Tag Archives: Stardock

Stardock boss Brad Wardell has said the company is currently talking with publishers about updating the Gamer’s Bill of Rights this year.

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Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has said redeeming his company’s products in PC gamers’ eyes is more important than a projected financial loss on Elemental: War of Magic.

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Stardock founder Brad Wardell has voiced his opinion of Games for Windows Live, stating that the service has “too many stings attached” for developers.

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Seems like ages since we’ve heard anything about Stardock’s fantasy-strategy game Elemental: War of Magic – at least on this end.

However, the developers updated the official site for the game last week with some new information.

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Stardock’s Impulse service has quite a few games on sale this weekend, including Braid for 50 percent off the regular price.

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Ironclad and Stardock announced yesterday that the Beta for Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy will go live November 23.

Those who preordered Diplomacy or the game’s last expansion will get first dibs.

The Beta will include: New Envoy cruisers, Embassies, the “backbone” of the Diplomacy tech tree, Mission Generator, the beginnings of the Pirate changes, Faster gameplay options and more.

Diplomacy is slated for release on February 9 through Stardock’s Impulse service, and is available for preorder.

Thanks, Cinemablend.

Stardock’s Brad Wardell has lashed out at Games For Windows Live, and says that if the service decides to “screw things up”, he refuses to make more PC games.

Speaking with Shacknews, Wardell discussed how he started off as a “big Games for Windows Live advocate,” and wishes that “Microsoft would do a lot more in making the PC better as a gaming platform.”

“I intended for Elemental to be on Games for Windows Live, but then as we got closer, the Xbox group took it over more and more,” said Wardell. “And they have things where, oh, if you want to use Games for Windows Live to update your game, you have to go through [their] certification. And if you do it more than X number of times, you have to pay money. It’s like, ‘My friends, you can’t do that on the PC.’

“On the console, I don’t have to update my game because an anti-virus program got an update and is now identifying my VB scripts as viruses and I have to apply an emergency patch. That would just add insult to injury. We’ve had to upgrade our games plenty of times over the years, not because we found some bug, but because some third-party program, or driver, or whatever screwed it up.

“If Games for Windows Live maintains that strategy and they take over, I’m done. I’m not making PC games. I would be done.”

More through the link.

Thanks, Maximum PC.

Gas Powered and Stardock announced on its official forums that an update for Demigod will be made available today.

Patch 1.19 fixes loads of bugs, has some changes, and has removed the multiplayer Skirmish mode, but don’t worry – it will still be available for the single-player bit.

Another patch is due out next week and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has promised more patch updates in the future along with the addition of a mod SDK for the game as well as the possibility of new maps.

It’s all through the official forums.

Gas Powered Games and Stardock released a demo for Demigod today.

If you have not played the strategy RPG yet, now’s your chance to try it out.

Get it over on FileFront.

Stardock has started sending out 50 percent-off coupons to folks who have purchased Demigod as a way to make up for multiplayer networking issues.

Players who receive one can download the game from Impulse for half off its normal $39.99 price or give the coupon to a friend.

The offer is only valid till next week, but another one is on the way. This one gives you 20 percent off any game offered through Impulse.

More through BigDownload.

Stardock’s Brian Clair, speaking on the company’s forum, has confirmed that the upcoming Sins of the Solar Empire expansion, titled Entrenchment, has been delayed until next year.

The add-on to the popular space-based RTS was originally planned to release this week.

Entrenchment “will first be put through a public beta test for pre-order customers” in order to “finely hone” the product before release, said the exec.

He also notes that a final release date has not been set, and that it will “largely depend on beta feedback.”

Thanks, Joystiq.

Stardock’s announced a series of “micro-expansions” for Sins of a Solar Empire, the first of which – Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment – is currently in development and will be released later this year for $9.95 via Stardock’s Impulse digital distribution platform (here).

More on IGN.

Stardock boss Brad Wardell’s confirmed that an expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire’s on the way in the “reasonably near future” in this Wired story.

The game has shot into the PC charts in the US, outselling CoD4 in the most recent NDP PC data.

While talking about PC gaming’s dwindling sales figures, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has claimed that pirates simply shouldn’t matter to desktop developers.

“‘So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don’t go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That’s what most software companies do,” wrote Bardell on his blog.

“Instead of worrying about pirates, just leave the content out in the open. The market (Trent) Reznor [Nine Inch nails] plays to will still buy the music; he’s simply stopped worrying about the pirates. He came to the same conclusion: they weren’t customers, they might never be customers, so spending money to try to stop them serves no purpose.”

So there you go, PC games developers. Just ignore copyright theft and it’ll go away.

By Mike Bowden