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Author Topic: Arcen games in financial trouble  (Read 6987 times)

Cheese

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Arcen games in financial trouble
« on: October 03, 2010, 05:01:59 am »

I recently found out on RPS that the developers of AI war and Tidalis, Arcen games, will be bankrupt by November without an increase in income or some such. This is pretty saddening to hear, they're a pretty awesome company, especially seeing as they're still giving out the expansion with the upgrade to Unity engine for AI war free to existing users.
RPS article
PCGamer article with exact costs and stuffs
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Virex

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2010, 05:06:48 am »

seeing as they're still giving out the expansion with the upgrade to Unity engine for AI war free to existing users.
Might have something to do with their business model...
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dogstile

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2010, 08:41:28 am »

Couldn't have been said any better
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Cheese

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2010, 09:32:38 am »

Well I apologise for my mistake. Sunk the thread too. What a mistake I made..
E: I did buy AI war several months back, so I know they release alot of the stuff free, I was just pointing out that even though they direly need money, they aren't ditching the plan of releasing their hard work for free. /rage

« Last Edit: October 03, 2010, 09:42:59 am by Cheese »
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Ioric Kittencuddler

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2010, 11:31:21 am »

Bummer for their fans.  Lucky for me I'm not one of them.
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Muz

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2010, 11:47:15 am »

I blame poor marketing. I have no idea what AI Wars is, but it sounds horrible. It looks even more horrible than it sounds. I'm into strategy games and AI and glorious mass war stuff, but it doesn't sound like AI Wars has any of that, so I don't have any urge to even know what it's about.

IMO, a lot of indie game companies die from poor marketing, a poor business model, or poor work rate. I can't really say I feel sorry for them, because my favorite indie companies are still going strong.
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ductape

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2010, 11:52:16 am »

Seriously?

AI War has a thread on this forum and is pretty popular among some of the people here. Its the only RTS I like to play.
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cerapa

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2010, 11:57:48 am »

I blame poor marketing. I have no idea what AI Wars is, but it sounds horrible. It looks even more horrible than it sounds. I'm into strategy games and AI and glorious mass war stuff, but it doesn't sound like AI Wars has any of that, so I don't have any urge to even know what it's about.
Sooooo.....
You dont find out what something is about because you dont know what its about?

Anyway, its pretty sad to see an indie company going down.
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olemars

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2010, 12:03:01 pm »

IIRC, the guy who made AI War used to post here too.
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Cheese

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2010, 12:09:52 pm »

It was, in a sense, advertised on steam for a while.
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Muz

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2010, 12:21:52 pm »

I blame poor marketing. I have no idea what AI Wars is, but it sounds horrible. It looks even more horrible than it sounds. I'm into strategy games and AI and glorious mass war stuff, but it doesn't sound like AI Wars has any of that, so I don't have any urge to even know what it's about.
Sooooo.....
You dont find out what something is about because you dont know what its about?

Anyway, its pretty sad to see an indie company going down.

I have no urge to find out because it sounds utterly boring. I look at the screenshots and I imagine some grindfest. It's probably a good game of some kind, because people seem to enjoy it, but hell, if I hear about it several times but bleh, there's no polish. There are other great indie games that refused to polish that went into financial trouble for the same reasons. DF has a good reason not to polish - it's not finished, but if you expect to sell a game, you have to at least attract the people who are going to buy it.

If you're going to sit around and expect customers to come to you, then you're going to be out of business quickly. Sadly, this is the common train of thought among indie developers.
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Cheese

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2010, 12:25:51 pm »

It appealed to me when I heard about it, maybe it's just audience. Granted this was aided by the trailer on steam, the golems looked really awesome.
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burningpet

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2010, 01:19:57 pm »

In my opinion, going for a casual game, tidalis, rather than building on their Strategy and hardcore fan base is what giving them troubles.
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Tilla

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2010, 04:41:32 pm »

I think this thread's topic is actually out of date as of the time it was posted, as last I heard they were doing a bit better. It was about a month ago that I heard they were in financial trouble.
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Sowelu

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Re: Arcen games in financial trouble
« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2010, 05:04:38 pm »

I bought AI War, but I only ever ended up playing two games of it, and not to completion.  Didn't turn out to be my thing.  I think maybe they're too niche...
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