than the other, harder ones. The voice when a player is asked to enter a score for the high score table is sampled from Ivor the Engine. Development Paul Preece got the inspiration for Desktop Tower Defense in 2006. He noticed a lack of tower defense games that allowed proper "mazing" (controlling movement of enemy forces by placing towers in their path). Preece did not immediately start work on Desktop Tower Defense because he considered Flash to be too difficult to learn. It was only after an acquaintance created Flash Element Tower Defense that Paul started work on the game. Starting from the "Autumn Tower Defense" map created for the real-time strategy game Warcraft III, Paul Preece created a simple tower defense game that could be played using only a browser. Because of his lack of skill with computer graphics, he named the game's site HandDrawnGames.com Originally, the game was promoted through the web service StumbleUpon, getting further boosts from popular bloggers such as Michael Arrington. It eventually found its way onto several Flash game sites such as Kongregate. The game's popularity was further increased by exposure on the internet pop-culture websites Digg and I-am-bored.com. It is now available on MySpace Games, and as part of the MindJolt collection on Facebook. Reception and impact This game was featured on Attack of the Show! and the Lab with Leo on G4TechTV. It was also in the March issue of Game Informer, with a positive review. As of July 2007, the game had been played more than 15 million times since its inception in March of the same year. The game makes approximately $100,000 per year, according to its creator. Most of the revenue generated by the game is through the online ad-service AdSense. The game itself has been billed as extremely addictive and thus time-consuming by many reviewers, such as those at TechCrunch. Reviewer Michael Arrington commented in jest the game "should be banned" because of this. Due to success of the game, Paul Preece decided to leave his programming job to focus on making online games as an independent game developer. He and fellow game maker David Scott formed Casual Collective, a game development company. As of 2008, at least $1 million has been raised by the fledgling company mostly from venture capital firms such as Lightspeed Venture Partners. It has been covered by publications like The Wall Street Journal.