Interview on Guardian Gamesblog

[vic]

Another good interview slot for Introversion. Tom Arundel talks about DEFCON, the pros and cons of a small dev team and the new opportunities presented by Xbox Live Arcade...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archi ... n_fun.html

[Babylon5]

The Guardian? Ooo...

Hay look it's Vic =O

[Avenged]

Good Interview that.

[elDiablo]

Nice!

[holdmykidney]

Excellent.

It's nice to see that Steam has given them such a reliable revenue stream.

Do you reckon they're planning to third-party an X-Box Live Arcade port of Darwinia and DEFCON like they did with Ambrosia?

[Steeds]

Looks like someones changed their tune since a certain speech:

Have you been courted by any large publishers, especially since the IGF awards? Although you made it pretty clear on the night how you felt about the mainstream industry, you must have had a few big players trying to tap you up...
I should clarify that we have no problems at all working with publishers, and we have a lot of deals with existing publishers, hopefully the IGF awards will continue to make that even more possible! The key for us is maintaining our creative control, owning our own IP's and not accepting funding from publishers before a game is completed because that automatically diminishes your freedom. Our games are always finished before signing a deal with a publisher, so effectively they're acting primarily in advertising and distribution roles which allow us to maintain commercial integrity.

[NeoThermic]

Looks like someones changed their tune since a certain speech:

Have you been courted by any large publishers, especially since the IGF awards? Although you made it pretty clear on the night how you felt about the mainstream industry, you must have had a few big players trying to tap you up...
I should clarify that we have no problems at all working with publishers, and we have a lot of deals with existing publishers, hopefully the IGF awards will continue to make that even more possible! The key for us is maintaining our creative control, owning our own IP's and not accepting funding from publishers before a game is completed because that automatically diminishes your freedom. Our games are always finished before signing a deal with a publisher, so effectively they're acting primarily in advertising and distribution roles which allow us to maintain commercial integrity.

Not exactly, no. Mark's speach was reffering to publishers getting into the act before the game was finished (as they invariably, and in Mark's own words, "fuck[ing] with our game"). IV state here that they only ever talk to publishers once they actually have a finished product, so the publisher can't say 'Oh, I want the game to actually be like this', as then IV will just find a diffrent publisher.

IV haven't changed any tunes

NeoThermic

[vic]

Yes neothermic thats exactly it. I wanted to clarify that we're not closed to working with publishers - after all they make the continuation of Introversion possible by allowing us to get our games into territories that would never be possible off our own back. But at the same time, as Mark stressed at IGF we want publishers to remain strictly in the role of publishers and not that of creative directors.

Vic

[Steeds]

Oh, good. I like their music just the way it is

Publishers usually pay in advance for patches for some games (as far as i know), so how would that work for introversion? Would they "bite the bullet" to fix patches because they dont account for it or budget ahead in their big payment for new features and updates?