By Kieron Gillen on August 23rd, 2010 at 9:00 pm.

When Introversion do one of their sporadic candid posts, it’s normally worth reading. Mark Morris’ latest one is no different, talking about their last six months. They knew within an hour Darwinia+ hadn’t done well enough, and eventually they realised they couldn’t go on. Instead, they ended up selling the office, going back down to 3 staff, selling tables and chairs and working from their bedrooms again. However – and for me, the key thing in the story – they still needed some operating funds. Defcon had Steam achievements added, in hope that Valve would let a promotion go ahead. And they did…
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.
In other words, on with Subversion. And Chris is continuing his development diaries here. It’s the second time Steam saved Introversion, of course, with Darwinia’s original launch there changing the course of a game which seemed to be not finding an audience.


Is that character named after you, Mr G?
report
Read the alt text.
report
How?
report
In firefox you can right-click the image and choose “show image info” (or whatever the english translation is). There are probably some plugins as well if you are that desperate.
But actually RPS should start using the correct attribute for tooltips which is title.
report
When you add a image with wordpress, it adds an “ALT” tag to fill in. To add a TEXT tag, we’d have to do it manually. We’d never do that, and the jokes would never appear.
They’re basically secret stuff. If you want to read ‘em, there’s plugins for browsers which make it easier.
KG
report
@Boldoran:
WordPress sorts all of your uploaded images by what it reads in the “title” attribute. It gets really annoying after a while. I know this because I put my own snark in the titles of my images, and I have an image gallery that’s an unholy mess after only a few months. My site is a fraction of the size of this one; you do the math. Whatever its intended purpose, the alt attribute is useful simply by virtue of not being the title.
@Everyone else:
Here is (one version of) the plugin that everyone is talking about. In case you’ve done something to upset The Google and can’t find it for yourself.
report
Oh Damn,
Now im never going to be able to stop checking every screen shot RPS posts.
Hot damn diggity doody.
report
Heres an extension for Chrome users that adds the (technically wrong) old alt text behavior back in.
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bgjodnjdnjiblmdknhnokibkoamlfmpm
report
Thanks knifethrower – that did the trick. Obviously with only 90 total downloads, this alt-text reading lark isn’t as popular as it should be. As an added bonus, the extension also advised that it would need control over all my web-data.
report
@KG: Not sure what version of WordPress you use, but in the newer versions, when you upload an image, you can change the title. And that title will become the title attribute in HTML (shows as tooltip).
report
WordPress is clearly retarded if it makes it difficult or inconvenient to set a title attribute on images. Here’s a quick and dirty Greasemonkey script to copy alt attributes to titles.
// ==UserScript==
// @name RPS - stupid freaking alt text
// @namespace my-rps-scripts
// @include http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
var entries = Array();
var body = document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];
var divs = body.getElementsByTagName('div');
for (var i = 0; i < divs.length; i++) {
if (divs[i].getAttribute('class') == 'entry') {
entries.push(divs[i]);
}
}
for (var e = 0; e < entries.length; e++) {
imgs = entries[e].getElementsByTagName('img');
for (var i = 0; i < imgs.length; i++) {
if (imgs[i].getAttribute('alt') && !imgs[i].getAttribute('title')) {
imgs[i].setAttribute('title', imgs[i].getAttribute('alt'));
}
}
}
report
For those looking to install this in Chrome on Mac OS X or Linux (I know, not the most common folks on RPS) you need to add one line to the top of the script, save it to disk with a .user.js extension, and navigate to it in the Chrome address bar. The line to add is:
// @match http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/*I just saved it to the desktop, so I entered
file:///Users/my_user_name/Documents/rps.user.js. An install dialog came up, and it worked fine.report
On the Greasemonkey front, this is the script I use for image alt attribute visibility, which actually creates a caption on the page under the image. It’s pretty messy but it gets the job done:
// ==UserScript==
// @name RPS Image Caption
// @include http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/*
// @namespace rockpapershotgun
// ==/UserScript==
var images = document.getElementById(‘left-column’).getElementsByTagName(‘img’);
for (i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
if(images[i].parentNode.parentNode.getAttribute('class') == 'entry') {
var caption = document.createElement('p');
var captiontext = document.createTextNode(images[i].getAttribute('alt'));
caption.appendChild(captiontext);
caption.setAttribute('class','imgcaption');
caption.setAttribute('style','font-size:66%;font-style:italic;color:#888;');
images[i].parentNode.appendChild(caption);
}
}
report
@Shadowcat: Thanks so much for the Greasemonkey script. I’ve been missing out on the fun subtitles on this site ever since I started following it a long time ago and was far too lazy to check the properties of all the pics manually. Now that situation is finally rectified.
