Arcen Games

General Category => Bionic Dues => : FroBodine October 08, 2013, 09:28:39 AM

: Arsen or Arken?
: FroBodine October 08, 2013, 09:28:39 AM
Since this is the forum du jour, I thought this would be as good a place as any to ask.  Apologies if this is off-topic.

Is it pronounced 'Arsen' or 'Arken'?  I have always said 'Arsen' for years since I discovered this company. 

But, then I heard Das24680 say 'Arken' in his Bionic Dues Let's Plays.  And I got to wondering, am I the only doofus who pronounces it wrong?  Especially now that I can relate the arc graphic to your name.

Anyway - I just wanted to settle it once and for all, so what say you?
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: Misery October 08, 2013, 09:31:52 AM
Haha, I was wondering this as well myself.  I'd rather not mispronounce it in videos if I can avoid it, lest I be even more confusing than I normally am.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: tigersfan October 08, 2013, 09:40:56 AM
Ar-Ken :)
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 09:50:05 AM
We get this a lot, so don't feel bad.  It was frequent enough that we put the "ar-ken" thing up in our about us page.  As one who studied latin for years, it did not occur to me to think that some people would read it as a soft c rather than a hard one.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: FroBodine October 08, 2013, 10:02:06 AM
Thanks guys!  I have read your About Us page a few times, but completely forgot that part.  So, you're like a whole new company to me now!

Anyway, roll on Bionic Dues.  I can't wait to get home from work, download it, and start blasting bots.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 10:22:51 AM
It's coming quite soon now!
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: Misery October 08, 2013, 10:26:22 AM
So, this is going up on Steam today, right?

Here's hoping it actually shows on the front page this time.... I still dont get why Skyward's expansion didn't get even the slightest notification on there.  Particularly since the main game did get that.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 10:31:46 AM
DLC only shows up if you click "show dlc."  And in terms of the large rotating banners, those are at Valve's discretion.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: Aquohn October 08, 2013, 10:32:09 AM
For a while, I thought it was pronounced Ar-chen XD
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: FroBodine October 08, 2013, 11:17:45 AM
So, what is the meaning of Arcen, then?   At least 'Arsen' made sense to me, you were a company of poor spelling pyromaniacs.   ::)

Now, I just don't know what to think anymore!
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 12:37:06 PM
Lightning!
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: goodgimp October 08, 2013, 01:16:12 PM
So, this is going up on Steam today, right?

Here's hoping it actually shows on the front page this time.... I still dont get why Skyward's expansion didn't get even the slightest notification on there.  Particularly since the main game did get that.

I love Arcen and the games they produce so I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but I see Arcen as very niche and very indie (which is why I tend to like their games so much - it's my niche). I don't think it's reasonable to expect Valve to consistently give each game (or especially DLC for said games) top billing. I think the fact that Arcen's games have even showed up in the main window at all shows that someone at Valve enjoys the products and wants to give it a spotlight.

They do always show up in the "New Releases" section though, just like every other game. If you didn't see the DLC there then you didn't have the DLC option checked.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 01:20:47 PM
Valley 1, Skyward Collapse, and I think at least one other game of ours did show up in the top rotator.  Additionally, at least two of our games got into the top 10 bestsellers on Steam at various points.  AI War got to maybe #9 or so?  Valley 1 got I believe to #6.  It seems like another of our games also got really high up there, but I forget exactly where they reached.

Arcen is a niche, but that's true of most indie titles.  And given that a huge percentage of Steam's revenue is from indies now, they have to give that spotlight to someone.  ;)
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: FroBodine October 08, 2013, 01:46:17 PM
Where is this "Show DLC" option, please?  Is it in the Steam settings?  I'm at work and don't have Steam installed here, otherwise I would look for myself.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 01:47:16 PM
It's on the steam store page, right above the listings of games in any category.  It's "Show Downloadable Content" with a checkbox.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: windgen October 08, 2013, 04:00:41 PM

Hmm.  This is an interesting question.  I always said "arken," because it seems obvious to me that's how it should be pronounced.  But when trying to come up with a rule to tell you why it seems obvious, I realized that I can't really come up with a good rule that can distinguish between the "c" in "arcen" and the "c" in "mercenary."

Then again, maybe I'd be pronouncing "mercenary" as "mer KEN uh ree" if I'd never heard anyone else say the word and only had the written form as a guide to pronunciation.

Or maybe it seems obvious because my mental search algorithm for recalling similar words as a guide to pronouncing new ones prioritizes prefix matches, so maybe "arcane" is flagged as a much better match than "mercenary."  And if you were "Mercen games" I'd be telling people it's obvious that it should be an "s" sound.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: Huw October 08, 2013, 04:27:42 PM
I didn't even consider the soft c pronounciation, because it would be too close to arse, which in the UK is the equivalent of ass. :D
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: keith.lamothe October 08, 2013, 05:17:47 PM
I didn't even consider the soft c pronounciation, because it would be too close to arse, which in the UK is the equivalent of ass. :D
Sounds like a useful fact when encountering our famous "emergent behaviors" from the RNG, and deciding how to pronounce the main vocalization.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: Misery October 08, 2013, 07:38:57 PM
Where is this "Show DLC" option, please?  Is it in the Steam settings?  I'm at work and don't have Steam installed here, otherwise I would look for myself.


Yeah, I didn't know about that myself.

I kept having this idea that DLC for the many games I have would show up on the main listing.   The fact that this kept never being the case didn't discourage me from thinking it was true, haha.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: x4000 October 08, 2013, 08:04:02 PM
It was true until maybe around 2 years ago.  Then they started hiding it behind that checkbox because you'd have things like 20 different train cars coming through from a train simulator, and obliterating the front page with that.  Unfortunately sizable expansion packs are not differentiated from small F2P trinkets.
: Re: Arsen or Arken?
: PokerChen October 09, 2013, 03:45:59 AM
 The Steam feature page was such a train-wreck simulator when I finally joined up a couple of years ago. Even so, I still felt I had to click through it to help me search for goodies. ...that would be because their store browser was, and still lacks tabbed browsing, amongst other things.

 = = =
 Other pronouciations of c other than Arcen:

 - cello
 - et cetera, a latin soft-c
 - Cemal (i.e. Jamal, but Turkish)
 - c = "ts" in romanisation of chinese phonetics.
 - ce- = "the-", in some regions of Spain. My coworker Celsa says it's still not the same as "th".

 It's positively the worst-harmonised consonant, IMO.