How did you find out about AI War?

[TechSY730]

Piqued by a short mention about some ways people find indie games, I'm curious how people found out about AI war.

I found AI War through Steam. I was looking for games advertising a smart, robust AI. So I searched for "AI".
A meager two or three results popped up, of which AI war was on the top.
So I figured I'd try it, downloaded the demo, and "fell in love" with it.
That was like a little under two years ago, back when the game was in like version 3.something.

EDIT: Just out of curiousity, is there any of you who are still actively involved with / playing AI war now and started in an early-ish 1.something version? (Devs don't count, sorry Chris )

[x4000]

Well, there is Keith, actually -- he was just another fan back in June of 2009 or so, in the 1.x days.  RCIX had been from that time period as well, but left a while ago.  People tend to come in and out of the community, you'll notice; some folks who were super active two years ago haven't been back around in a really long time.  And then sometimes they just pop right back up randomly, etc.

Another thing to bear in mind with this thread is that, whatever the results turn out to be, it's not representative of overall buyers: who you're polling here is a really specific crowd (aka, people who care enough to make a forum account).  And most people who are active here probably read various gaming websites, keep in touch with gaming or wargaming as a whole, and so forth.  These are the folks that are least likely to just randomly come across AI War like you did on Steam, but rather are more likely to have heard about it through word of mouth on other forums or through reviews.

That said, it's still an interesting question.

[x4000]

And Volatar -- he just posted, and I know he goes way back.  Looked up his registration date, and it was Sept 2009.  That would have been something like 1.014 for AI War.

[Wanderer]

I'd read a brief blurb about Gratuitous Space Battles on Impulse, since I like 'construct your own' type of ships I investigated it, and attached to that was this little bit about AI War.   A little bit of review reading + some investigation and about 30 minutes later I was downloading the full Beta.

2 days later I bought my keys.

[x4000]

Cool, Cliff and I have been doing a lot of cross-promotion of those two games, so glad to see that worked out well.

[TechSY730]

some folks who were super active two years ago haven't been back around in a really long time.  And then sometimes they just pop right back up randomly, etc.

Like I did. I was mostly silent a few beta versions past 4.0, but at about the 2/3 way point to the 5.0 release, I started posting again. (This was a several month gap)

Yea, not as extreme as some examples, but still a several month gap. (I am ignoring the period where you were porting the engine to Unity in private betas, as pretty much the entire forum was silent then)

Another thing to bear in mind with this thread is that, whatever the results turn out to be, it's not representative of overall buyers: who you're polling here is a really specific crowd (aka, people who care enough to make a forum account).  And most people who are active here probably read various gaming websites, keep in touch with gaming or wargaming as a whole, and so forth.  These are the folks that are least likely to just randomly come across AI War like you did on Steam, but rather are more likely to have heard about it through word of mouth on other forums or through reviews.

True, the population of gamers who care enough about a game to make posts about it is not a very good representative subset of the buying/shopping behavior of all those who buy that game.
But I thought I might as well ask.

RCIX had been from that time period as well, but left a while ago.

Wha, RCIX has been inactive for quite some time? I mean, I haven't seen any posts from him recently, but I didn't think it was that long ago since he (she?) posted.
Shows how much I keep up the players in the community. 

[Volatar]

I stumbled upon this thread on the Dwarf Fortress forums back in the 1.0 days. Played the demo, loved it. Bought it first chance I got.

[x4000]

some folks who were super active two years ago haven't been back around in a really long time.  And then sometimes they just pop right back up randomly, etc.

Like I did. I was mostly silent a few beta versions past 4.0, but at about the 2/3 way point to the 5.0 release, I started posting again. (This was a several month gap)

Yea, not as extreme as some examples, but still a several month gap. (I am ignoring the period where you were porting the engine to Unity in private betas, as pretty much the entire forum was silent then)

Yep, you're a good example of that, to be sure.

True, the population of gamers who care enough about a game to make posts about it is not a very good representative subset of the buying/shopping behavior of all those who buy that game.
But I thought I might as well ask.

I wasn't criticizing, just observing.

Wha, RCIX has been inactive for quite some time? I mean, I haven't seen any posts from him recently, but I didn't think it was that long ago since he (she?) posted.
Shows how much I keep up the players in the community. 

Yep, he (think "he," but I'm assuming there) put up basically a "goodbye" post a few months back.  After 2+ years and countless posts, I think he had still never won the game.  He'd been really more into helping us out with improving the game than actually finishing a game, and he was finding the lack of the direction in the middle-term of the game (no "you must go here next to complete this objective") to be kind of at core odds with what his playstyle was.  Basically "you are tiny now figure out how to beat goliath" was making it so that he was getting listless on step 3 of 100.  He's still the top non-dev post count on the forums, though, I think.

[x4000]

I stumbled upon this thread on the Dwarf Fortress forums back in the 1.0 days. Played the demo, loved it. Bought it first chance I got.

Good times, good times.  A lot of AI War's early fans were DF fans from that board.

[Shrugging Khan]

Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

[Volatar]

I stumbled upon this thread on the Dwarf Fortress forums back in the 1.0 days. Played the demo, loved it. Bought it first chance I got.

Good times, good times.  A lot of AI War's early fans were DF fans from that board.

The two games share a lot a similarities even today.

[x4000]

I definitely agree.

[zoutzakje]

I also stumbled upon Ai War through steam. I've always enjoyed space movies / games, even though I hadn't seen / played many. searching a bit for strategy games I found a game called AI war. Back then I was in my ''must buy all steam games'' period, so even though I thought it looked like crap and would probably be a waste of my money (my apologies for judging and jumping to conclusions so quickly), I bought it anyways. The full set, right away. That was in the early 4.0 days. I installed it right away (even though I had about 200 other steam games to try out, so apparently I was interested) and I played the tutorial. I was amazed right away. I looked a bit at my options and possibilities and realized that this was going to be a massive game, far more complex and strategically challenging than i had ever played (or imagined). I managed to finish the intermediate tutorial (even though I almost lost) and then it was time to actually play the real game.
In a lot of games I've bought I usually just play the tutorial, after which I 'save the game for later'. So far it never has been 'later' lol. But AI war was different. I was hooked on it after the tutorial. and then I got overwhelmed by the amount of options in the lobby lol. I think i spend 2 hours creating my first game, but I enjoyed doing so.
and well, more than 500 hours of playtime and countless more mistakes later here I am, finally considering myself an experienced player ^^
I had honestly never thought this game would be so good and addictive. I still regret not having been able to see this game develop from the beginning, because I was defenitely already interested in these kind of games (even though Ai war is one of a kind really)

[Nodor]

I got the steam achievement "Control 2" on Oct 23, 2009.   

Ergo, I think Steam, but it might have been Co-optimus. 

[c4sc4]

I found out about AI War during a Steam Midweek madness sale or something and downloaded the demo. The demo stayed on my system for several months until there was another sale on AI War when I actually bought the game, it was sometime during the LotS Beta.