Yeah, I thought he was pretty fair about the whole thing, seems to give Stardock the benefit of the doubt regarding their track record of support.

I won't go into Demigod's launch because it's something of a sore topic around here to this day. Suffice to say, the two situations only seem similar on the surface but behind the scenes the only thing they have in common is that the word Stardock was on both boxes.

With Elemental and future releases, as a practical matter, it's a relatively moot issue because in another year, digital will surpass retail in terms of sales. Our plan going forward is going to be to essentially keep games in beta for much longer amounts of time until not only do we think they're done but that they're basically way beyond a "1.0" version.

This is what we do with our non games already.  For instance, we released ObjectDock v2 this week. This is a program that will likely generate in its various forms millions of dollars in revenue.  But there's no drama in its launch because, realistically, the program was "done" in "beta" last Spring but we simply kept it out in beta months later until we felt it most advantageous for us to release.

By contrast, on games, we had to pick between August and February because our schedules have to meet the needs of retailers and those were our two dates. And while we thought Elemental was ready for the August date, that decision also meant that the beta closed. If we had had a public beta 5, it would have been obvious that our QA had missed some key things and it would have been no biggie to just push the date back. 

Hence, what would happen with Elemental under the new system is that we would have had a beta 5 and it would likely have gotten released in say November with it not becoming available at retail until February still.

For all the grief we have gotten on Elemental, I think some people need to take a step back and realize that not many developers are making new games anymore for the PC and ask themselves why.

Since Elemental's release I've seen people assert that we're either incompetent, greedy, dishonest, or uncaring (or all of the above). I have a hard time respecting anyone who takes such a facile position.  The answer is, making a brand new game for the PC in 2010 is a significant engineering challenge.  Just something to think about when you're buying <Game franchise> <sequel number>: <sub-sequel title> <sub-sequel number>.

Frogboy, might I suggest that you could be well-served by sending a friendly email like that to tycho@penny-arcade.com?

I think this is good plan, but I will keep supporting you guys for as long as you stay DRM free. I will even buy if you just shit in the box just to make a point how much I hate DRM.

I think of 1.1 as a sequel of sorts.  After all, magic is changing, and we've had a lot of changes since 1.0 (not just fixes).  By my logic, Stardock will be putting an 'expansion' out within 3 months of the original, just in time for Holiday shopping (assuming November for 1.1).  Let's see other companies do that!

With that, I guess it's time to get this out of the way:

Hi, my forum name is tjashen, and I am an unabashed Stardock fanboy!

Nice WWII quote there   Well I personally preordered to support SD and support the games growth, it was a way to be part of something special, as I know Elemental will one day become.

Majesty 2 the fantasy kingdom had some excellent easy-to-reach options that slowed down a game significantly. I think the slowest was 0.1 normal speed (0.5 also existed, and of course "1"). I always thought it was a great idea to include that in an RTS.

Some rts games also support being paused.

I disagree.  But I think we may be thinking about two different things.

I think it vitally important that people support companies who do_things_right.  I believe that the only real representative vote I have in this country, is how I spend my money.   I don't support destructive logging practices so I buy lumber harvested through sustainable forestry.  I don't support the rape, pillage, and murder practices of outfits like chiquita (formerly known as the united fruit company and still doing the same heinous crap!).  So I buy Fair Trade certified products.  I don't like the societal and environmental consequences of Americas corporate farming, so most of my produce purchase comes from local markets versus mainstream market.  etc.    

It seems increasingly difficult to avoid blood diamond purchases.  It appears that outfits who do things proper are few and far between.  So it has become very important to me to understand the consequences of my consumption.  To buy from outfits who do not use the proceeds to finance fucked up things.  The purchase of a blood diamond, would make me just as culpable in the crime of genocide, as those who actually pull the triggers and swing the machetes. 

Now of course, voting with my wallet against invasive DRM schemes, rates pretty low as compared to voting against chiquitas funding of terrorist organizations; or the bribing of Colombian officials to take military action for a corporate land grab.   But it's the same paradigm.  I don't like how take-two and 2k games handled Civ5's DRM so I didn't buy the game despite my love for the Civ franchise.  I do however support Stardocks view on DRM so I took a look at Elemental and decided thats where I would put my money.  It goes beyond the game though.  I value Stardocks post sale support.  I value their openess.  I appreciate that they are an independant company free from share holder motivations.  ++  I am inclined to support Stardock products because I generally like how they do business.  In a market full of outfits doing things poorly; the ones who do it right stand out to me.  I am tired of dealing with things done wrong.  I want to empower those who do it right.  I want to help them to grow into the new fat cats.  I want the others to be driven to follow suit or die... shrivel up and wither on the vine for lack of watering.   

On the other side of the scale...  The basic politics and deeds of a companies CEO does not impact my purchase decisions.  I don't care who you voted for president, what your political stance on topic X is, where you shop, how you spend your time... what baseball team you root for if any.  That tabloid BS that you are subjected has no impact on my purchase decisions.  From the tabloid perspective I can understand why you "don't really like the idea of people supporting corporations" (vs supporting a product).  The other stuff I talked about is a different matter.  I think it very important that people become aware of the consequences of their consumption.  Supporting wholesome business practices while boycotting parasitic profiteering; is a very different thing than supporting corporations based on a company officials moral, political, or social ideals.