Introversion Software Limited is a British video game developer located in Walton-on-Thames, England. The company is most widely known for creating the top-down tycoon management simulation game Prison Architect. This game was inspired by Dwarf Fortress and later inspired the game RimWorld.

History

The company was started in 2001 by three friends, Chris Delay, Mark Morris, and Thomas Arundel, who were students at Imperial College London. At first, the company called itself "the last of the bedroom programmers" because the three friends worked from their homes. They later moved to an office when they began making their fourth game, Multiwinia. Their first released video game, Uplink, was mostly created by Chris, while Mark and Thomas handled marketing, materials, and other business tasks. A small amount of money allowed them to buy CD-Rs and printer cartridges. Early copies of the game were made by hand. The company quickly earned back their initial investment after accepting orders. A large group of players formed, and the team, along with a new programmer named Andy Bainbridge, began working on two new games.

Darwinia was released and received strong praise from critics. It was later re-released through Steam on December 14, 2005. On September 29, 2006, Introversion Software launched their third game, DEFCON. Soon after, the company checked how much data they used for the first time, measured in terabytes. After DEFCON was released, Introversion began working on a game called Subversion. However, their next project was Multiwinia, a multiplayer game that followed Darwinia. It was released on September 19, 2008.

Darwinia and Multiwinia were later made available for the Xbox 360. This led to the release of Darwinia+, which included both games, on the Xbox Live Arcade on February 10, 2010.

After Multiwinia was released in 2008, Introversion announced they were starting work on Subversion in December of that year. The company shared updates about the game’s development through blog posts, describing its automatically created city areas. The game was shown at the World of Love event in 2010. In October 2011, after three years of development, Subversion was announced as delayed.

Their next game, Prison Architect, was introduced during the Humble Indie Bundle release of Introversion games and technology demos related to Subversion. Information about the new game was hidden in the tech demos as part of a treasure hunt.

Financial history and independence

After a quiet start, the game Uplink became very successful for Introversion in both reviews and sales. At E3 2002, the team spent £10,000 in one week on fast cars and boats, but later they faced financial problems because most of their income from games comes in the first six months after release. By December 2002, the publisher, Strategy First, stopped paying Introversion for Uplink. Strategy First later filed a Consumer Proposal but was bought by Silverstar Holdings in 2005. Even with money from direct sales, Introversion ran out of funds in mid-2003. The company was very close to going bankrupt, selling most of their personal items, as their next project, Darwinia, did not progress quickly enough to help them.

Darwinia was released in March 2005, but sales dropped too low to support the company. Within six months, the developers relied on UK government benefits until November 2005, when they reached out to Valve to create a deal for selling Darwinia on the Steam platform. Valve agreed, and after a December 2005 online launch, sales through Steam helped the company survive until the release of their third game, DEFCON.

On September 15, 2006, the day DEFCON pre-orders began, Introversion had only £1,500 left. Fortunately, the game sold much better than expected, bringing in enough money to support the company for the next year. The team credited Valve’s Steam platform for their financial recovery, with Tom Arundel stating, “Steam has made Introversion a commercial success.”

By early 2010, the company faced financial difficulties again. After spending over a year adapting Darwinia+ for the Xbox 360, the game did not sell well. Director Mark Morris said the launch “missed the entire audience,” and the company knew within 10 minutes it would not save them financially. At this time, Introversion was deeply in debt, and continuing operations risked legal consequences under UK insolvency laws. Tom Arundel believed they might face criminal charges for operating without enough money, so he argued they should stop working immediately.

Introversion’s finances improved again in the third quarter of 2010 when Steam added achievements to DEFCON, which led to a sale that brought in $250,000. This money helped save the company. Later, Introversion’s games were included in the “Humble Introversion Bundle” in November 2011, which sold 190,261 copies and raised $779,026.33. The company used this money to develop their next game, Prison Architect.

By September 26, 2015, Prison Architect had sold over 1.25 million copies and earned more than $19 million. By August 2016, after releasing version 2.0 of the game, it had reached 2 million players.

Their next game, Scanner Sombre, was released in April 2017 after nine months of development. It sold only 6,000 copies, and Chris Delay said it “did not sell well.” Later, the game added support for virtual reality headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, which was released in June 2017. This marked Introversion’s first and only attempt at creating a virtual reality game.

In January 2019, Introversion and Paradox Interactive announced that the Prison Architect intellectual property would be sold to Paradox, allowing Introversion to focus on new projects while Paradox continued developing the game.

On May 28, 2022, Introversion announced their new science fiction game, The Last Starship, which began early access on February 15, 2023. The game officially launched on February 3, 2026.

Games

• Uplink (released in 2001)
• Darwinia (released in 2005)
• DEFCON (released in 2006)
• Multiwinia (released in 2008)
• Darwinia+ (released in 2010)
• Prison Architect (released in 2015)
• Scanner Sombre (released in 2017)
• The Last Starship (scheduled for release in 2026)

• Subversion (project cancelled)
• Chronometer (optioned but not developed)
• Wrong Wire (project cancelled)
• Order of Magnitude (project cancelled)
• Spacebots (project cancelled)
• Megaprocessor (project cancelled)
• Voxel Factory (project cancelled)
• Nanotech (project cancelled)
• Deep Space Industrial (project cancelled)
• Praxis (project cancelled)