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  • GDC: Stardock's Brad Wardell explains the failure of Elemental and how he's making it up to fans

    by 
    Ben Gilbert
    Ben Gilbert
    03.03.2011

    "Unlike the other examples you've heard tonight, this game shipped. It's at the store right now. At Walmart. Yeah." -- Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock. That ominous statement was slipped into the middle of Brad Wardell's "Failure Workshop" speech this afternoon, where the Stardock head discussed a project he now considers a full-on failure: Elemental: War of Magic. He was just one of five separate developers detailing a project that went awry. "If someone had an idea, we'd say 'Oh sure, go ahead! Throw that in!,'" Wardell explained, describing the disorganized nature of Elemental's development. "That works okay if you have seven guys," he said, continuing, "It doesn't work so well when you have 18 guys."

  • Stardock announces Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, 'free to play' dev tools for Impulse SDK

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    03.01.2011

    Stardock announced a new Sins of a Solar Empire expansion today, subtitled Rebellion. In a separate press release, the company revealed a major update to its game development platform, Impulse Reactor, which will allow developers to implement "free to play" gaming through the Impulse digital distribution network. The Impulse Reactor update is expected to go live this month and will add features to the SDK enabling "free to play" elements for games running on the Impulse platform. If you're one of the millions of players that has dropped coin on Riot Games' League of Legends or Turbine's DDO or Lord of the Rings Online, you've probably got a good idea of the potential here. As for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, it's described as a "full-fledged expansion" of the 4X RTS space series -- not a sequel. Brian Clair, director of publishing for Stardock, told us that, like the original, Rebellion will not feature a single-player campaign, but will build upon the gameplay introduced in the original Sins and its micro-expansions. Given the timing of the Rebellion announcement alongside news of the upcoming "free to play" options added to Impulse Reactor, we asked if this next Sins would be a free-to-play title. "Definitely not," Clair said, though pricing has not been set. Rebellion will support achievements, multiplayer leagues and other features. Speaking to concerns voiced by players that don't have the hours to set aside for a standstard multiplayer match in Sins, Clair said, "We're going to continue looking at ways to address that for folks who want to get a game in under an hour." Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is expected to be released in late 2011; however a Stardock representative told us the company is taking the "done when it's done" approach to development.

  • Impulse holding El Presidente's Day weekend sale

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    02.19.2011

    Sure, officially, Impulse is holding a President's Day sale this weekend, featuring some of your favorite strategy and sim titles, but an "El Presidente Day" sale sounds so much more exotic. The highlight of the sale, particularly to anyone who doesn't think democracy is the only way to rule, is the banana republic simulator, Tropico 3, for half-off at $7.50. For those who cling to democracy and letting the unwashed masses have a voice, The Political Machine 2008 is only $3 and Democracy 2 is $11.50. However, if that whole "government" thing sounds messy, and you believe the only reign worth having is one in which you can declare full-scale war, Command and Conquer 4 and Tom Clancy's EndWar are $10 apiece.

  • Stardock's Brad Wardell hopeful for recovery after Elemental shakeup

    by 
    Mike Schramm
    Mike Schramm
    01.11.2011

    Our sister site Big Download cornered Stardock CEO Brad Wardell to talk about the troubled title Elemental; War of Magic and the future of the company. Things are apparently looking better than they did after a "disastrous" launch: most employees are back to work, either at Stardock or elsewhere. But Wardell also says that Stardock is doing so much work on the title that by the second quarter of this year, it will "cross the line from being profitable to having lost money." Wardell expects to lose money on the game just to try and save Stardock's name on quality. Wardell also said that the company is not done restructuring -- it recently hired both game designer Jon Shafer and writer Dave Stern, and Wardell plans to step away from lead development and move to a more executive role. Wardell remains mum on any future titles, but said that the company's Impulse digital distribution service doubled in third-party revenue in 2010, and expects "even greater growth" and increased staffing throughout 2011. If everything Wardell hopes comes to pass, the Elemental launch may have been the best worst thing to ever happen to his company.