report
I finally concluded that Jonathan’s approach is much better. With automated captions, there’s no more mouse work needed to see whether there’s a clever caption. I ended up converting my script to something which I see looks rather like his :) (albeit a little less elegant for my use of innerHTML, but I wasn’t fussed enough to change it). I made the caption style blend in with the image style, so the captions look fairly decent (for me in Firefox 3.6).
// ==UserScript==
// @name RPS - stupid freaking alt text
// @namespace my-rps-scripts
// @include http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
caption_style = 'width: 584px; padding: 0.15em 8px; border: 5px solid #cccccc; margin: -10px 0 0.5em 0; background-color: lightyellow; color: #333300; font-size: 0.85em; font-style: italic;';
var body = document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];
var divs = body.getElementsByTagName('div');
for (var i = 0; i < divs.length; i++) {
if (divs[i].getAttribute('class') == 'entry') {
imgs = divs[i].getElementsByTagName('img');
for (var j = 0; j < imgs.length; j++) {
if (imgs[j].getAttribute('alt')) {
caption = document.createElement('div');
caption.innerHTML = imgs[j].getAttribute('alt');
caption.setAttribute('class', 'caption');
caption.setAttribute('style', caption_style);
imgs[j].parentNode.appendChild(caption);
}
}
}
}
report
Chris Delay reminds me of Mark E Smith. Too run with strange and unwieldy comparison, that would make Steam the John Peel of games.
report
If only — Delay is nowhere near prolific enough to be a Mark E Smith.
report
On the Greasemonkey front, this could be the script I use for photo alt attribute visibility, which truly produces a caption inside the web page below the image. it is relatively messy however it will obtain the procedure done:
// ==UserScript==
// @name RPS – stupid freaking alt text
// @namespace my-rps-scripts
// @include http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
caption_style = ‘width: 584px; padding: 0.15em 8px; border: 5px solid #cccccc; margin: -10px 0 0.5em 0; background-color: lightyellow; color: #333300; font-size: 0.85em; font-style: italic;’;
var body = document.getElementsByTagName(‘body’)[0];
var divs = body.getElementsByTagName(‘div’);
for (var i = 0; i < divs.length; i++) {
if (divs[i].getAttribute('class') == 'entry') {
imgs = divs[i].getElementsByTagName('img');
for (var j = 0; j < imgs.length; j++) {
if (imgs[j].getAttribute('alt')) {
caption = document.createElement('div');
caption.innerHTML = imgs[j].getAttribute('alt');
caption.setAttribute('class', 'caption');
caption.setAttribute('style', caption_style);
imgs[j].parentNode.appendChild(caption);
}
}
}
}
report
I don’t know how they could be surprised. Darwinia on XBLA in the early days of the service as a good idea. Darwinia on XBLA about 4 years later, when there were a lot more games on the service, with 8 or 9 people to be paid for 3 years work, never really sounded like a winning proposal to me.
Subversion however sounds as exciting as hell to me, and did from whenever I first guessed what they were really up to (probably 2 years ago or so)
report
I like Introversion’s games and I hope they keep making them, but after the original Darwinia tanked you would have thought they would have given it up as a bad job rather than attempting to remake it twice with more or less the same result. They remind me a little of Ion Storm, even though it is in many ways an unfair comparison.
report
If it wasn’t for Darwinia, I might not be an Introversion fan. And atop that, it was Darwinia that awoke the RTS in me and Mrs. HM, which was a pretty mean feat all told. Maybe I need to pay them a fee for every RTS we play going forward; I’m sure that arrangement would suit.
report
I’m not sure how this applies, but I bought every one of Introversion’s PC games and I don’t like a single one of them. I played Uplink for about twenty minutes, Defcon the same. Darwinia I spent a good couple of hours on, then maybe ten minutes with Multiwinia to confirm it’s more of the same. They’ve all bored the tits off me.
