Blitz closes 'Blitz 1UP' service, moves to Indie City
The 'Blitz 1UP' program, an initiative by developer Blitz Games meant to provide free development and QA assistance to indie games, has closed after three years of activity and support of "over 30 games."
"We've had some great successes during our time working on this initiative," said producer Neil Holmes in a statement on the forums. "But unfortunately we haven't consistently reached the levels of success we had hoped to, and sadly we have now closed the programme to new applications."
Holmes said that the lack of success is partly due to the fact that Blitz 1UP couldn't afford a great deal of marketing for its titles. "The other issue we have had is with the portals we have worked with," he said -- meaning Steam. "Getting their approval on indie games is difficult and their decision making process can often appear quite random. Even when we have succeeded in getting games on to Steam they've often only stayed on the dashboard for a few days before disappearing into the indie games section, which results in a massive drop in sales."
Blitz is launching a website called Indie City in order to continue promoting Blitz 1UP games. The new site will offer "powerful community tools through blogs, forums, achievements and global leaderboards to help keep indie fans coming back for more," as well as recommendations tailored to each user.
