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

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, seeing the numbers go up like a good sale and stay with that trend was a bit relief   Of course, part of that is CoN, but we're also very happy to contribute to Child's Play.

Anyway, the difficulties have taught us a lot of important lessons, and it looks like we'll have a chance to see if we've learned from them

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I haven't really pushed on my contacts, so maybe I can encourage some purchasing.  I hope. 

Great to hear your not going into oblivion, I would be a sad panda. 

King

[keith.lamothe]

Well, we wouldn't completely disappear, at least so long as the revenue covered the LLC fees and webhosting, but we would have to drop a _lot_ from even our worst months for it to get that bad.  Of course, that would mean no paid staff time and us needing to find other sources of things like food, which as you can imagine isn't conducive to much getting done.

But things are looking up, at least short-term

[Lancefighter]

forums and IRC are considerably more crowded-feeling than they were before..

[x4000]

Tell me about it.  Good to have all the new players!

[Texashawk]

Greetings; new poster and Arcen fan here.

I have to say, tried your demo on Saturday and fell in love in the first hour (after working through part of the intermediate tutorial) and immediately purchased the whole bundle through Impulse.

I have since put about 4-5 hours into the game, and once I 'get' the interrelations between the installations, ships, units, and resources I can only shake my head in awe at how precise the strategy indeed is in this game, and this is from someone who typically hates RTS and even didn't like SOASE (much, though I play it once in a while) No, my heart is in true 4X and wargames - and not shallow either; I typically play War in the Pacific:AE, Fall from Heaven II (Rise from Erebus mod), Harpoon3, Aurora, and Distant Worlds (yes, technically it's RTS but if you haven't played it, try it; you'll see why I consider it a 4x). So I love my hardcore games.

HOWEVER.

The ONLY thing that really got me to stop and take a few seconds to look at this game wasn't the trailer.

It wasn't the screenshots.

It wasn't the reviews.

It was the concept. A game in which humanity LOST the 4X race! A game in which the AI has essentially wiped us out! A game in which only scattered, ragtag bands of humanity must clutch onto what little advanced technology is left, and claw and scrap their way to the central computer world, and destroy SHODAN. Or Skynet. Or XERXES. Or Mother. Or whoever.

The point is, finally, you get to be (sort of) John freakin' Connor in a grand strategy game!! And that, once I realized what it was, was the kicker.

Man vs. machine. And machine has humanity hanging off the ravine.

THAT is what you need to get out there. I have seen this game in many places, and dismissed it out of hand because THE CORE CONCEPT WAS NOT DRIVEN HOME. The concept is fantastic, but were it not for a little blurb linked from a forum I frequent, I never would have realized what this game was about. Concept got me to the door; execution brought me cheerfully though.

MARKET. THE. CONCEPT. As a former advertising major, I can not stress this enough. GET YOUR CONCEPT OUT THERE IN BOLD PRINT.

Good luck, Arcen!!

[Texashawk]

Hell, thinking about it more, I even have a tagline for you!

"Commander, the machines have taken the galaxy; we are down to a single planet. The human race stands an eyelash from the finish line.
In these last days, you must battle to ensure we never cross."

 

Steve

[Ozymandiaz]

Indeed, getting the real essence and concpet of AI War out would be a good idea. I must admit, I did not buy it the first time I saw it on steam back in january (wow, its been a long tiem already...), only after a friend told me about it. Then I was hooked, hehe

forums and IRC are considerably more crowded-feeling than they were before..

Indeed! Amny new faces here, and thats a good thing

[Ozymandiaz]

Have you considred making an Arcen reddit account?

I have not used that site much previously, but the last weeks I have been using it a lot. The community is good natured from what I see and likes to take part in teh happenings in the world.

I tried announcing the new expansion for AI War there myself, but I am not a marketing guy But comming from Arcen officially might get you some more attention


Just an idea at least.

[x4000]

I actually had an x4000 account there, and have posted many times. Usually I don't post news, as from trials that has been less successful, but we've had posts from others on the front page of overall reddit twice, and on the top of the gaming section half a dozen or more times. It is indeed a good site, although it was distressing when they basically turned on me at the mention of financial difficulties. You get a lot of self-important comments then from people that sneer and assume one thing without really reading the article. Sigh. But overall it's been a very good site to us.

[Ozymandiaz]

I actually had an x4000 account there, and have posted many times. Usually I don't post news, as from trials that has been less successful, but we've had posts from others on the front page of overall reddit twice, and on the top of the gaming section half a dozen or more times. It is indeed a good site, although it was distressing when they basically turned on me at the mention of financial difficulties. You get a lot of self-important comments then from people that sneer and assume one thing without really reading the article. Sigh. But overall it's been a very good site to us.

Yes, there are unfortunalty some of thoose out there, and they like to voice themself out loud :/

[x4000]

It's definitely a hazard of the Internets, for sure.

[RCIX]

Yea, for reasons i can't comprehend the vocal minority of whatever basically owns [insert site here]

[x4000]

Here's the latest update on what's going on with us: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7511.0.html

[Entropy5]

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not. There is a TV show on the G4 network (in America anyways) called "Attack of the Show". It's a show about technology and such. Once a month or so they do a segment called "Indie Games." I've purchased numerous games that I saw on that show. You might want to e-mail them and see if they'll show your game.

www.g4tv.com/aots