienced any hijinks related to the ubisoft sales that were going on.

    Drakeon on
    PSN: Drakieon XBL: Drakieon Steam: TheDrakeon
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I'd say your friend picked up a keylogger.

    captaink on
  • DrakeonDrakeon Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    captaink wrote: »
    I'd say your friend picked up a keylogger.

    Well yea, he was pretty sure it was from when he got his wow account hacked (via a keylogger), but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask if anyone else had problems from it. Just because the whole SC:C for $1 was such a good deal, still hard to believe I got it for that low.

    Drakeon on
    PSN: Drakieon XBL: Drakieon Steam: TheDrakeon
  • AzadIsCoolAzadIsCool Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Drakeon wrote: »
    So, question, anyone had any problems with their paypal accounts after paying for any of the $1 stuff from Ubisoft's screw up a few days ago? Had a friend find his paypal account hacked, but it might have been from when he got his WoW account hacked, which was also recently. Just wondering if anyone had experienced any hijinks related to the ubisoft sales that were going on.

    What the fuck?

    WHEN WAS THIS??

    AzadIsCool on
    leftaq.jpgcenterv.jpgrightz.jpg
  • IoloIolo iolo Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Fats wrote: »
    Here's a copy/paste of the entire Introversion interview, if anyone's interested (fuck free registration paywalls):
    In the past few years one name in particular has been synonymous with the UK's indie scene -
    Introversion - with a string of original titles, including Defcon and Darwinia.

    At this year's Develop conference we caught up with MD Mark Morris to find out how things had been going
    in the past year, only to discover that the answer was somewhat unexpected.


    Q: How has the past 12 months been for Introversion?

    Mark Morris: It's been quite a difficult year, actually. We launched Darwinia+ in February and we had really
    high hopes for that, while we were - in crude terms - right at the end of our money, we were really running
    out.

    We found out two days before Christmas Eve that we'd passed certification, so that was nice - it was a
    happy Christmas, as it could have gone the other way - then we had a break. After that we went into the
    crazy marketing push for the launch.

    Now, we haven't been particularly vocal about this, but Darwinia+ didn't sell enough - we just couldn't carry
    on trading in the same form that we were in before. I think it probably took us about three or four weeks
    to accept that, because you just don't want to. And it looked at one point as if we were going to be close
    to achieving what we wanted to.

    So the first thing we had to go was get rid of the staff, which was a sad thing. I'd never done that before in
    my career - it was hard, because they'd all been working hard on the product. We didn't put in too much
    crunch, but after working so hard to basically say "Thanks for all your hard efforts, by the way now you're
    out..."

    It's part of working in the games industry, but it's never nice - and we shut down the office as well, and
    kind of crawled back into the core Introversion team of just myself, Chris, Tom and Johnny... the original
    four directors, back in our bedrooms again.

    Once the dust has settled, that was actually quite a good place to find ourselves, because the burn rate
    had gone through the floor and working and managing are two very different jobs - while we're quite good
    as a management team, implementation is what we're best at - we started working very efficiently again.

    We were looking at trying to create Steam achievements for Defcon - because we wanted to get Valve to
    run a Defcon promotion, as a good way of generation some revenue, but also because we were a little bit
    done with Darwinia and we were looking for a new push.

    At the same time we were also hoping we could do something with Microsoft to see if maybe the poor sales
    for Darwinia+ were down to the price point - because it was expensive, 1200 points, for quite a strange
    game. We thought if we could get down to maybe 400 or 800, we might pick up more people.

    So we integrated the achievements, took it to Steam and asked if we could use it as a promotion - and they
    did the Valve thing of not responding.

    Q: It's not an uncommon problem.

    Mark Morris: The way you work with Valve is that you fire things at them, and when you get a response you
    know they've bitten. They don't tend to discuss with you... They do say yes if it works for them, but actually
    everything we do with Valve seems to work out quite well - so we're happy.

    Anyway, we ended up about six weeks ago with Darwinia+ as Deal of the Week, in with five other games at
    800 points. The needle moved, but not much. It was interesting as well, because we were around sixth or
    seventh in their download chart, so comparing the numbers we were seeing at our end... it was
    interesting, it makes me think that maybe there's a very sharp drop from between the top two and the rest.

    Q: Sounds a bit like the core games market at the end of 2008.

    Mark Morris: I found that interesting - people who are looking at that from the outside world would have
    thought that Introversion was doing okay. But if they'd correlated that with the leaderboard score, they'd
    see it's not a lot to be seventh on the platform.

    But the Valve sale - it was just phenomenal. A couple of statistics that I'm sure Valve won't mind me
    sharing: We've now sold more than $2.5 million through Steam, which is pretty good for Introversion,
    through life. Not all of that comes back to us, because sometimes it's been in bundle packs, and we've
    gotten less. But basically it equates to almost bang on £1 million, so we're really pleased.

    The sale did in the ball park of $250,000 - so when you're back to being a team of four people, that's a lot of revenue.

    Q: It's a lifeline.

