Correct.
Why I can’t get divorced and remarry a doctor (angry grumbling noises over here)
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, Scotten!
July of last year, according to my Kickstarter updates (one from October said he’d been on a 3 month sabbatical due to the divorce).
None of my business, but that seems like an awfully fast turnaround. I hope it works out well for him, but I can’t help but raise a skeptical eyebrow when someone gets out of a long term serious relationship and jumps instantly into a new one.
Has anybody played the DLC? I have yet to, uh, play the base game, but I am curious about the DLC anyway.
I picked it up, I’ve meant to. I can just never get the damn time. There’s too many games right now.
This is the truest thing that’s ever been written on this whole forum.
Haha, right? And it’s not a situation where I have young children or I’m working 80 hours a week so I just have no time. There’s just always a bazillion tantalizing games and AI War 2 just never seems to be able to get to the top of the list for me.
This month alone I’ve had expansions to HOI4, Stellaris, and Imperator and I haven’t had a chance to touch any of them. Then X4 had an expansion and I’ve been waiting to dive in since it released. I love Monster Hunter and haven’t even had a chance to try the expansion that came out in January. And that’s just a small sample, the list just goes on and on…
So yeah, AI War 2 expansion? I keep meaning to play it, but I have to learn the ropes of the game first and I usually just end up firing up another tempting game instead. Who knows, if the COVID-19 shutdowns go on long enough maybe the silver lining to losing my job will be all the free time I have to play games, haha.
Same here, even though my kids aren’t so small anymore.
I keep meaning to start a thread here that goes like… how I own many so games, but find myself with free time around 9PM staring at my Steam library. I can’t decide, but I also find I can’t commit to learning a whole new strat game so late in the day (as I know I’ll be going between YouTube, forums and the game itself). I used to love learning new games but find it’s tough to force myself into a game unless I KNOW I’m going to like it.
Yes, the time and mental energy investment is real. I know exactly what you’re talking about, I get that a lot too especially when I’m burned out from work.
Same. I dabbled with the first game. Definitely interested in this one. There are so many other things to play though!
Did we get the DLC for free because of backing the kickstarter campaign? I see it in my library, but the store shows it costing money.
Yep. Note that there is at least one more planned DLC that will not be free to Kickstarter backers, but IIRC this one was basically a bunch of things that were promised as Kickstarter goals, so we get it. (And that DLC is going to be after the other promised stuff that hasn’t made it in yet, like multiplayer, which I believe is the big thing underway at the moment.)
I’m waiting for the impending multiplayer update before really spending much time on the game but I did fire it up and take a quick peak. The game seems to have shaped up quite nicely, I’m looking forward to giving this a real go once MP/co-op is available.
I keep watching this game update and saying “I should learn to play this” but then getting lazy and not. I suck.
Sadly, I found it way too fiddly when I tried getting back in.
This might be of interest to those who have followed Arcen Games and Chris Park for a while. This is from the notes for the recent AI War Steam update. It also gives a bit of a personal insider take on the realities of the indie PC games market in 2020.
Chris notes that Arcen’s gross income has not been this low since 2009 and he has lost about $240k in making AI War 2. He indicates he would love to support this game further, but unless sales and attention pick up dramatically in 2021 he may need to pivot to another project or even leave the industry. He has some DLC releases planned for AI War 2 in 2021, but states that those typically don’t generate much additional attention or reviews.
This industry seems to be reaching a saturation point and is sadly pushing out creative talent like Arcen.
What Happens After That?
That really depends.
The release of this game started out going well, and I think that the reviews that folks have been leaving for the game were a big help for folks passing by at the start. 2020 has been a rough year, though, when we really look at the data. The company’s income has fallen to less than half of what it was in 2019, and that was already one of our lower years in terms of income.
We do have those two new DLC planned for 2021, along with the giant multiplayer updates and so on that are free, so hopefully that trend will turn around. If you’ve been playing the game and enjoying it, https://store.steampowered.com/app/573410/AI_War_2/.
If the trend doesn’t turn around? I don’t know, exactly. The structure of modern online stores may ultimately wind up forcing our hand. I’d probably have to either choose between working on an entirely new project unrelated to AI War 2, or start working on a sequel instead of more expansion. Both prospects have a lot of downsides, but they also have some substantial upsides.
Right now I don’t feel super inclined to leave the AI War franchise after all this work and developing this giant engine, so I’m more inclined to stick to something closer to home than try to reinvent the wheel. If you look at the evolution of AI War 2 since launch, the current build you’re able to play is already practically AI War 3. It looks better, plays better, has better AI, has more content, and is much more technically advanced.
Right now the frustration is that more or less we’re doing most of that work for free (personally I have still lost about $240k in making AI War 2, versus earning any actual money, if you look at my spent money versus earned), and it’s hard to get press attention for a “year old game.” Since we started this project, more than half a console generation has come and gone, sheesh! I have no shortage of ideas, but I don’t want to work for someone else and right now the open market is feeling fairly indifferent.
I have a lot of hope for 2021, though. :)
Well, the thing that happens right now with the Steam store in particular is that any game that is not brand new doesn’t get featured much. And DLC doesn’t get featured much.
So I’d rather keep things in AI War 2 DLC as well, but that may not be possible depending on what DLC sells like and what Valve does.
Reviewers also won’t review DLC the same way they would the main game, and in general it just doesn’t get attention the same way. Valve also doesn’t give visibility rounds of the same sort.
So far this year I’m $40,000 short of even my very reduced normal salary. This is after working a number of years for free making the game. So right now it’s not exactly a sustainable business model.
We’re trying to turn that around with amazing DLC2 and DLC3 and proper marketing windows for them, but if that doesn’t work then this just isn’t sustainable. The fanbase will have to split, or I’d have to make some entirely new game. That’s not my first choice scenario, but it’s better than being forced out of the industry entirely, which is kind of the only other alternative. Arcen’s gross income has not been this low since 2009. Thank you Steam algorithm…
I love how much he cares and supports his games. I’m not sure he sleeps. I don’t have much time with his games but I tend to buy most everything he puts out because of his passion, his detailed responses on forums, and his immense patch notes. I want to see him keep going.
This sounds like a brutal proposition. If I were him I would get out of gaming, he’s obviously very talented…
To be clear, I am a fan of the design of his games - bought many of them, but never got hooked enough to go down the DLC rabbit hole. The gaming market is too heavily saturated these days to go back to a game after leaving it for quarters or years (at least for me).
Ugh, awful. I bought this one immediately but have yet to really play it. I should change that.