The way AI War worked (and it worked great) was you get the full game with a time limit. This let the developer just focus on making the game and not cutting up some sort of demo. By developing everything at the same time, it's efficient and it's not wasting time on developing a demo. As far as I can tell the moment everything is playable enough, they're going to open up the demo and allow people to buy the beta. This is a great service to us as players, since we can keep trying it, and when we think it's looking good enough to keep playing we can put down the cash for the full game. Then we own it, even if it's in beta. I think this system is very flexible and generous to the consumer.
The 'feeling' I'm getting is that we may have to be a little patient (I suggest putting money in the freezer) but I'm sure we'll be able to buy it in 2011 - but trying it out, we'll have to wait for them to say they're ready. I've mentally prepared for 2 weeks into September. Anything beyond that may result in mental instability 
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This is actually pretty much entirely correct (and thanks for the kind words). It's true that on the AI War demo it also limits what AI types and ship types you can use, down to about a third of what you can use in the full game, but I don't think that's the sort of thing that particularly impacts anyone's ability to demo the game. Beyond that, it's just the game with a time limit of 3 hours per campaign, with no other changes. And the demo and the full game are identical files, it's just adding in those tiny limitations and then the more relevant time limit when you haven't entered a license key.
When it comes to AVWW, that's pretty well the same thing we'll be doing. I'm not sure if we'll be putting in functionality limitations or not, but there will definitely be a time limit again. Most likely less than 3 hours, as -- unlike AI War -- I don't really think that quite that long is needed in order to demo the game. But, that said, we'll probably tweak and tune exactly how the demo functions based on feedback from players. Originally AI War only gave 1 hour of trial time, but it was noted that players needed more and so we increased it to 3. What we want is that sweet spot where players are able to fully grasp and understand the game, and try it and come back later if they're wanting to wait and see, but where they are also left really wanting more.
If players can play the demo and be fully satisfied (as in not wanting more), then we've shot ourselves in the foot. Obviously Bejeweled has sold a hojillion copies, but I also felt like -- for me, at least -- their free version did everything I wanted from the game and so I've never bought it. That's really a side note, and I'm clearly not in their target audience for that specific game (though I love and own Peggle and PvZ), but it's that basic thing that we're trying to avoid with a demo. As long as we can avoid that, I'm happy to share as much as possible with players so that they can really know what they are getting and feel confident in a purchase. And like with AI War, "demo" worlds can be continued past the time limit once the game is bought.
In terms of the original question, as to when the beta (demo and full) can be expected, it should be about 2 weeks into September. More likely than not the full 1.0 will be coming out in November at the earliest, though we might push it back to January depending on how it does in beta. One way or the other we're going to be keeping on developing this post-1.0, same as with AI War, but the question is really when we have the big "it's now 1.0!" event, and that's more a question of when we have to for financial reasons, mixed with when makes marketing sense to do so, mixed with how feature-packed and polished the game is in each month. Either way, come January this will be a bigger game than in November. And two years from now I hope the game similarly dwarfs itself like AI War 5.0 does to AI War 1.0.
Either way, the goal for beta is to have that pretty well finished by the end of this month in terms of the core features minus fully functional multiplayer, and then to spend the first two weeks of September working on multiplayer, last polish, last pre-beta content, marketing materials and discussions with distribution partners, private playtesting and balance tweaks, and so on. Then when we officially announce that it's beta in mid-September, we'll have the demo for free plus the full version for those that preorder, and then we expect to have daily-or-nearly-so updates to the game starting from then forward and running until whenever we announce 1.0 (and really, beyond that even). Basically the same pattern that an AI War expansion release has had, past that point.
As an added note, Keith will be joining Arcen fulltime on September 1, so that's really going to be an enormous help to our productivity, too. Our combined programmer manhours will grow by about 25% there, and the full effect will also be that Keith's attention won't be oscillating between his other job and Arcen. I am super, super excited that we're finally hitting the point where we can do that.
