Keeping IV from the Wolves

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Zalamieer
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Postby Zalamieer » Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:29 am

Perhaps one of the shortcomings of Multiwinia's sales is that maybe you expected new title numbers from what amounts to a multiplayer patch for an existing game in the eyes of the general market. Only established IV fans are going to know the differences and that they are indeed different products. I would assume all *winia titles will have similar results. Hopefully expanding into new markets like XBOXLA will have different results. Personally, I think RTS-style games are horrible with a game controller compared to a mouse. Hopefully you guys can innovate around its stiffling limititations.

As someone who really likes Introversion's product lines, what draws me the most to a new titles consisetently is their uniqueness of concepts and gameplay. As a proud owner of Uplink, Defcon and Darwinia, I look forward to Subversion, but it looks like you guys are going into an infinite feedback loop with *winia. Hopefully squeezing blood from that turnip is fruitful and not drawing too many dev resources from your next great title.

And to chime in on the fan bonds idea. Perhaps some of the IV guys can get in touch with the Project Offset folks. I believe they stayed afloat for a couple of years prior to the IBM buy-out on that funding priniciple. Maybe they can give some candid feedback on whether it was useful or not.

Good luck with all of the challenges.
Clive At Five
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Postby Clive At Five » Tue Sep 08, 2009 5:16 pm

As someone who has "demoed" IV's masterpieces and never purchased, I am pledging to monetize my support for your fantastic software. Unfortunately, 2009 has been rough on us all. I am buying Uplink today and, as my spending cash permits, will purchase your entire catalog... and I will urge my friends to do the same.

Indy developers are way too valuable to the industry to lose. You guys set the example that the giants follow. I am utterly blown away by the few snippets I've seen of Subversion and I'm confident that its city generator (for lack of a better descriptor) will not just revolutionize gaming, but all software.

Thank you for your brilliant contributions to the industry. Keep fighting the fight, and I hope to see you guys going strong in 2010.

-Clive
MrChris
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Pre-order beta access?

Postby MrChris » Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:33 am

Maybe take a leaf out of Stardock's book and offer beta access to people who pre-order?
I've now paid SD for a game (Elemental), which won't be complete until well into next year, but I've got access to the beta and can contribute feedback and bug reports which means I can be more confident that the final product will work on my machine and be a fun game. The side effect is that they've now got some additional funding to continue work on the game.

Personally I'm very happy to pre-order for beta access - I've just pre-ordered Gratuitous Space Battles, another indy game (also via Stardocks Impulse, Steam isn't the only distribution channel in town), that again has given me beta access which as a budding developer myself is really interesting to me.

It would be nice to see IV adopt something like this, feel free to take SD's approach - beta's aren't supposed to be 'fun' etc.
Is that something IV would consider? If not, what would be the reason? (Curiosity).
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NeatNit
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Postby NeatNit » Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:49 am

Pre-order for beta access basically means 'buy the game now and play it now, but it's not finished yet'. As in, the game is fully released, but will still be worked on and improved and will reach its final, intended state.

Not that I'm complaining, though. I'm just saying it's pretty stupid, even though it works quite well :)

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