The Ironclad developed and Stardock published real time space strategy title Sins of a Solar Empire went over 400,000 boxes sold, while the digital download version of the game was ordered by more than 100,000 people. With combined sales of more than 500,000 units, the game is a surprising success taking into account the fact that its development cost less that 1 million dollars.

Brad Wardell, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Stardock, has talked to Gamasutra about the reasons why the game is so successful and he zeroed in on the fact that it plays well on a wide variety of systems.

Wardell mentioned that the developers had a very clear image of what gamer would like to play Sins of a Solar Empire. They determined that the audience would be more interested in tactical variety and in depth than in flashy graphics and in big explosions.

His example is that the turrets of the capital ships do not move in the game, even as they target moving enemy ships. Making them mobile would have meant that the hardware needed to play the game would have been much more high end. Making the game playable on lower end systems was much more important than graphic effects like moving turrets, so the developers dropped it.

Brad Wardell also said that “You make those kinds of design decisions, and you greatly increase the number of people who can play your game. You lose out on some piddly super-mega effect, but you get those units. The results come in sales”.

The game is to receive a couple of mini expansions which will bulk up various aspects such as defensive tactics. The first one, Entrenchement, is set to arrive on November 8 and will cost 9.95 $. The mini expansions will be made available via the Impulse digital download service from Stardock.