Feature: 'Postmortem: Intergalactic Crime Prevention Unit's First Year'

For today's main Gamasutra feature, Tim Turner, head of upstart independent developer Intergalactic Crime Prevention Unit guides us through the ups and downs of the first year since the studio's foundation in 2005, in this exclusive Gamasutra postmortem. In his introduction, Turner explains the first-year stresses of independent production, surviving on contract work, and landing a publishing deal just moments before the studio hit a milestone: "The work-for-hire business was brutal for us at best. Trying to compete with overseas bids was difficult, and we didn’t have the freedom to turn away bad deals. Over time we found ourselves deeper and deeper into unhealthy relationships. Things got so bad that I counseled my team to circulate their resumes “just in case.” Of the prototypes I was shopping, there was one title that garnered uniformly positive responses. Nobody had offered terms, but I was consistently asked to come back for follow-up pitches. I got a lot of “this looks really good, but we would like to see more of X,” and so we would tweak our pitch and come back. Finally, seven days before our one year anniversary, we signed a deal with a publisher for an original game." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject to hear more of what went right and wrong for the studio, including the perils of splitting the studio's focus (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external websites).