Introversion Software recently released a video sharing their surprise about how poorly their latest game, Scanner Sombre, has done for the PC, moving only 6000+ units. It cameas a surprise to them because their last title, Prison Architect, did incredibly well, selling well over 2 million units. They've received a lot of guff from the gamer and developer populace for their perceived arrogance and foolishness at having such lofty expectations. Many say that the right thing to do would have been to capitalize on the success of Prison Architect by making a sequel or another “Architect” style of game. I'm here to argue making Scanner Sombre was not only the right thing for Introversion Software to do, it was the only thing they could do.

There are More Reliable ways to Make Money

Mark Morris essentially says it himself in the video:

“Yeah, I think that people will mock us and say about us, well you guys were idiots, y'know. You had prison architect, you shoulda done airport architect, you shoulda done parkitecht...”

He underlines this point later on by saying:

“If we were hardnosed businessmen, we wouldn't be working in the games industry...if that's genuinely what drives you, to make you that rich, just go and work in the City and be a management consultant. There are plenty of other routes to huge wealth that are a lot more reliable than what we do.”

There is and has always been a struggle between any art form and the business that drives it. A responsible indie game developer lives the struggle between art and commerce everyday. You need the art to sustain you spiritually, but you also need to protect your physical and mental well-being by making enough money to support a decent quality of life (even more so if you are a dev with a family and the responsibilities that entails).

Prison Architect was a once in a lifetime success story that succeeded beyond Introversion's wildest dreams and made them a lot of money. The idea that they would then turn around and think about ways to make even more money simply goes against who they are as a studio. The money is great, no doubt, but what it bought them was a chance to make a game in a shorter time span without the fear that it would bring the studio to the brink of financial ruin. It is a situation that I am quite honestly envious of as Squeaky Wheel pins its hopes of survival on our next game. But more on that later.

When I cofounded Squeaky Wheel after working on Prison Architect, it probably made sense to make a similar systems driven game to pitch to a publisher. Instead, we made a political strategy game called Political Animals.