A lot has happened since last year's Game Developer Conference. For example, prior to the 2006 GDC, Introversion Software was a little known indie game developer started by handful of college friends that built a small but loyal following with its first title, Uplink. Then came the GDC's Independent Game Festival (IGF), where Introversion scored three awards, including the including the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, for its indie hit Darwinia.

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That pretty much changed everything for Introversion. "So much came together for us last year," Mark Morris, co-founder of Introversion, told me today. "After GDC, we got everything we wanted and more. I don't think I'll ever have another week like that in my life where everything worked out exactly the way we wanted it to."

After winning the IGF awards, Introversion became a hot item. The company had already signed a deal with Valve Software to sell Darwinia through Steam, but sales for the game began to take off after Introversion's newfound fame. Then the company released its follow-up title, DEFCON, which is a global nuclear war strategy simulation inspired by the movie "WarGames."

Introversion went back at the GDC this year - well, at least Morris, fellow co-founder Tom Arundel and public relations director Vicky Arundel -and it's a very different world for the company. DEFCON became a critical hit and surpassed Introversion's expected demand for the title. Introversion's games are actually being covered and reviewed by the mainstream games press. And the guys themselves have literally become the poster boys of indie game development: their pictures are pasted on a massive banner for this year's IGF inside the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

The Introversion team became the poster boys of indie gaming at this year's Independent Games Festival

Both Morris and Arundel appeared at the 2007 IGF in what is a tradition for the previous year's grand prize winner to return the next year and present the Seumas McNally Award to a new recipient (For some photos of Mark, Tom and Vicky at the 2007 IGF, check out this post on Kotaku.). Dressed in suits bearing the Darwinia logo, the two offered a brief and humorous presentation on how to make it in indie gaming. Points of advice included hiring a "stunning blonde PR girl," spending the $20,000 IGF prize money on "fast cars and parties," and not taking money from publishers. For the full presentation, .

Humour aside, there are some real lessons to be learned from Introversion's success, which is hardly an overnight story. So here are seven ways to success in indie gaming (assuming you can already make a really good game):

7. Make sure you have people to run the business in addition to developing the games

This is the first item on the list, and it might be the most important. Like many technology companies, game developers usually are started by designers that have talent and great ideas. But often they lack the business acumen, so when it comes time to market the game and create partnerships with big name companies small indie developers find themselves at a disadvantage. Introversion's team began with Arundel and Morris handling the sales and marketing duties while Delay focused on designing Uplink. "It sounds weird, but we have more people on the business side than the development side," Morris said.

6. Maintain a direct relationship with customers

Getting a publishing deal as a small developer can be an enormous challenge. It can also be a very perilous proposition, since publishers can give developers a lot of money to create a game but can also take most of the money the game makes in return. As a result, Introversion stayed away from publishers and instead began selling their titles via the company Web site. When demand began to increase after Darwinia, the company soon began offering its products on Steam. However, Introversion still sells its games, as well as other merchandise like posters and game soundtracks, on the Introversion Web site. "We've always maintained a direct relationship with our customers," said Arundel, "and it's worked quite well. Why would we need a publisher?"