Stardock's new game -- Elemental: War of Magic

[Martok]

Ouch: The game received a paltry 4.0 from Gamespot.

Double ouch: Due to the game's poor state at launch, Stardock apparently has revised (downward) their projected revenue so drastically that they've had to do layoffs for the first time in twelve years. It sounds like most of the layoffs are with the second development team they'd been working on putting together, so Elemental itself shouldn't really be affected; nevertheless, this has got to be a huge setback for them.




@Decker: You're welcome.

Looks like I'll be waiting a while for this one. Good thing I got STW working on my laptop.

Heh. Indeed.

I was complaining earlier in another forum that I'd still not received my physical copy of the Limited Edition that I pre-ordered (lo these many months ago). However, given how things have gone so far, perhaps it's just as well that I haven't yet.

[Decker]

Ouch: The game received a paltry 4.0 from Gamespot.

Double ouch: Due to the game's poor state at launch, Stardock apparently has revised (downward) their projected revenue so drastically that they've had to do layoffs for the first time in twelve years. It sounds like most of the layoffs are with the second development team they'd been working on putting together, so Elemental itself shouldn't really be affected; nevertheless, this has got to be a huge setback for them.

Yeah that sucks a lot for the people getting layed off. I hope things eventually turn around. I don't own the game but I do hope and think that Stardock, and most importantly Wardell, are going to learn some very very hard lessons here and I hope that after this is all somewhat smoothed out that Stardock comes out more mature and for the better as a whole.

@Decker: You're welcome.

I am most thankful

I was complaining earlier in another forum that I'd still not received my physical copy of the Limited Edition that I pre-ordered (lo these many months ago). However, given how things have gone so far, perhaps it's just as well that I haven't yet.

Look at it this way, you get all the cool fuzz that comes with it along with Wardell's brutal honesty and promise that he and his team/company will work many sleepless months to fix the game so it is up to their vision. You will have the game at it's peak at some point in the future, so.... I'd say you have it good

[Beskar]

I think this game ended up proving my fears about it. When I first experienced the demo, I had alarm bells ringing when everything was going to the pan. Unfortunately, lack of refunds even during the beta stage and naive hope that they would end up fixing the problems never came.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Ouch: The game received a paltry 4.0 from Gamespot.

Double ouch: Due to the game's poor state at launch, Stardock apparently has revised (downward) their projected revenue so drastically that they've had to do layoffs for the first time in twelve years. It sounds like most of the layoffs are with the second development team they'd been working on putting together, so Elemental itself shouldn't really be affected; nevertheless, this has got to be a huge setback for them.

That really, really sucks for the second development team - it's not even their fault! (Or thats how it sounds.)

And I hate how Gamespot is only fair with games that don't have billion dollar PR campaigns. But that hate is mitigated by me rarely ever seeing their review scores anymore.

[Beskar]

I loved this tagline in this email I just got:


Wow! A Whole years worth of support! and "content" for a game with serious issues.

[Veho Nex]

I said the same thing when i read that.

[Xiahou]

Well, I think it's probably important for them to stress that from a marketing viewpoint. Pretty much everyone probably knows that the game has issues- so by pointing out that it's going to be getting updates for at least a year, they could help convince people who are still on the fence to buy the game.

Also, Brad has said that current owners of the game will be getting the first full expansion of the game for free as a thank you for sticking with it.

In similar news: Version 1.08 should be out next week and it sounds like MP will finally be enabled with it.

[frogbeastegg]

I loved this tagline in this email I just got

They've sent me at least 4 copies of that now. It's getting annoying.

I got one of these emails hyping up the free year of support several days before the game launched. It's not a recent addition in reaction to the disasterous launch. At the time I thought it was a badly phrased attempt to say "We're going to support this game in the same way we did GalCiv2."

In other news, Impulse now lists Elemental as 40p more expensive than it was when it appeared to be the next big bright hope for turn based strategy gaming. Hehe, first time I've seen a game near-universally panned and then go up in price! It's all thanks to exhange rates, of course. Still funny for the little "Eh?! But wasn't ...?!" moment it gave me.

[Beskar]

Oh, I just got a notice, I have to pay £15 charge for the delivery of the game.

Stardock is now on my blacklist, it is officially the worst piece of I have experienced. Not only does it create rubbish overpriced games, dreadful support and a horrible 'impulse' system which is the cheap and nasty version of Steam, it has the cheap to charge me another £15 on-top of what I have already paid?!

[Beskar]

Oh damn.. now that is really bad.

Because I pre-ordered the game, I can't get a refund. Only a refund through "Store credits". That is really annoying as I never wanted to use Impulse again.

[Xiahou]

Oh damn.. now that is really bad.

Because I pre-ordered the game, I can't get a refund. Only a refund through "Store credits". That is really annoying as I never wanted to use Impulse again.

If you bought the game during the beta period, you don't get a refund. I'm surprised they're even doing store credits, as that was made pretty clear at the time.