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August 26th, 2010, 12:00 GMT · By

Stardock CEO Apologizes for Elemental Outburst

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The CEO of independent developer and publisher Stardock has apologized for the way he responded to criticism of his new strategy video game, Elemental: War of Magic, saying that he has hurt the loyal fan base who have helped his company deliver the title.

Brad Wardell, who is the Chief Executive of Stardock, has told Joystiq that, “It should be said that some of the issues in question from the PC Gamer 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.”

He then went on to add to his apology, saying, “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.”

PC Gamer published a very straight forward article in which the magazine staff recommended players not to pick up Elemental: War of Magic because of the issues the game has, saying that they are also holding back finishing their review until bugs are fixed.

Elemental: War of Magic is a pretty complex video game that has been in development for and beta testing for some time.

Those players who pre ordered the title received access to the beta stage and were able to offer feedback and deliver bug reports, with quite a few of them opting to do so judging from the activity on the official forums.

Elemental: War of Magic was launched without any Digital Rights Management, with Wardell saying that he aims to persuade players to pick up the game from Stardock rather than pirate it by delivering constant updates.

Most of the players commenting on Elemental are acknowledging its huge potential but still maintain that the game needs a lot of work, mainly in the bug fixing department, before it can fulfil it.

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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: BoydofZINJ on 26 Aug 2010, 18:16 UTC reply to this comment

I thought I posted this.... hmmm....


I have been looking at this game for years already. I am truely disapointed such a great company has had a terrible launch. I have seen the beta videos and the beta information right before launch. It looks unpolished and unfinished. I am a ***HUGE*** fan of strategy games like Civilization and GalCiv II. Sins of a Solar Empire was alright... but more RTS than the "One more Turn" type game; however, I loved it too! The game came out on Tuesday, I got paid on Thursday. I decided to wait until Thursday for this game. I had this feeling... looking at the pre-launch information that the game was not finished and not polished.

I loved Master of Magic (the old DOS MOM). However, there is NO excuse for releasing games in such bad shapes. We as the people expect more. We have companies like Blizzard who are willing to put games on hold for DECADES before releasing it. When it is released the tweaks are very minor (a small difference of damage type of one unit versus the old damage type of an a minor hp adjusment or a -3 second train time....) Even though Mass Effect 2 is not a strategy type game, it was a very polished and clean game at release.

I know every company is different and money DOES become an issue. However, Stardock is no small nickle and dime operation. Stardock, IMHO, is one of the top computer gaming companies in the world. If Blizzard released StarCraft 2 or Diablo 3 or the new WOW expansion in the same state as Elemental... we will have riots in some parts of the country. I am not trying to say Blizzard is a perfect company and I am not trying to do a Blizzard versus Stardock rant.

I have played other games from lots of companies. I am a huge Star Trek fan, by the way. When Cryptic put the word out about Star Trek Online. I love MMOs and I am tired of seeing only elves and dwarves in a MMO, and I did not like EvE Online. I always felt it needed more customization. When I heard of Star Trek Online and heard you can BEAM down and their starships were VERY customizable and it had PvP.... I went for it. The game LOOKED good - looks can be deceiving. However, it went downhill fast. That game, at launch was a pile of BLEH and was terrible... IMHO.... I stopped playing it within 4 days of launch and I hear it is a ghost town nowadays.

It is a great game, has allot of potential. Now the CD and the box are a paper weight in my room. Launches make or break a game. A single player game is a one time catch. However, it does mean in the future I will avoid Stardock. Stardock's last big game, Demigod, was bad at launch. I knew that so I stayed away from this launch as well. Was I right or wrong? Hopefully, the game will get better. IF I have time and IF it gets better I may play it... MAYBE. chances are I will take a greater chance in the upcomming Civilization V or something else....


Comment #2 by: Jmn on 27 Aug 2010, 06:44 UTC reply to this comment

Having to wait for a game to be finished.. even after its release date simply tells me that ill end up focusing my time on another game instead.

The outburst that was done by the CEO of the company.. well.. maybe they are not INDIE ant all, maybe they are just a bad and small gaming company trying to mask themselves as indie.

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