I suppose my opinion doesn’t actually matter if I’m going to keep on buying the games anyway. I suppose you could say that my opinion is wrong, but if it was just my opinion that was wrong they wouldn’t be back to making games in their bedrooms, probably with their mums nagging them to take the bins out just when they’re about to do some hard coding.
I’ve no bias against indie titles. I’ve played Dwarf Fortress for hundreds of hours. I’ve been playing so much Minecraft recently that I’ve taken to leaving all the lights on in my house.
Maybe Introversion are a nice bunch of guys who some journos really like, but whose games just aren’t very appealing.
report
They do demos, though, right?
report
@dadioflex: just out of curiosity, why do you keep buying their games if you don’t enjoy them?
report
Hmm, seems they aren’t so good with the money nor time management.
report
They need to think about that next time they bugger off to play with consoles, humph!
report
Subversion looks so much better than their previous few games … I really can’t imagine I won’t buy it. Looking forward to it.
report
Well, good for them. I’m glad to hear that the “last of the bedroom programmers” are back in the bedroom and not out on the street. Now, go ahead and make a workable beta of Subversion, and I’ll preorder to test it out. Please.
report
I would preorder it right now, sod whatever state it’s in ATM – sometimes, you just have to pay money and wait to get things you want.
report
Mark E Smith could make a MMO that I’d actually like.
report
Massively Multiplayer Online Rambling and Punching Game?
report
I’m thinking that it would be a massively online pub where everyone gets pissed and agrees with Mark E Smith game. If someone messes up and aggros him then the whole party gets wiped.
report
@ Cinnamon: scratch the party – the whole BAND gets wiped.
report
Glad to hear the €5 I spent on the deal has some use :)
report
Same here. Now we need to hope one year will be enough to get Subervsion to a pre-orderable state.
report
I came into these comments to post about how this is the sort of feedback I just never hear – that my purchase directly helped fund the creation of their next game.
That’s not the sort of feeling you can get from pirating games.
report
….
Also if I’d known about their financial distress, I would have waited until after the sale – I mean heck, I’ve got a CD copy of Uplink with the funky shiny black keycode inset and the caffeine molecule printed on the inside of the case paper. What’s another thirty or forty bucks to ensure that they’ll make another game with that much passion?
report
Wow, that was the sale I finally coughed up for as well.
I’m dying to play Subversion and, well… guys? If you’re against the ropes again, please swallow your pride and ask us to pre-order. Because plenty of us will.
report
I love the Introversion guys, but I kind of think they need to go back to business school for a couple of years. They consistently put all their eggs in one basket, and that basket never quite does as well as they need it to. And then they go back to that basket. I honestly don’t understand how they thought Darwinia+ was going to do very well for them. It’s an extremely niche game on the PC, did they really think it was going to be embraced by the mainstream console crowd?
I really, really hope Subversion does really well, but I doubt that it will.
report
“. I honestly don’t understand how they thought Darwinia+ was going to do very well for them.”
As I understand it, they didn’t. It was originally a question of being able to get a product out relatively cheaply to generate revenue to fund Subversion. They hoped it would do well, but they weren’t being cocky about it. In other words, they felt if they didn’t make Darwinia+, they wouldn’t be able to make anything else. And then Darwinia+ took much longer to make than they had planned, so it needed to do better than it realistically could.
report
show me a list of indie developers, and I’ll show you a list of businesses operating at subsistence level.
Here’s how it works:
A. There are lots of indie developers. Most of them release one title and disappear.
B. Some release one title to an abnormally good reception, and make money. This makes the developer suddenly a major player in the field.
