Republished from early September:

Arcen games, whom Jordan Rivas interviewed, and who make Tidalis (a very cool game) and AI Wars (something I haven’t the time to get into unfortunately) are not doing so well, financially. It’s a shame to see an indie dev go under, especially one that has such great ideas and looks after their fans and gamers like Arcen does.

It you’ve happened to wander past their site lately, you’d notice their major news post (which looks disturbingly like a minor news post) about them being in financially dire straits (no, not the band...).

I’ll nutshell it for you: Head, slowly, sinking...underwater.

These people do good work. Not for themselves and not for you, but for others. They’ve hooked up with Child’s Play (a charity we all know and love by now). Their Children of Neinzul micro-expansion for AI War, promotion for which all of the profits are going to the Child’s Play is OK.

  As of August 31st, they’ve already raised and donated $586.32 for the charity, a long way from their goal-for-the-year of $14,000.00. Sure it’s a $4 (3.99) expansion and to raise that amount they’ll need to sell (does math, carries the one), about 3,500 copies... but it’s a noble goal and cause.

In the meantime it seems like they’ve realized that while they are working for the greater good, they themselves are sinking into the mire. Here is a quote from that recent post:

Most game companies probably wouldn’t share this stuff, and certainly not on their front page, but as our fans know we’re not like most game companies.  So...

To put it bluntly and briefly, at present we’re only bringing in about one half of the minimum money we need to survive as a company, and that’s quickly eating through the rainy day money that we’d set aside.  At this rate, if sales don’t pick up then we run out of money sometime in November.

This is despite the fact that we’ve largely been very careful and prudent with our money and expenses over the last year.  We’re just a young company, and thus more vulnerable to market fluctuations than most -- though, as you might realize from the gaming news, even many AAA development studios are about one failed game away from dissolution.  It’s a cut-throat business.

The rest of this long post is background and explanation about how this came about and our business model in general, as well a request for help at the end, with ideas for how fans can contribute without spending a dime (as a commercial enterprise, we dislike asking for donations, though occasionally players offer).

Ouch, it’s painful to read because, as an independent company ourselves, GDN realizes their pain. Therefore, as you can see, I personally have deemed it necessary to give them a bit of additional space here at GDN (in this post and in an ad placement).

We all choose our causes when they strike our fancy and if they mesh with our beliefs. This happened to be one of those times and so, I’m informing you in the hopes that you can help out fellow gamers, independent developers and some generally nice guys. GDN gets nothing out of this deal except maybe a warm fuzzy feeling if Arcen survives (and future exclusives when you’re big and famous Chris Park! I know you’re reading this! Heh..OK... mostly a joke.)

How you can help:

They’re not asking for your charity. They’re asking you to check out their games, give them a chance and maybe, just maybe, spend a few bucks on some pretty cool games. Isn’t that what we all need out of life now and again?

Here are some links to their games in their store (again, we get nothing, except that warm fuzzy, we hope).

Available Games

Add To Cart     $19.99 USD	Add To Cart     $9.99 USD
Add To Cart     $9.99 USD	Add To Cart     $3.99 USD

Come on, you know you want one....everybody’s doing it! (hey, peer pressure is acceptable right?)