So the time has finally come. Arcen games yesterday started the Kickstarter for the next chapter in their RTS/tower defense/tactical mix called AI War II.

So Arcen fans and others check the AI WAR 2 Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcengames/ai-war-ii-0?ref=hero_thanks

New AI WAR II theme by Pablo Vega: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNXmzaUAQsU

First look Far Zoom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLtDdZRq4Bk

It seems Arcen is going with a full 3D aproach this time. Eitherway very hyped about this game.

FOR GOG BACKERS:
Quote from Kickstarter regarding gog release: "We want to! No promises though, getting projects on GOG is now more involved and more subjective on their side. They carry a number of our games, but they've flatly turned down a few others (RIP Starward Rogue).

They do seem interested in AI War II so we are hopeful they will carry it at 1.0, and maybe via their Games In Development program. Please stay tuned!"

VOTE FOR GOG RELEASE here: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/ai_war_ii

They want $300,000? That's quite ambitious. Hope they realized that the golden Kickstarter times are already over. Wish them good luck though. I liked their games that I've played in the past.

Assuming the kickstarter campaign started a day ago and runs for 30 days, they're trying to raise $300,000 in 30 days which translates to $10,000 per day. Presently they have raised $36,704 in one day, which is more than triple the average they'd need in order to hit their target. If the campaign sustains that rate of funding per day going forward over the next week or so they'll be successfully funded in about 8-9 days with 20+ days to spare.

Even if it was just an initial influx of highly enthusiastic supporters getting in on the first day though, that's pretty good for the little marketing it likely has had so far. They're most likely going to get more coverage in gaming media, blogs, forums, social media, etc. that advertises the kickstarter and draws in more fans of the game franchise.

I'm not overly familiar with the game myself, but judging by the current numbers they're bringing in in such short of a time frame, I'd bet they'll meet their target rather quickly. $300,000 is quite a small amount of money to try to raise also, especially for a developer with existing products that are well liked.

Well gave my pledge now. Hopefully the game makes it and with it Arcen. And hopefully that will also be enough in the future to bring Stars Beyond Reach to the end of development.

Crossing fingers for the sucess of the Kickstarter.

Frankly, I think it's their last push before they go under. Their string of questionable development choices they've made recently got them to this point.

Agreed. They dropped development of Stars Beyond Reach when it was almost finished since Chris (owner) redesigned the game countless times since it supposedly wasn't up to his standards. At the end they were burning money for two years without any results + Steam rule change effectively dropped their income from Steam game sales to zero. So even deep sales didn't help to keep them running. The only good thing with Ai War 2 is that this is the gaming genre where they are masters at. At the end this is the end of Arcen if the Kickstarter fails.

Kickstarter projects normally make most of the money on the first three days and on the last two ones. So 10% on day one is ok, but not something to be overly optimistic.

No one sustains the first day rate. Ever. And they've raised $22k in the first day, less than 10%. Yes, it was, and nope, it's not good -- because "the little marketing it likely has had" is almost all they're going to get barring a miracle. Here's an example of a game with enthusiastic supporters. Notice how they got 25% of their total funding on the first day. Now that was actually the second campaign (the first one was pulled after mild fan criticism over pledge levels) so one might argue the fans already had their wallets out -- but nope, their first campaign also got 25% of the second campaign's eventual total on the first day. Only the basket of deplorables gets free coverage. "Kickstarter project launched" has been "dog bites man" for four years now.

That may or may not be the case, but raising $300,000 for a game is still on the small scale of things, and they've been successful with their games from what I can determine so they probably have a large enough base of followers. As it stands at the moment, they would need to raise an average of $9032.45 every day until the end of the campaign to hit their target. That will adjust lower also near the end of the day before it switches to 28 days left.

The current backing is for $37,459 from 941 backers, or an average of $39.81 per backer. Using that rate as a guide, they would need to only gain 6580 more backers between now and the end of the campaign, which translates to 227 new backers per day, or slightly less than 1/4 of their current per day average number of backers. The average price per backer seems a bit higher than I would have expected, which could reflect "biggest fan" sentiment or even close friends/family etc. of the company or something. So there is breathing room both in terms of number of backers per day, and pledge size per backer for moving room. If you were to say... cut the average pledge in half going forward to $20, and double the number of backers it would remain in equilibrium with the numbers above.

Without knowing much about the game itself, I'm inclined to think they're going to make their target just based on the math. :)

Hehe, its a hellishly hard RTS game but it has one of the best if not the best AI ever made in strategy games. Its a totally unique RTS game but severely understimated by people cause of low grade graphics :)

Just check the very old eurogamer review from 2011: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-14-ai-war-fleet-command-review

Bump

You seem to forget that they burnt down a large base of followers they had with the terrible mismanagement of games they released other than ai war

But they apologized, which is why people still want to support them. But naturally they still suck at money management as well as time management. They make indie games that could be made by someone in their hobby time with a cheap/free engine except they expect full salaries to produce them before they're ever released. It's cray cray.

No, I haven't forgotten anything at all. I'm completely unaware of anything they may or may not have done in the past. Apply that to my speculation however you see fit though. :)

It's not the first day, it's already the fourth one. It'll be difficult, but most kickstarters are nowadays. They won't do it without serious marketing support (some prominent web/youtuber vouch)

Kicktraq