C. For those of (B), this reception is either due to (1) some combination of factors that makes their game an economic deviation from the normal income they can expect, or (2) due to their exceptional and brilliant talent.
D. Most developers believe (2) (cf. “Regression toward the mean”, explained as “Sophomore slump”), and their portrayals of “subsistence” income exceeds what even an average title can pull down. (that reminds me, buy your copies of Solium Infernum now)
So yeah, Multiwinia failed. D+ on XBLA was portrayed as the savior. But, while cool and all, it’s just not an idiom people are used to. It’s inspiration, Tron, was screened in 1982: in 2005, a kid who grew up on Tron might be expected to have a PC and still game in her or his spare time. In 2010, that same kid will have less free time; and an Xbox? Multiplayer? I need to have friends?
Anyway, the game looked cool and all, but it had the wrong combination of sweet Tron-style graphics and Jeff Minter action. Dude, I want Hovver Bovver, not some psychedelic monstrosity….
But they made a cool game and nobody bought it; what of it? We could give a thousand reasons for the failure of any untried indie design out there (including many that will succeed), and for most of them that were successful five years ago. The point of the avant-garde is not that they’re so much better than the army, but rather that, if they get lost or ambushed, the general doesn’t lose the whole army. The Introversion folks learned all this, and they’re still fighting. So I say rock on, and I’m glad the people who heeded the call are doing okay afterwards.
(And yeah, DEFCON is both an awesome game and immediately appealing)
And the developer core keeps writing games because that’s what they’re compelled by nature to do. Rock on.
report
They really should have scrapped Darwinia+ after their first pre-cert/playability report from Microsoft, though. Right then it should have become apparent that the amount of time and money it would have taken to complete it and release it would have made the profit margins negligible. IIRC, in the post-Multiwinia pre-Darwinia+ ‘we may well be fucked’ post, they said that they thought they were pretty much done with D+, sent it to Microsoft and MS came back and said ‘Umm, no. You need to fix this laundry list of shit before we’ll release it’ and that laundry list of shit basically meant they had to start Darwinia over from scratch to make it playable on the Xbox 360.
All that time and money that essentially did bankrupt them as a company should have been poured into Subversion. They keep distracting Chris and making him work on games that he doesn’t want to work on, preventing him from focussing full time on the project that he actually cares about, which drags out Subversion’s development time, increasing it’s cost and narrowing its profit margin. I don’t want to speculate, but I imagine if Chris had been able to work on Subversion full time for the past two years, he might be nearly done with it.
I kind of agree with Kadayi, below. Chris needs to get quit of these guys because they’re basically ruining him.
report
I wouldn’t disagree with that. It’s just that I can understand how they went down the rabbit hole, even without expecting Darwinia+ to be a smash hit.
report
Their games I tried never really appealed to me, so I haven’t followed them much, but if I’m understanding the article and the comments it sounds like the XBLA excursion is a perfect example of a failure to step back from a project, take a objective view and apply basic project management rules/techniques. Specifically (and commonly broken), just because you’ve invested $XXX in a project doesn’t mean you have to continue to throw good money after bad to finish it. Sometimes you have to write off the investment and move onto something else or face creating a larger loss. Not to say that’s easy when you’re dealing with something that you’ve personally created and have a strong emotional attachment to.
report
@Dave L.
Glad to see I’m not alone in thinking this. Frankly the only ones this ‘relaunch’ really benefits is Tom & Mark because it means they get to stay off the dole queue for another year (because let’s face it their record at business management/PR is hardly stellar) until Defcon spectacularly faceplants on PSN (IV games are just not console material in my view) and Chris actually wises up and moves on.
report
I hate that guys like Introversion struggle to keep making games. After hearing about their troubles before I actually waited until a Steam sale ended before buying their games. Don’t regret that one bit.
Long live introversion
report
If you actually care about the developer getting money, why would you buy through a third party?
report
Honestly I didn’t even think about buying it through their website at the time, just didn’t occur to me.
