14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher and developer Stardock is saying that it plans to invest some 900,000 dollars to enlarge its headquarter located in Plymouth, Michigan. The company is planning on expanding its communication infrastructure, which will allow it to resume work on Society, a hybrid between a MMO and a real time strategy that is now on hold.
Recently, Stardock's Brad Wardell has mentioned that the company is also thinking of creating role playing games. He said that the project would focus on offering “the same style of isometric gameplay” as Baldur's Gate 2, “not first-person, where I have a party that I'm interacting with. I think there are a lot of people who want that.” Apart from this statement, we have no more information on the project. Development of Society is set to begin after Elemental: War of Magic has been completed.
Stardock usually creates one videogame at one time and also collaborates with other developers on one project at a time. The Gas Powered Games made Demigod is set to be released in March by the company, while development is now in full throttle on Elemental: War of Magic, a strategy title developed internally. Its release date is somewhere early in 2010, with a beta stage set to begin during summer.
Stardock's expansion, which has seen it hire more people and develop its communication system, has been made possible by a tax break introduced by the Michigan government. The tax incentives are applicable to digital media companies, covering expenses like production costs, infrastructure investment, job creation and training.
Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, made a mention of Stardock in her State of the State speech, saying that the videogame company was one of the bright spots in an otherwise hard economic situation for Michigan.