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[GregWS]

I just feel bad for Annabelle having to put up with that.

I mean, he did get banned, but still...

[xiotex]

I own Xiotex Studios but during the day I work for Introversion. We just released Multiwinia and I got given 10 free copies of the game to give away.

I couldn't decide who to give them to so I decided to give them away randomly. What I have asked is that people play the demo, take a screenshot of them winning a game then emailing it to me and after a while I will pick a random name from all the emails I get and send them the unlock code for the demo. So if you fancy a free copy then head over to http://www.xiotexstudios.com/the-great-multiwinia-give-away/

I just gave away a copy to the first person to send me a screenshot so there are 9 left now

[Dacke]

Um. Spam or generous spam? I can't tell.

[Inane]

Why so cautious? It's free crap!

[Alex May]

This guy is for real. He works for Introversion.

[xiotex]

And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to give stuff away

Actually - got some really good screenshots come in already.

[Dacke]

Generous spam it is! You Introversion people have always had a knack for clever marketing (and making games!). This is a pretty brilliant plan, it will probably make a lot of people try the demo. Like.. um.. me! Now!

[Alex May]

You missed out on your manbaby post now though Introversion Guy! TOO BAD FOR YOU  :D

[xiotex]

You missed out on your manbaby post now though Introversion Guy! TOO BAD FOR YOU  :D

Eh? What's that when it's at home?

[Guert]

And now all that is multiwinia is in one thread. Let's keep this this way please

[Dacke]

You missed out on your manbaby post now though Introversion Guy! TOO BAD FOR YOU  :D

Eh? What's that when it's at home?

This should explain it:

Manbabies: Members with exactly one post are manbabies, and get a special badge to display this. They are then allowed to post once in the Mancrib forum. Once they have used their second post, they cannot see the Mancrib again until they reach 300 posts. Statistically speaking, most manbabies never see their manbaby post again. There is also an unrelated website (manbabies.com) featuring disturbing photoshops of men with babies' bodies and babies with mens' bodies.

And now all that is multiwinia is in one thread. Let's keep this this way please

Wow, that was confusing; I almost started a "what happen?" thread. This is much better and less spammy, though!

[increpare]

"Roll on the mac version" is what we say, quite heartily, in this corner

[moi]

What I don't like is the "I'll pick an email at random" part.

[shinygerbil]

You should buy the game anyway

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Interesting post by the developers of this game on its lack of reviews and high conversion rate:

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=1775

Multiwinia has the highest conversion rate we’ve ever seen. What this means is that every time somebody plays the demo version, there is a percentage chance that they will go on to buy the game, and that percentage is higher than any of our other games. This is excellent news, and generally lines up with our belief that Multiwinia is the most accessible of all our collection, the most immediately satisfying, and the most visceral and intense of our games. We can infer from his high conversion rate that people enjoy our game immediately, and that makes us very happy. By comparison, Darwinia had a very low conversion rate, at least initially, because we royally messed up the launch demo. The kinds of conversion rates we are seeing with Multiwinia are in fact excellent by any standards, and we should be very happy about this.

Unfortunately, a high percentage of zero is still zero.

Nobody is playing the demo of Multiwinia. There are a number of theories as to why this might be, but we think we already know the answer – very few people have heard about it, or have seen enough reason to try it. In this regard, Introversion has always relied on one primary form of publicity – reviews. Darwinia and Defcon were reviewed far and wide, exposing hundreds of thousands of gamers to our games in a far more effective manner than any adverts we can ever afford. The _only_ way for most gamers to hear about Introversion games and to understand the premise of our games is to read reviews of them, look at the pictures, read the comments, and then try the demo if they are interested.

It’s been three weeks since we launched Multiwinia, and today Metacritic shows four reviews (the minimum required for a metacritic average) for the first time since game launch. By comparison, Defcon had nearly thirty metacritic reviews within a week of launch. Of the reviews we have arranged with websites and magazines, less than 20% of them have been published at this time. One british games magazine has declined to review Multiwinia at all – ever. We’ve heard disturbing rumours from more than one source that major games websites are now cutting back on the number of games they review – and it’s games like Multiwinia that are getting dropped because there will always be hundreds of bigger games. If this is true and is widespread (as we are starting to believe), it has grave repercussions for all indie developers who rely on press reviews as their primary form of publicity.

More at the link.

[Oddbob]

What do you make of that, Paul?

A lot of it doesn't tally up with my own experiences of the UK press and how *now* more than ever, it's easier to get featured, interviewed or push a game forward.

Something just feels not right about the whole thing and smells of marketing.

Maybe I'm way off base though.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I've no idea if there's truth to the claim that it's harder to get reviewed now tbh, just thought it was interesting. I think their sample size (three games) is too small to judge that. I don't think they are lying, because it'd be easy to check if they're just making up those numbers they cite, and I do think Multiwinia is less popular than Darwinia and Uplink (it hasn't been in the press anywhere near as much), but I do agree that the reason they are making that post is marketing.

It's possible the reason they weren't reviewed as much as those previous two games is that early on they were taking advantage of being 'indie gamers! last of the bedroom programmers!' which the press used to eat up, and now that trick doesn't work anymore on them, because now there are so many more prominent indies (like Braid etc.)

I also don't think it's a bad thing even if it just is marketing -- they have to sell the game somehow, and getting your customers to help you promote your game (provided they like that game) isn't a horrible way to do it -- there are plenty of worse ways they could be marketing Multiwinia, like how they made up fake forum accounts and had them say how awesome their games are (they admitted to doing this) when marketing Uplink.

[Oddbob]

I find their press fascinating, there's certainly a lot to learn from including their missteps. Notice how this:

At this point, a concession : It’s our fault the print mags are late with their reviews. We made a decision very late in the process to delay sending review code out to the print magazines for a whole month, and that will give us the first print reviews at the end of October. This may prove to have been a serious mistake, and the lack of web reviews three weeks after launch may actually be a consequence of the lack of print reviews in the first place.

Comes wedged innocuously in the middle of the post, it's wonderful eye scanning brilliance from a marketing point of view. By this point you've already decided the press are in the wrong (if you're following the flow as you're supposed to) and you'll skip straight to "Well, what can we do to help, man?" at the end.

I'm not sure how far you can carry yourself into the future with the victim mentality though and I'm not sure if it's a wise position to put yourself into in the first place. It's obviously worked in the past, but how much mileage once you're established can you get before you get seen as dubious in your claims?

I think sending out review code deliberately late is probably not the best position to put yourself into if you want your review to go out on time. I'd also imagine that calling out publicly a publishing company over a cover piece previous isn't going to enamour you with that particular publishing company and make them rush to your aid...

It's clear that they're not the singular underdog anymore, so perhaps you're right. Maybe that shtick doesn't have the same hold it did when Uplink and then Darwinia dropped.

Or perhaps it is just that Multiwinia is a further step into niche territory than Darwinia.

[edit at edit]Yeah, the forum account thing really annoyed me at the time. I recall something similar going on for Darwinia and I still don't know if it was the IV promotion machine, sock puppets or just really eager fans.

[Tanner]

I think the new demo and price point should help.