Also just to be clear I already owned Darwinia, I tried the demos to their other games and realised I was missing out. I’m not just some strange charity to troubled developers.
report
Subversion looks interesting, even though it is in somewhat of an embryonic state.
report
I never understood why they Darwinia+ for the 360 in the first place. XBLA is not a natural fit for a game like this, surely Defcon would have been much more appropriate for that marketplace. Besides, after Multiwinia flopped on the PC, they should have realized the 360-version wouldn’t do much better and just canceled it to cut their losses.
report
When Steam offered Mac games, ‘Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!’, got a nice boost in sales, because we had a Mac version right away (except it broke their wrapper, and we had to wait a month to post on the service :-) This extra bit-o-cash allowed us to self-fund our next game, ‘arcada mia’.
thank you, Steam!
report
I recently re-bought Uplink from Steam for 10€. They better make Subversion good with my money.
report
Introversion: betting the farm since 2001!
report
Introversio are such a rollercoaster ride. I can’t keep up. Are they successful, in debt, bankrupt, oh wait they’re doing well again! Hurrah!
Why can’t cliffski be this exciting?
report
Because I did a degree in economics, so I’m a bit better at keeping my eye on the balance sheet :D
(Only kidding Mark!)
report
@Cliffski
You also don’t have 2 useless fucks drawing a wage off your efforts either ;)
report
Why hasn’t valve bought Introversion yet, it’d save all this bother and they’d get their awesome games out faster.
report
yeah cos Valve are famous for releasing games in a timely manner…
:)
report
For all these stories how Steam saved an indie studio, there are others out there with games equal or better than current offerings on Steam that can’t even get their emails replied to (c.f. Carpe Fulgar and Recettear.) There seems to be an arbitrary procedure for what gets on Steam and what doesn’t.
(and yes, I don’t want to buy through Impulse, which is the only system that CF could arrange a deal with apparently)
report
@Torgen
What is your problem with Impulse?
report
@Sunjumper : Yeah I’ve used impulse many times and it’s perfectly fine. Never had any problems Well Dragon Age had some problems but so did the Steam version. I think there were issues with the digital versions of that game. So that’s more of an EA problem than an impulse/steam problem.
report
If I was Valve I might be tempted to snag Chris (the man has talent and plenty of it), but frankly the other two just seem a couple of pointless money leeches. In a way it’s a shame that once again they’ve managed to convince him that paying their mortgages is somehow in his best interest.
report
@Kadayi: Wow… you know without Mark and Tom there would never have been an Introversion. Chris would just have released Uplink as freeware as he intended and then gone off to get a real job. There’s also no secret that without those two’s hard work Introversion would never had survived the long development of the original Darwinia so you could give them a bit more credit.
report
@Snail
Survived? You make it out like ‘surviving’ is somehow an admirable achievement Vs say building a stable and successful company. Plenty of other developers have gone from zero to hero in the time that IV have wobbled from one financial crisis to the other (and been once more ‘saved’ by Valve) so this idea that either Mark or Tom are an essential ingredient to the mix is steeped in underdog nostalgia. Chris is an extremely
report
@Kadayi: Yes, and plenty of other developers have gone bust in that same time including the indie game company I was a partner in. Besides, if Chris really believes that Mark and Tom don’t bring anything to the table he would have left long ago.
report
@Snail
Survived? You make it out like ‘surviving’ is somehow an admirable achievement Vs say building a stable and successful company. Plenty of other developers have gone from zero to hero in the time that IV have wobbled from one financial crisis to the other (and been once more ‘saved’ by Valve) so this idea that either Mark or Tom are an essential ingredient to the mix is steeped in underdog nostalgia. Chris is an extremely talented guy held slave to (and back by) redundant allegiances. I can’t think that even in these hard times he’d struggle to find himself a decent position with any number of development studios.
report
He doesn’t want to go to a developers studio though…he probably knows that he could go into one but he wants to create games and thats what he’s passionate about. And i guess he thinks that with the three of them he can do that. But having read it…i would say put the defcon on PSN on hold and just go straight for Subversion otherwise the same thing could happen again.
report
@Xercies
I’m fairly sure that a development studio would want him to continue to make games given his back catalogue and they’d give him the kind of resourcing and support necessary to achieve results faster. (After all let’s not forget that he’s the only one of the ‘bedroom coders’ that actually codes).
