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A fact from Defiant Development appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 September 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that for the fifth anniversary of video game developer Defiant Development, everyone who had been employed at the company for at least two years was gifted a sword?
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As someone with no knowledge of the Australian game industry, the closures in 2008 and 2009 come as news. It would help to understand what happened, because it's raised without really any real explanation. Currently, the article makes it sound like Defiant was founded as the result of an acquisition rather than a closure, and I'm sure I'm just missing something. The first paragraph isn't quite clear, and I wonder if changing the sequence might improve it. (e.g.: "Pandemic was founded by Dan Treble and Morgan Jaffit, veterans of Pandemic Studios. Pandemic had been shut down as part of a wave of closures in the Australian game industry...")
I'd consider breaking this up into sections. There seems to be a definite shift with the Australian funding, if not the crowdfunding campaign.
I know calling a studio an "it" is grammatically valid, but I would consider substituting it with "the company", "the studio", "the team", and others. I find it reads better and keeps things more clear.
"establish a developer of their own" -> developer seems like the wrong word here. "Studio" would work, if it wasn't redundant. "Company"?
It's not clear what Floodlines is, but I see now that it's another AR game. Maybe rephrase "several" AR games as "three". And say "The first was Inch High Stunt Guy, created for..."
"Defiant published all games on its own to avoid falling into the cycle of receiving funds from a publisher to create a game, developing the game using these funds, and then struggling to survive while the game needs to generate enough revenue for the developer to repay the publisher with its royalty share" -> "Defiant self-published their games to avoid becoming dependent on a publisher for funds, with the added pressure of repaying the publisher's investment."
"After receiving sufficient funds" -> "After reaching their funding goal,"
"The World in My Attic" doesn't need quotes if it's italicized
Culture
Update the link to crunch (good article to write). Maybe even give readers some cues so they can understand what it is just from context. e.g.: "Jaffit was opposed to the practice of overtime "crunch" labor,"
Overall the article is really well written, and the sources appear to check out. Let's start there, and we can circle back to tighten up the lead. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On a second review, there's only two small but important suggestions. One is that the lead should give some indication about why they closed (and if the article can be clearer than just failure to adapt to the market, that's better too, but not strictly necessary). The other is that "steep" is probably less clear than plain language about costs, which can be "high" or even "expensive". Otherwise this is very close to GA status. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:45, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shooterwalker, the original statement is not super clear on what exactly triggered the closure. The only other significant factor I can see in the sources is a "risky" business model. I have incorporated both into the lead and body; is that what you were looking for? IceWelder [✉] 19:21, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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