Feb 23, 2011 20:01 GMT  ·  By

Video-game publisher and developer Stardock has announced that it had a difficult year in 2010, mainly because of the rather rocky launch process for their fantasy-based strategy title Elemental: War of Magic, but that the company is looking forward to a much brighter 2011, complete with one big announcement about the future.

Brad Wardell, who is the president and the chief executive officer of Stardock, has said that, even with the amount of work that the company is putting into Elemental, it's doubtful that the game can recover.

He said, “While War of Magic has subsequently been greatly improved, Stardock is not convinced that this title, with a 55 Metacritic average, can redeem itself.”

Stardock faced another tough launch with its arena multiplayer battle title Demigod, mainly because of network issues and piracy, but the game recovered and managed to become quite successful with a segment of players.

Wardell also says that the Impulse digital distribution platform is doing very well and that it was the most profitable part of Stardock during 2010, with about 3 million gamers using its services.

The CEO says, “Valve CEO Gabe Newell recently stated that Valve is more profitable than Apple or Google per employee. Given the per employee profit of Impulse, we believe that statement.”

In 2011 the company plans to deliver the Impulse Reactor platform, which is similar to the Steamworks suite, and the competition between the two digital distribution platforms will likely intensify.

Wardell also says that Stardock is still working on a new game engine, called Kumquat 3D, which will be specifically designed to be very open to modders and is about 18 months from completion.

There are also three big announcements linked to PC gaming that Stardock will be making during the year and fans will hope that one is linked to the very successful Galactic Civilizations series while another one deals with a new Sins of a Solar Empire game.