I also agree that the PSN pursuit seems like a pointless gamble and that he should focus on Subversion exclusively (which looks like it is coming on strong).
Though in all honesty If I were him I’d cut losses with the other two and start touting Subversion around to someone like Valve who could help him realise it without having to do all the work himself.
report
I’ve got to agree with Kad.
Chris needs to let IV die, and go get a job – work on his own games and idea’s in his spare time, do it for fun and passion again.
Then release it when it is done.
It’s pretty damn clear that he wants to work on his new idea’s and redoing the old ones over and over has been killing him creatively – not to mention the stress of running his own business.
Also, IV’s business plans have been straight up dumb for these past few years, I remember saying on a RPS thread from like 2 years ago that Multiwinia was a BAD idea (as a concept and as a financial move, and they should let chris focus on his new game.
Instead his business partners kept sidetracking him with money making opportunities that never made any sodding money – all the while forcing the game he wanted to make to the backburner.
These are not partners, they are leeches – they may have been vital in making Chris see the commercial value of his games and making him money, but clearly that has changed to treating him like a egg laying goose. Trying to make him rehash his old work endlessly to keep the company afloat (meaning their wages).
I’d bet without the “company” to drag him down, Chris would make enough money from the trickle sales of his back catalogue to live on and focus on new material. THen if he wanted to port one of his titles he could, it would be his choice to do, not some business pressure applied by his partners.
Either that or his partners need to get their asses back to school, and learn to code also, then do the sodding porting themselves.
report
The Subversion music tech video is very interesting, it’s a clever way of arranging the whole musical background.
report
Nice to know I helped keep an indie dev alive :).
report
I would have been gutted if Subversion had to be shelved.
Thx Gabe.
report
These guys only talk about how they’re almost out of money. Maybe they should start changing things up
report
I’m glad to have been one of those that collaborated with saving Introversion. I didn’t quite like darwinia or multiwinia, but Uplink is utterly brilliant and defcon is good fun when played with friends
report
Woah, that’s scary story.
I already had a couple of Introversion games bought full price on release but on a whim purchased the deal to get the rest. I’m glad I was able to donate my small part.
report
Anybody here buy the source code to Darwinia? I’m really tempted to do so.
report
Been waiting for Subversion for ever! WANT!
report
So wait a sec, Defcon has Steam Achievements… does that mean I have to re-buy the game, or will Steam take my Introversion-supplied key?
report
It’s not on the list, so I’d hazard that if you really wanted the Steam achievements (Lord knows why) you’d have to rebuy the game.
report
Can’t help but have a wee dose of cynicism at the phrase “we have a plan” at the end of Mark’s post. What with their track record with plans being somewhat ropey.
Anyway I hope it all works out for them. I love their games, bought them all witht eh exception of Multiwinia (I’m just not much of a multiplayer guy) and Subversion looks like something with a shit load of potential. So best of luck to them with the new plan and I hope it goes better for them this time.
report
I told one of them why I didn’t buy Multiwinia (I did in the Christmas sale though) and it was because it was pretty similar to Darwinia (which I loved) and I’m not a big multiplayer gamer.
The guy replied that it’s valuable feedback and next thing was them releasing D+ on Xbox Live…
Simply playing the Indie “please support us kkthxbye” card doesn’t resonate with me.
I’m willing to buy a lot of indie games (which I already did and intend to continue) BUT I expect some originality and quality as well!
I’m not the state paying wellfare and I have to work for my money as well…
I’m a big Introversion fan (actually I still have the hand-printed copy of Uplink + the extra CD the first orders got back when they only had a forum and sold the games on it) so I’m really looking forward to Subversion if it provides the quality shown in Uplink / Darwinia.
report
I did. And the source makes my brain bleed >< need to brush up on my coding.
report
@LintMan
report
Wow, glad Introversion are ok but also very glad I didn’t take the job with them that RPS posted a few years ago. I got through the opening stage but then decided to work somewhere more stable and I’m glad I did, sucks to be some of the other employees who have all been sacked for something that doesn’t really sound like their fault.