  • Stardock hires Civ V designer Jon Shafer and fantasy writer Dave Stern

    by 
    David Hinkle
    David Hinkle
    01.04.2011

    It was odd to hear about Jon Shafer leaving Firaxis a couple weeks back, what with him being an avid member of the Civ community and lead designer on the latest iteration, Civilization V -- a game our own Alexander Sliwinski called "a 'friendly' strategy game." During an interview with our sister site Big Download, Shafer once again stated he'd left Firaxis on good terms and will help Stardock on its newest title, Elemental: War of Magic, as well as an unannounced project he'll be overseeing. Stardock also announced it has hired acclaimed fantasy author Dave Stern to "oversee creative storytelling and lore implementation in all future projects." Stern, who has penned various Star Trek works and novelizations of the Tomb Raider and Blair Witch Project movies, will get right to work on enriching the world of Elemental: War of Magic, which Stardock CEO Brad Wardell admits was "one of the things we felt was weak." Specifically, Stern will "head up all further integration of the Elemental: War of Magic lore" in the game, which will see two upcoming expansions where "lore implementation will be essential."

  • Elemental: War of Magic v1.1 heralds new beginning

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    12.16.2010

    Elemental: War of Magic's version 1.1 patch notes -- reportedly 19 pages long when printed out -- represent developer and publisher Stardock's attempt to forget the game's horrific launch and bullishly move forward. According to Stardock, the free update reimagines the use of mana in the game, adds new spells, overhauls the user interface, rebalances the game and improves the AI. The takeaway: this is a "new" Elemental. Stardock has been on a quest to reanimate the game (and potential franchise) from its D.O.A. state. The company hired grassroots talent and slowly turned sales around by offering free expansions. The publisher also announced that anyone who buys the game by the end of this year will receive the first expansion pack for free. We're currently contacting LL Cool J to find out when we can officially give Elemental "comeback" status.%Gallery-111453%

  • Elemental sales improving alongside the game

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    11.24.2010

    Elemental's campaign of redemption appears to be working, with sales up 30 percent in October. Speaking with Big Download, Stardock didn't share any specific sales figures, but noted that Impulse purchases are up and retail stores are increasing shipment orders. The company probably got a nice boost during the month by offering the next two game expansions for free to those who purchased the title before All Hallows' Eve. Stardock has been doing a pretty solid job so far of turning the strategy RPG's "disastrous" launch around. Elemental may have been born prematurely, but with proper oversight from the game's new senior producer, the franchise might just grow up into a respectable member of society.

  • Elemental purchases before Oct. 31 to receive first two expansions free

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    10.26.2010

    Elemental: War of Magic's road to redemption is being paved with free stuff -- for those willing to take the ride. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell announced today on the game's forums that anyone who purchases (or already bought) the game before October 31, 2010, will receive the first two expansions to the game for free. The company has been working to turn around the game's "disastrous" launch by showing it plans not to abandon the 4X strategy title. A major sign of support came earlier this month when Stardock hired Derek "Kael" Paxton as the studio's senior producer. Paxton is the creator of the popular Civilization über-mod Fall from Heaven. Stardock plans to begin the beta testing of Elemental version 1.1 in early November. Owners of the game have the option to opt-in and find out how Elemental is evolving. [Thanks, Chris P.]

  • Stardock hires 'Fall from Heaven' creator to lead ongoing Elemental development

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    10.13.2010

    Everybody loves a comeback story, so let's hope this one starts for Stardock's Elemental: War of Magic with the hiring of Derek "Kael" Paxton as the studio's senior producer. Paxton, who's best known for the popular Civilization series Fall from Heaven (über mods he created using the game engine), will be in charge of Elemental's ongoing development and expansions. The welcome news comes as Elemental tries to right itself from the consequences of a "disastrous" launch. Stardock's PR rep Stephanie Tinsley Schopp told Joystiq, "There will be a lot of news coming from the studio in the next few months, don't count us out." With Paxton joining Stardock, it will be interesting to see if the company makes use of Fall from Heaven, perhaps turning the Civ mod into a standalone game running on a proprietary engine. Though no plans have been announced, it's an intriguing possiblity.

  • Elemental update due this week, enables multiplayer and other fixes

    by 
    Mike Schramm
    Mike Schramm
    09.08.2010

    Stardock founder Brad Wardell (a.k.a. Frogboy) has announced on the official Elemental forums that this week will bring patch 1.08 for the game, which will finally implement multiplayer, as well as more performance optimizations and bugfixes in the wake of the game's troubled launch. Elemental's multiplayer was one of the game options that had been pushed back due to all of the other issues, so stalwart fans of the game are looking forward to mixing it up with others. Wardell also says that the content connected with the Random House-published tie-in novel will be unlocking soon, so players who've bought the novel will get that. And Stardock is also planning to reveal some of the work going on for the mod community, "along with easier in-game submissions of mods that aren't maps." Wardell says that's scheduled for the next few weeks, so it seems like he and his team are still working hard to win back players disappointed with how the launch went.

