It's August - Hurry up and take my money

[Cyborg]

I agree with Bob. I would rather buy from steam than get my CD key stolen by some generator.

[x4000]

Steam has fixed all of those as they come up, but it is a hassle, yeah.  On the other hand, if you register it as soon as it comes out on Steam, then it's unlikely any pirate would have time to do so, anyway.  The problem with AI War was that people have been keygenning these for over a year, and so it's impossible to know what has been fraudulently registered on Steam.  It took quite a while of both the game being out, and being out on Steam, before that happened, though.

[BobTheJanitor]

I think one should always be careful when any comparison includes Minecraft. It is pretty much a category unto itself. Most indie games probably fail or make just enough cash to keep the company afloat, except for Minecraft. Most indie games don't get away with selling alpha/beta versions with the promise of a full release some nebulous date in the future, except for Minecraft. Most indie game devs can't get away with promising features and then not delivering on them for months/years of new patches, except Notch. Most indie devs would probably give in if Valve showed up at the door with a dumptruck full of money, and then there's Notch. Minecraft just managed to be the right game at the right time. Notch is either a genius, or incredibly lucky that he stumbled into the right formula to print money.

Anyone who wants to be the next Mojang should probably also consider that they're much more likely to be the next Indie Stone (and that's if they're lucky, although those guys might still make it to an actual release). More likely they'll be the next unknown company that fails before they ever release their unknown game. I completely went off topic from whatever I was talking about now... but anyway yeah. Minecraft is weird.

[x4000]

I agree that Minecraft is a force unto itself, but there are more indies than you think that are making a decent living.  I keep in contact with a number of them, and I even know one other than Notch who turned down Steam.  Can't say who, but he's doing fine on his own without them.  Granted, I think he'd be doing better with them, but still.

Anyhow, I think your points are valid, but I don't think they particularly apply to us.  We aren't trying to be the next Mojang, and our development practices, etc, are just as long established as theirs (AI War 1.0 and Minecraft's first public alpha having hit around the same month -- May 2009).  Minecraft obviously sold incredible amounts and isn't even 1.0 yet, but there are a good handful of other games that have sold 5 figures numbers of units in preorders during beta periods.  In the case of, say, World of Goo that was more money during their beta preorders than AI War has taken in through two years and four expansions.  And AI War's north of half a million dollars in, now.

So I was really just saying that it varies, and some games get carried along during beta in a fashion that means there is less rush to 1.0.  If we found ourselves in that situation I think we'd keep developing the game at the same or higher rate compared to normal, but we'd push back the release date some to hit the ideal time and to really let the game get huge by even 1.0.  For players, I think this is only a good thing.

[BobTheJanitor]

Yeah, all true. I don't think my points were aimed at Arcen specifically. Sometimes I see a point and I just charge at it, without caring whether or not it applies to anything relevant. Don't mind my rambling, carry on with your game making!

[x4000]

No worries.

[Echo35]

Steam has fixed all of those as they come up, but it is a hassle, yeah.  On the other hand, if you register it as soon as it comes out on Steam, then it's unlikely any pirate would have time to do so, anyway.  The problem with AI War was that people have been keygenning these for over a year, and so it's impossible to know what has been fraudulently registered on Steam.  It took quite a while of both the game being out, and being out on Steam, before that happened, though.

They seem to be pretty good at fixing instances where this happens anyway. I know of at least one or two people that couldn't register their AI War on Steam because of a keygen or something, and Steam fixed it for them.

[x4000]

Yeah, there's a Valve guy on their forums that players can PM, and he straightens it out pretty fast.  Really good of them to do.

[Hearteater]

Once you've run AI Wars once using your keys on your account, no other Steam account can use those keys, right?  I ask because I recently reinstalled my OS and I had to re-enter my AI War keys which I thought was odd.

[x4000]

Once you've run AI Wars once using your keys on your account, no other Steam account can use those keys, right?  I ask because I recently reinstalled my OS and I had to re-enter my AI War keys which I thought was odd.

Yes, that is correct.  However, AI War itself doesn't hook into Steam's DRM, so you have to enter your license key in-game.  But you don't have to enter your license key in Steam itself, and Steam remembers your key for you.

[keith.lamothe]

Once you've run AI Wars once using your keys on your account, no other Steam account can use those keys, right?

Actually it's once Steam has associated those keys with your steam account, either because you bought the game directly from steam or registered your keys through the Add-Game interface.  You don't even have to install or execute the application to "claim" the keys.

But yea, the AI War executable has no idea what your steam keys are, so they have to be entered in-game.

[Hearteater]

Ok, so anyone buying the game through steam can't have a problem because unused keys are created and associated at the same time.  Just curious though, why not go through Steam DRM?

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, so anyone buying the game through steam can't have a problem because unused keys are created and associated at the same time.

Not created, we send them a big ol list of keys we've generated and they sell those.  But I imagine that if someone keygen'd one of those and tried to register it through Add-Game then Valve would do something between "laugh" and "shoot".

Just curious though, why not go through Steam DRM?

Because not having any significant DRM is a very good thing.  Also, since all you get is a license key, you can use that in any version of the game.  Some folks like having a non-steam copy too.

[Wingsofdomain]

So back to topic. Can we expect a beta in august?

and... if you don't want anyone to buy your game in hestitate (in a hestitate?.. whatever...) why don't you ONLY realese the demo first?

[realcoolguy]

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  .