Financial History
After a low-key launch, the critical and (relatively speaking) commercial success of Uplink flushed Introversion with success. A visit to E3 2002 saw the team 'rinse £10k in a week on speedboats and fast cars', but regret soon set in as they watched their income steadily decline, since 'in the games industry, you make 75% of your total revenue for the product in the first 6 months'. By Christmas 2002, then-publisher, Strategy First, had stopped paying royalties for Uplink (they would later file a Consumer Proposal AKA Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing, but were then acquired by Silverstar Holdings in early 2005); even with the cash flow from direct sales, Introversion ran out of money in the middle of 2003. The company hovered on the edge of bankruptcy, with the team selling most of their worldly goods, as their second project and only hope for funds -- Darwinia -- 'slipped relentlessly'.
Darwinia was eventually released in March 2005, but despite a strong opening weekend and a superb critical reception, sales soon slipped too low to sustain the company. Within six months, the developers were back on UK government benefits until November, when they contacted Valve Corporation 'on a whim' to try to set up a digital distribution deal on their Steam platform. Valve responded enthusiastically and, following a 14 December 2005 online launch, digital sales (which exposed the game to a new, global audience) kept the company going through to the release of their third game, DEFCON.
On 15 September 2006, the day DEFCON pre-orders were made available, Introversion spent their last £1500. Fortuitously, the game 'did much much better than ever imagined' and funds for at least the forthcoming twelve months quickly rolled in to replace it. Now financially secure, the company place their eventual success largely at Valve's feet: 'Steam has made Introversion a commercial success', Tom Arundel is quoted saying.
Introversion's games were featured in a Humble Indie Bundle that launched in November 2011. This "Humble Introversion Bundle" sold 190,261 bundles and generated $779,026.33. Introversion is using the money for the ongoing development of their upcoming game Prison Architect.
Read more about this topic: Introversion Software
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