  • Elemental launch results in Stardock layoffs

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    09.04.2010

    The "consequences" of Elemental's "disastrous" launch were swift as Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has confirmed layoffs at the company. Shacknews reported yesterday that those let go included developers, designers, and salespeople working on Elemental. Wardell stated in his post on the subject that these are the first layoffs to the company since 1998, while elaborating, "Elemental's revenue was anticipated to provide the revenue both for our main games team's next project as well as a second team. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen so we've had to start laying people off." Wardell contacted Joystiq to say, "We obviously have had technical issues on launch that we are paying for in reviews and weakened sales, but as anyone in our QA can tell you - and I've interviewed them post-launch - we thought the game was ready which merely shows, I think pretty obviously, that we will need to change the way we do QA on major new releases as well as how we handle our own betas." The executive concludes, "It aggravates me to no end that there's often very little connection between the myriad of poor decisions made at the executive level - including myself at the top - and the people who end up losing their jobs. But my job isn't to dispense economic justice. My job is to try to keep as many people employed as possible and make sure our customers are taken care of." Update: Added official statements.

  • Stardock CEO calls Elemental launch 'disastrous,' promises to do better

    by 
    Ben Gilbert
    Ben Gilbert
    09.03.2010

    Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has spoken out again on the troubled launch of his studio's latest game, Elemental: War of Magic. Taking to Stardock's forums, Wardell (aka "Frogboy") said, "I don't think people yet fully realize the completeness of Stardock's fail on Elemental's launch. I'm going to write more about this, but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone, but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about." And while he places the blame on Stardock as a whole, he takes a full paragraph to account for his own mistakes. "EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's 'Ready.' On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality." He finishes his screed with the promise, "We'll do better," and in a separate post lists off the many changes and additions coming to the game (including free expansions and an intended v1.1 patch in September). Both pieces really are worth reading in full. You can grab them here and here.

  • Elemental multiplayer delayed another week

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    09.01.2010

    Stardock is delaying Elemental: War of Magic's multiplayer capabilities as the developer continues working out issues from the PC 4X strategy game's rough launch. A company spokesperson noted on the game's forums that the "[multiplayer] enabling patch has been put back to next week as the priority was to first resolve" performance issues which could impact single player and multiplayer. The company has also posted a master to-do list of fixes that the game currently requires. Elemental has come a long way in just a week since release, but the post-launch drama is a case study in the advantages of the "when it's done" approach to a game launch.

  • Stardock CEO apologizes for lashing out over Elemental pre-launch criticisms

    by 
    Ben Gilbert
    Ben Gilbert
    08.25.2010

    Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has apologized for statements he made on the Quarter to Three forums, which PC Gamer subsequently referenced as evidence that folks should wait to purchase Elemental: War of Magic. In the statement to Joystiq, Wardell expressed that after a "lengthy and heated debate" over issues in the pre-launch version of the game, he spoke hastily and says, "As a result, I want to apologize to our fans for speaking so harshly. It should be said that some of the issues in question from the PC Gamer UK article, in fact, did not appear in any of our beta testing. We were surprised by these issues and, after working days on end with little sleep, I was very frustrated. I should not have engaged in an online debate about these issues, as my haste to defend what we feel is a great product only served to hurt the fans who have supported us and the team who has been so dedicated to this project." The PC Gamer piece urges its readers not to purchase Stardock's latest release. "We've held off from finishing our review because of the launch problems, but felt this warranted an early warning," PC Gamer's Tom Francis says, claiming the launch version of Elemental "on two very different machines with the latest drivers for everything ... crashed or hit a game-breaking bug every ten minutes." It should be noted that while our staff experienced similar issues in the game's beta version, we never encountered those bugs in the retail copy. A large patch issued last night is said to have fixed the frequent crashes, though it allegedly made tactical battles unplayable. Additionally, multiplayer servers are said to be running, but the mode won't be turned on until sometime next week due to "team exhaustion," a rep on the game's forums said. "The early release meant a lot of people who were expecting this weekend off to rest from the grueling last few weeks had to come in. So we're going to let them get a couple of days off later this week and open up the MP next week." With that in mind, it may be a few days before another patch arrives for Elemental. We've placed Wardell's full statement to Joystiq after the break, along with a poll asking for players to let us know if they've run into these bugs.