    Mark Morris: Yes, it is - for the first time in a long time we've got a cash flow that extends out for two years
    at our size, which is nice. We've got two projects on the go at the moment - Subversion, which we're
    talking a lot about at the moment. It's new IP, very interesting stuff, but still not fully worked out in terms
    of which way the game will go... even on a daily basis Chris decides more about what the game is going to
    look like, but we're still not quite at the point where we can put together a production plan and say "It's
    coming out in two years".

    We've also been working with Sony on Defcon PSN - given our Darwinia+ experience we're a little bit less to
    just jump in bed with Sony if we can't find someone to share the development risk there. My original
    thinking was that the consoles open up and pour more sales into your existing market - but that just
    wasn't true with Darwinia+, it was such a tiny movement in scheme of things.

    I know that Sony is a different platform, Defcon is a different game and the price points are different - so I
    am confident. But at the same time...

    Q: I guess of you look at the other kinds of games that are on there, they're a little bit different - PJ
    Shooter, Flower - they seem to be quite successful there. XBLA seems to favour slightly more traditional
    games, if you're being general about it.


    Mark Morris: And the original Darwinia was such a different product for its time, back in 2004-5 - it could be
    the case that it's just too old. We got a lot of love I think because we were the only indie studio that was
    putting out big triple-I titles - that's why we wont he awards and got so much attention.

    But if you look at where we are now, with things like World of Goo, Braid, Trials, Joe Danger - they're
    similar-sized games to Darwinia, but they have higher production values and are more accessible.

    We set up Introversion primarily to work on new games, and I wanted to take the studio in a direction
    where we were able to put these games out on different platforms - but our first attempt at that hasn't
    really worked. So going forward I think it's more important for us to make Subversion and put a new game
    out there for people to play - another 80-90-plus Metacritic game, so people can see we haven't lost our
    touch.

    That's more important to me than expanding is now, and working with Sony - but at the same time, if we
    can find funding for it, because I think Defcon PSN is a good bet, then I want to do it. I'd quite like to see
    Subversion on PS3, or maybe XBLA, who knows? Once it's a little more concrete, maybe it's an avenue we
    can go down.

    Q: You mentioned that you'd done some marketing for Darwinia+ - how do you effectively market digital
    games, do you think, when visibility can be tough?


    Mark Morris: I don't agree with that. For Darwinia+ we didn't have anything new - it was just Darwinia on
    Xbox - and we were covered by every major XBLA site. They all played it, and all reviewed it strongly, and I
    was quite surprised, because internally there was a bit of concern that journalists weren't going to be that
    interested.

    But actually there's a kind of professionalism - they're Xbox journalists so they're going to review a new
    Xbox game. If you've got a lower barrier to entry with a platform like Steam, you're going to find it harder.

    So we did what we always do - and we are good at it, but it's fairly simple to me. We put together a
    physical book about Darwinia+ with all the information, and we physically mailed that out to all the
    journalists - which is what we've always done, because even in the digital world physical things have more presence.

    We organised a press tour in the US, which we'd never done before, and going from no XBLA knowledge to
    a successful tour... we spent about four days over there - it was quite an experience, but not as hard as I
    thought it would be.

    At one point we were going to use a PR company to organise it for us, but we didn't really have the money.
    I wouldn't recommend it now - if you've got the time and you're our kind of size, do it yourself. It is a bit
    more hassle, carrying dev kits around and so on - you've got to know where you're going next - but we did
    it. We were quoted $30,000 for a PR company to basically pick us up from the airport and ferry around...
    and you don't need to spend that.

    Q: What was the total marketing budget?

    Mark Morris: We probably spent less than £10,000 in total marketing Darwinia+. We had a launch party at
    BAFTA too, which was quite fun.

    Q: So you got a lot for your money, just by doing it yourselves?

    Mark Morris: It's not that expensive. We didn't pay an awful lot for BAFTA, because they're trying to get into
    the games scene. Channel 4 are good people at the moment - I'm sure if somebody wanted to launch a
    game at Channel 4 they'd love to have you. So you can do all this stuff.

    Maybe it's because of our status, I don't know. Maybe they take a call from Introversion because it's a call
    from Introversion, and it might be harder for other people - I don't know.

    Q: There is a track record there.

    Mark Morris: Maybe - but if you make the approach well, so they have the information they need, a demo,
    copies of the game, and you think about the package they're sending through... I think most journalists are
    journalists because they're interested in playing games - so they're going to put your disc in, or whatever,
    and that's your foot in the door.

    Q: Maybe a call from the head of a studio just gets more attention than a call from a PR person?

    Mark Morris: It's possible - I think PR companies have their place, but I do tend to think that sometimes
    there's just a template that they'll use for sending out a game press release, and that's a tried-and-tested,
    metricated method that's 'guaranteed' to work.

    But what it means then is that every journalist receives the same press release from the same people...
    whereas if yours is slightly different, you're going to get a bit more attention.

    Q: Steam's been a good platform for you, based on this year's experiences - would you go so far as to
    recommend it to other independent developers?