Introversion make pretty cool games but I think need to get better at the business and marketing side.
report
A troubling amount of power has concentrated in Valve’s hands.
report
At least they’re not being evil with it yet.
Let’s give them a chance!
report
Subversion should do well. Darwinia was just a bit too weird and hard to explain to your mates.
“A game about hacking/nukes/thieving” Much easier to sell to people!
report
I never understood why Defcon wasn’t the game they focused on for XBLA. It would’ve been quicker to get it out and they could’ve sold it for 400-800 points.
The best of luck to them. Subversion looks great for someone like me but it’s still very niche and Frozen Synapse is also around the corner, looking damn awesome. Indie was a bit of a novelty when Uplink came out but now it’s everywhere and Introversion got a bit lost behind.
report
After the clusterflip that was Darwinia, my opinion of IV was very low.
After reading about their struggle, fall, refusal to give up and subsequent return to game development, I can only say that my opinion has changed completely. The 3 people remaining are AWESOME.
report
So, you hated Darwinia? I see a lot of that around here, but honestly can’t figure out why.. It’s a great game, like a weird retro-styled hybrid of Cannon Fodder and Lemmings. Very inspired gameplay, great aesthetics, even a funny story to go along with it.
report
Hey, is it true that STEAM accepts paysafecards now?
I’ve never been using STEAM cause I couldn’t pay for anything in there anyway but if they accept paysafecards now I finally would be! :D
report
I’ve got the same problem of Frastick as I don’t have my own credit card.
I love that website but I can’t buy anything there, but if that info with the PSC is true I’d be the happiest person on the world.
I already use it in Skype and for other online games and it’s a great thing!!!
report
Now I’m so glad I bought the Introversion pack.
report
@Maggie:
Turned out to be true :D
Oh and if you don’t own Portal yet (which I guess you don’t since from what you wrote) and you spend 20 Euros in psc on Steam you get that for free in addition to whatever game you bought, so even better, hehe
report
Oh thank you for your answer!
No, I don’t have my own portal because I’ve been on holidays, but I’ll try this system… it’s sounds really great! So I go and buy some new Paysafecard credit :)
report
Hey all, I want a free copy of Portal too! How can I get this Paysafecard?
Thanks
report
I don’t know where do you live, but if you live in the UK or in Ireland you can buy them in of the PayPoint outlets. On their website you’ll also find a map with all the places where you can buy it.
And there’s a new raffle for the launch of Aion: Assault on Balaurea”, where you can win one of ten Paysafecards with a credit of £10.
report
Maggie, thanks for your quick reply. I really appreciate it.
I saw Amazon logo on their site as well. Does that mean I can make purchases there as well with this card? I’m not sure how that works… I never saw it as a payment option on Amazon…. :/
Thanks, and sorry if I’m bugging you, I’m just really curious about it now.
report
Hi Simpless,
you’ve got to buy an Amazon voucher with the Paysafecard.
Sorry that I answer only now, but I wasn’t on the web in the last days… too much work, you know…
report
Yeah I know, don’t worry about it and thank you for replying at all :)
In case you’re still online I have couple more questions :$
Do I buy the voucher on Paysafecard site or somewhere else? And I can choose the amount I want, right?
I’m not very experienced with these things so forgive me if I’m bugging you. Oh, and what are the taxes when using this card on Amazon?
report
I buy them in the PayPoint outlets, here you can search for the outlet which is nearer for you: http://www.paysafecard.com/uk/buy/sales-outlets/
You can choose between between four worths: £10, £25, £50 or £75, but you needn’t use the whole credit in one time and you can add the credits of ten vouchers together.
I’m not sure now, but I think that there are not taxes with Amazon.
report
Is this Paysafecard available in Ireland too?
report
This article was Very helpful. Actually, I am fond of reading online punjabi news. Thanks for writing such a complete ..
thank you for sharing.
report