  • Preview: Elemental: War of Magic

    by 
    Mike Schramm
    Mike Schramm
    08.23.2010

    Stardock's Elemental: War of Magic is already extraordinary, smashing genres together that may have been too big on their own in the first place. At its heart, it's a 4X game in the style of Civ or Galactic Civilizations, but it's also a fantasy RPG with a deep and long story, and a tactical battle game. It has a huge singleplayer campaign, a sandbox mode that creates gigantic maps at random, and even a multiplayer mode. It's vast and confusing and intricate, and while there are certain gamers who just won't vibe with all of the numbers and how open the gameplay is, there are others – probably old-school strategy types – who will love it for everything it is. Stardock's CEO Brad Wardell is one of those for sure -- as he showed me the latest beta of the game earlier this month, his enthusiasm for the game he's built was quite clear. Elemental: War of Magic, like all of Stardock's titles, is as "homespun" as any video game can be, and Wardell's personality and preferences shine through almost all of its (sorry) elements. %Gallery-94332%

  • Elemental: War of Magic slated for August 24

    by 
    Randy Nelson
    Randy Nelson
    06.07.2010

    It seems like just last Friday we were showing you new screens and video from Stardock's latest PC strategy title, Elemental: War of Magic -- we were -- and today we're able to tell you that the game, which had originally been scheduled for February 2010, will launch on August 24. Elemental will be available at retail, as well as via Stardock's own Impulse service, for $49.99. Hey, you even get to choose your purchasing strategy ... how about that? %Gallery-94332%

  • Stardock explains Elemental's basic elements on video

    by 
    Randy Nelson
    Randy Nelson
    06.03.2010

    Originally slated to arrive this past February, Stardock's latest strategy offering, the 4X title Elemental: War of Magic, is in beta and headed for release by September. To show off the latest build of the game, its developer/publisher summoned up the above video, which serves as a walkthrough of its basic stages -- starting out on a barren landscape and ending in ... marriage? Stardock has also delivered a new batch of screens from Elemental, which we've rounded up in the gallery below, as if by magic. %Gallery-94332%

  • Sins of a Solar Empire for $4; Mass Effect and Dragon Age bundles part of Impulse sale

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    05.28.2010

    Impulse's Memorial Day sale this weekend has Sins of a Solar Empire at the heavenly price of $4. Go buy it now -- full stop. Whatever nit-picky issues the 4X strategy title may have can be thrown out an airlock at that price point. It may lack a single-player campaign to teach the ropes of glorious galactic armada warfare, but setting up a medium-sized map using normal AI is a good place to start. Which reminds us: Gratuitous Space Battles is also on sale. Impulse also has a more mainstream space opera experience on sale with the first two chapters in the Mass Effect saga bundled for $42. Want something not involving spaceships? There's a Dragon Age: Origins bundle, which includes the original game and Awakening, for $48 -- that'll definitely keep you busy all weekend. Check out the rest of the Impulse weekend sales after the break. %Gallery-15134%

  • Stardock CEO going on modding sabbatical after Elemental ships

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    03.20.2010

    Stardock CEO Brad Wardell will take a "sabbatical" after shipping Elemental: War of Magic later this year. It's not unheard of to take some time off after shipping a major product in the industry (horrible example), but Wardell isn't traveling the world. No, instead he's having a full-on geek out: he's goin' modding. Wardell explained to Joystiq, "It's more than a vacation. For the past year I've been doing multiple jobs at once -- running Stardock, managing external game development, coding on Elemental, building a house, and writing a book. I typically start work at around 8am EST and work until around 11pm and do this every day -- seven days a week -- though recently I've been getting in some Starcraft 2 time. But it has averaged around 80 hours a week overall." The executive explains that he wants to mod Elemental to make all kinds of other games and get as much out of the Kumquat engine (the company's new game engine) and Impulse Reactor as possible. Then take those lessons and show it to other developers. He also plans to work on Civilization V mods, which uses the same mod program as Elemental. Wardell expressed the time off "won't affect Stardock's product scheduling at all," he'll still be working on stuff. A lot of that stuff just happens to be modding. [Via Big Download]

  • Mass Effect 2, Mirror's Edge highlight weekend Impulse sale

    by 
    Alexander Sliwinski
    Alexander Sliwinski
    03.19.2010

    Impulse purchasing may be in the stars this weekend if you're a PC gamer without Mass Effect 2 yet -- seriously, what are you waiting for? This weekend, Impulse has the regular and "digital deluxe" edition of Commander Shepard's suicide mission for $30 and $40, respectively. That's $20 off the regular price. Other deals include indie darling World of Goo and the experimental Mirror's Edge for $10. The full list of discounted games is after the break.