It was very low key compared to titles of other genres, just like most simulators are.
Heck, i picked up Microprose's European Air War (my main WWII sim before IL-2 and among the best of its time) because i happened to see it on a shop window by chance one evening, as i was strolling down an avenue to meet some friends for a couple of beers.
Same for Red Baron II, i made a habit of going to one of the big bookshop/software retailers in town every couple of months to check for new simulators and i saw the box among Falcon4 and several Jane's titles about jets, i had no idea a Red Baron II was even being developed up to that point.
Your mileage may vary of course, as my past experiences date back to a time where internet connections where not all that common here in Greece. So, i don't know if any widespread promotion was done for RB2 and EAW online.
However, by the time IL-2 appeared i had an internet connection (dial-up at that time and usually borrowed/shared between 2-3 people). The way i remember it is that i stumbled on it by surfing websites like simhq.com and combatsim.com. Again, i didn't see a massive promotion campaign even though i was able to go on the internet and look for it.
Of course things have evolved since then, but assuming that each gaming genre has gained roughly the same amount of points on the "promotion scale", the relatice distances between them would remain the same.
What that means in plain English is that in the current age i don't expect to stumble upon SoW by chance anymore, i'm sure i'll see something about it on the internet. However, i don't expect a 6 month pre-release marketing campaign for SoW like we see for titles like Starcraft 2 either.
Most of the people who are interested in it already know about it, some people will learn about it through word of mouth (i'm talking the ears off of a couple of my buddies trying to get them interested in it) and the rest will find out a couple of months past release when they will be browsing gamespot for the latest mainstream title and happen to come across a SoW review.
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