    Mark Morris: I'd go so far as to say that if you're not on Steam, then you're not an indie game developer of
    any note. You absolutely have to be on that platform at the moment. Steam doesn't ask for exclusivity, and
    I know it's hard to get on there - Valve doesn't make it easy - but that's part of the challenge. If you want
    to run a company you have to find a way of getting your game on there.

    Part of the reason for that is that Valve regularly runs promotions that mean you can really capitalise on
    your back-catalogue, and you don't have that control with the consoles. Thinks like the iPad and iPhone, I
    think they're too crowded, and awareness is too difficult.

    And the other thing I'd say is that we've been doing a lot of work on the Introversion website recently,
    metricating it and putting all the analytics in place - we sell via our own site. I've always said this from the
    start, and still do - you have to be selling from your own website as well, because you see 99 per cent of
    every transaction that goes through there, so every piece of marketing that you do links back to your
    website.

    A regular Steam month is about a fifty-fifty revenue split between Valve and our website, because although
    the volume isn't anywhere near what they're doing, the money coming through is enough to even it out.

    This is bloody fascinating.

    Iolo on
    Lt. Iolo's First Day
    Steam profile.
    Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    AzadIsCool wrote: »
    Drakeon wrote: »
    So, question, anyone had any problems with their paypal accounts after paying for any of the $1 stuff from Ubisoft's screw up a few days ago? Had a friend find his paypal account hacked, but it might have been from when he got his WoW account hacked, which was also recently. Just wondering if anyone had experienced any hijinks related to the ubisoft sales that were going on.

    What the fuck?

    WHEN WAS THIS??

    The other night... Ubisoft's site went haywire.

    Did they ever explain any of that? my copy of SC:C works fine so I assume their honoring the purchases at least right now

    initiatefailure on
  • CorriganXCorriganX Jacksonville, FLRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    my Prince of persia and Splinter Cell: Convictions both work fine, so they havn't started nuking keys yet. :p

    CorriganX on
    n1woEHJ.png
    CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
  • AzadIsCoolAzadIsCool Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    AzadIsCool wrote: »
    Drakeon wrote: »
    So, question, anyone had any problems with their paypal accounts after paying for any of the $1 stuff from Ubisoft's screw up a few days ago? Had a friend find his paypal account hacked, but it might have been from when he got his WoW account hacked, which was also recently. Just wondering if anyone had experienced any hijinks related to the ubisoft sales that were going on.

    What the fuck?

    WHEN WAS THIS??

    The other night... Ubisoft's site went haywire.

    Did they ever explain any of that? my copy of SC:C works fine so I assume their honoring the purchases at least right now

    !! I didn't realize that actually happened. I just saw a lot of people talking about how they wouldn't even buy Ubisoft games if they were one dollar.

    Dammit.

    AzadIsCool on
    leftaq.jpgcenterv.jpgrightz.jpg
  • TertieeTertiee Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat bundle for $10. Not sure why they skipped the 2nd game, Clear Sky, though people seem to think it is the weakest of the 3 games.

    http://store.steampowered.com/sub/5011

    Tertiee on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Dang, I only need CoP. Though I guess I don't have STALKER on Steam currently.

    captaink on
  • Fleck0Fleck0 Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    $10 would be a great deal even if it was just CoP on sale

    Fleck0 on
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  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    That's true, but it still feels a little bit wasteful.

    captaink on
  • AlegisAlegis Impeckable Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I'll wait as I have yet to finish Chernobyl and even start on clear sky. There'll be another sale.
    captaink wrote: »
    That's true, but it still feels a little bit wasteful.
    Reminds me of all the whine Orange Box received by including HL2 and Ep1 for free when people would rather have had it not included.

    Alegis on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Alegis wrote: »
    I'll wait as I have yet to finish Chernobyl and even start on clear sky. There'll be another sale.
    captaink wrote: »
    That's true, but it still feels a little bit wasteful.
    Reminds me of all the whine Orange Box received by including HL2 and Ep1 for free when people would rather have had it not included.

    Yeah it does. Haha.

    captaink on
  • TertieeTertiee Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Alegis wrote: »
    I'll wait as I have yet to finish Chernobyl and even start on clear sky. There'll be another sale.

    The STALKER series in particular seems to get a lot of steam sales. I swear this is the 4th or 5th time I've seen some game in the series discounted.

    Tertiee on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited August 2010
    I think it's the lowest Call of Pripyat has been though.

    captaink on
  • BiopticBioptic Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    captaink wrote: »
    I think it's the lowest Call of Pripyat has been though.

    Call of Pripyat was always astoundingly cheap in the UK, even at release - this pushes it into '£5 copy of Theme Park World' territory.

    I still hate how Steam deals with duplication (nowhere else on the planet does buying 2 things mean that you don't get 2 things), but as long as the prices remain that low, I'll buy into their deals - feeling filthy all the while.

    Bioptic on
  • DarlanDarlan Registered User regular
    edited August 2010
    Uh oh. I hopped on the Call of Pripyat sale and am getting a "failed to contact key server" message. You'd think they would have ordered more keys right before a sale, what a screwup.

    Darlan on
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