Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

[TheMachineIsSentient]

A few more ideas for the pile:

* AI War, collectors edition
* design a ship contest
* community day
* put the soundtrack for both games on Napster
* woo the Linux crowd by getting reviewers on Linux sites ( after unity release, and maybe before for Tidalis)

[Spikey00]

Chris should pen a novel about AI War for extra moneys.  </joke>

I'm sure we would love that, though!

[Otagan]

Chris should pen a novel about AI War for extra moneys.  </joke>

That worked out really well for Brad Wardell.

[Rustayne]

I am not sure if this has been mentioned or not, (16 pages is alot of information for me to keep stored in my head), but I noticed on the Unity's website, the engine that Tidalis is made from, that it isn't listed in the game list on their site.  This might be an oversight, or something, but I'd imagine that it might be a way to get your name out there a little bit more.  If developers, or novices that are looking into engines to help them create a game, they could stumble among Tidalis and might make a few sales that way.  Figured I'd throw the suggestion out there.  You could also do this once AI War is up and running with Unity as well.

[vonduus]

I had a long discussion with my son about gaming in general, and we also talked about arcens financial problems. This is in essence what he said:

Starcraft II is out now, so a lot of people are focused on the space game genre - even if the game play is not in space proper, the lore is very spacey, and the campaign interface is full of pretty graphics depicting planets and space ships. Anyway, those people have no time for AIWar for the time being, they are too busy playing Starcraft II. Blizzard is one of those pr-driven companies, so they know all about for how long a game is interesting, and they probably have a pretty exact idea of when it begins to get boring to normal customers. And so they are timing the release of Diablo II, so that this somewhat coincides with the beginning of inevitable customer boredom.

What arcen should do, is checking up on when Diablo II is bound for release, and then do a new relase or a discount sale of AIWar, one or two or three weeks before that. At that time a lot of people will be very favourably disposed towards games with a space theme, while at the same time looking for something to play, while they are waiting for Diablo II to be released, and some of them would probably buy AIWar.

I don't know if he is right in this analysis, but it is worth thinking about. Probably the people who would enjoy both games are pretty bored with Starcraft II already (like me, after finishing the campaign on hard and discovering that the skirmish ai is quite stupid) so perhaps you can push a sale earlier.

Just thought I would mention it.

[Cheese]

I'll make a post on Facepunch at some point.
E: It's up

[x4000]

Thanks, all!

To the various ideas:

* AI War, collectors edition

Probably we'll do that, or something like it, actually.

* design a ship contest

We already allow suggestions anytime, and I'm not sure how much that would really increase visibility at this stage.

* community day

Not sure what that is.

* put the soundtrack for both games on Napster

They are on iTunes, but Pablo owns the rights to the soundtracks outside the games, and so it's his personal business what happens with that sort of thing (and doesn't help Arcen one way or the other).

* woo the Linux crowd by getting reviewers on Linux sites ( after unity release, and maybe before for Tidalis)

With it only being playable in WINE, I'm not sure how enthusiastic they'd be.

I am not sure if this has been mentioned or not, (16 pages is alot of information for me to keep stored in my head), but I noticed on the Unity's website, the engine that Tidalis is made from, that it isn't listed in the game list on their site.

We told them about it, but they didn't put it up.    It was one of the first unity games to include Steamworks support, too (the first, I'm almost certain, for the Mac).

What arcen should do, is checking up on when Diablo II is bound for release, and then do a new relase or a discount sale of AIWar, one or two or three weeks before that. At that time a lot of people will be very favourably disposed towards games with a space theme, while at the same time looking for something to play, while they are waiting for Diablo II to be released, and some of them would probably buy AIWar.

Well, Blizzard kind of do their own thing, they don't play by normal rules.  When you're a midlist author, you don't try to do what Stephen King does, or you'll be in real trouble.  There are some good points in there, but Blizzard trades on the strength of their name to make most of their sales, plus the massive amount of free press coverage that they get just for being them, so it's really just apples and oranges.  We are talking with other indie developers, and with a few smaller publishers, about timing of releases and similar, though, to see what other folks of a similar scale to ourselves think.

I'll make a post on Facepunch at some point.

Wicked!  Thank you! 

[Cheese]

It sunk, might have roused a little interest considering the 200+ views though. Then again, that's normal for FP. A lack of things to discuss I suppose. Meh.

[x4000]

Well, thanks for getting it on there, anyway!

[MysteryOne]

I'll get on spreading the love of AI War later, but on forehand, gimme a few links to articles, etc.
that may (or may not) be best for other RTS-players and others to know about AI War: Fleet Command...

So i can give em' anywhere i might good for spreading the word.

[getter77]

We told them about it, but they didn't put it up.  Huh  It was one of the first unity games to include Steamworks support, too (the first, I'm almost certain, for the Mac).

Definitely continue to press them on this, especially when 4.0 actually hits proper.  Perhaps they are backlogged with housekeeping in the wake of Version 3---still very much in the best interests of both parties.

[Rustayne]

We told them about it, but they didn't put it up.  Huh  It was one of the first unity games to include Steamworks support, too (the first, I'm almost certain, for the Mac).

Definitely continue to press them on this, especially when 4.0 actually hits proper.  Perhaps they are backlogged with housekeeping in the wake of Version 3---still very much in the best interests of both parties.

Agreed.  The engine has done a lot for you guys, and in turn you guys have done for them by choosing their engine over another, or even sticking with what was working for you.  Keeping up with it might be a good idea.

[zespri]

I found this old thread http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,690.0.html but no other mention of AI War / Tidalis in other languages. Maybe this could help promoting the games a little? Is the game "localizable"? Are there already any existing translations available?

[Cheese]

Bay12 thread on the financial issues. There's a discussion about it, has some opinions in it.
Someone thinks you need to 'polish' the game and make it's web page look more attractive or something. He thinks you go on about the numbers of units too much. He hasn't actually tried the game of course.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, it is certainly possible that the existing marketing materials have a higher-than-intended emphasis on the unit count.  If a potential customer is of the sort that sees something like that and has made a "definitely not downloading demo" decision within 10 seconds, they are outside the audience that we can reach with our current marketing abilities.  Not saying that there's anything wrong with the person (no one's paying _them_ to find/play/like/buy our game), and not saying that there aren't marketing techniques that can reach that kind of not-willing-to-give-us-much-of-a-chance person, but we have neither the expertise nor the resources to make that happen in a general way.

But we will make improvements where we can, as with everything.

Anyway, thank you for your efforts in that thread and elsewhere