A question for Brad Wardel, if I may ask.

If you buy it now, you'll get a discount on the expansion, you won't get it for free.

Hi there!

Re Fallen Enchantress -- anyone who purchases War of Magic before Fallen Enchantress is released will get a discount. We haven't decided on pricing yet so I can't say how much of a discount yet. That's something for the publishing team to figure out in the coming weeks.

Re The game itself, I think there was beyond an excessive level of melodrama with this game. At the end of the day, it is a video game. It came out and suffered some pretty serious bugs that had gotten past our QA. The most serious were addressed within a very short time after release. But there's no dancing around the fact that we screwed up the launch of one of the most anticipated games of 2010. It's something that has had far reaching effects on Stardock.  

Historically, games aren't our main business. I.e. they don't pay our bills. After the failure of Elemental's launch, we needed to either treat the games unit as a "real business" or get rid of it entirely.  It wasn't an easy decision. You read some of the malicious comments on news items on various sites and it's easy to think "Why are we spending money making PC games when the margins on our other stuff are so high without the drama? Why are we putting up with this crap?"  But in the end, we decided that it was time to treat the games unit as a "real" business unit and reorganize it. That meant bringing in serious talent to start running it. I.e. dedicated leadership brought by people like Derek and Jon for instance.

The real problem with Elemental and Civilization V isn't that they're "bad games" but rather they didn't meet the expectations of our mutual core fans.  I can't speak for how 2K will deal with that but for us, it matters what our fan base thinks. It matters a lot to us. That's why we're giving the two expansions to our early adopters.

Now, as for what the game is like right now? I'd say it's a decent game imo. It's not a great game. It's no where near a classic. It's probably about as good today as Galactic Civilizations 1 was.  

If I were in your shoes, it would really come down to cost. The game's $39.95 right now from us.  With the Christmas season over, there's likely some retailers with some good post-Christmas sales on it.

Hope this helps.

It's honest replies like this that keep me interested in elemental, and a supporter of Stardock.  I don't think there is another game studio/publisher, where the CEO would answer any question let alone a loaded question the likes of the original poster.

Bravo Brad.  Thanks for caring.

-Zanzibar

I must concur. It is a refreshing change from most forums.

It's great to hear some honest and humble answers for some tough questions that can't be easy to answer.

I also like that differing views and abject criticism of the game are generally tolerated well here.

Keep up the good work Brad and Stardock.

Zanzibar nailed it right on the head. Couldn't have said it better myself. Stardock and Brad are awesome.

Don't pay $80 for the limited edition. I would probably reccommend waiting until Fallen Enchantress since it's a standalone and so you don't need to buy the original at all. Unless you really want to jump on the wagon now. Me I can't play the game right now, there's not enough life to the world or depth of strategy. It doesn't keep my interest so I'm sticking with Dwarf Fortress until FE comes out. That said it's really not a bad game anymore, there's some substance there but it still needs alot of work and I don't think things will get very interesting for me until FE. But Brad is telling you straight. So listen to him too. Hope that helps. And well you're waiting maybe you should check out dwarf fortress if you've never tried it. It's free.

Its stuff like this that has me hooked to stardock now, for better or worse (for the rest of you:))

you go froggy-poo!!

This place is like the Twilight Zone.

Roar!

The talent hired to further evolve Elemental has me extremely excited.  I can't wait to see how all of this unfolds. 

Ok, I will get the game. As much as I want that Dragon, I will buy it off Stardock. EB is still selling it for $50, and when I called them they said it's a corporate decision and they can't change the price. I will get this game now espicially for your honesty. I don't care if this is the best game ever, I just want to have fun.

As an example, Masters of Orion III was pretty bad at launch, but it was fun to play at least for me for a while. So now that you say it's a good game, not a great game, doesn't bother me. All I am looking for is a good game. It's time to go to bed soon, so tomorrow after I wake up, I will get this game of Impulse. For $40, that is a reasonable price.

Thank you for your honestey and candor. This is why I love Stardock.

Methinks you were going to buy it anyways, and didn't really need to ask.  ;)

But it's fine that he did.

Best regards,
Steve

Actually I wasn't going to buy the game. I really really wanted to get it, but I was very leary of paying $85 for it since I was going to get the Limited Edtion of the game. I really try now and do my homework before I buy a game.

After reading that Brad said I should get the regular download copy instead of the Limited Edtion, I that is what sold me. He could have said, NO get the LE. Spend more money. I loved his honesty about the game. I don't care if Elemental is not the best game, but a good game. That is what he said. So if before he told people not to buy it and wait, which I did, and now he said it's a good game now, better than it was released, I like that honesty. Even if I don't like the game, I can support someone who is honest and can say "Sorry, I screwed up." I respect that.

This is what got me off the fence to get the game. I was about too not get Elemental, and just wait for the expansion, but his honesty and candor, I like, so I will support Star Dock.

Yep, totally agree. I like this game too, so much tech to research

 Awesome... once you get over the learning curve you will find more than a little enjoyment with the game. ^^ Don't forget to check out the modders threads on the EWoM forums, there are more than a few exeptionally talented fans who have given EWoM -ALOT- more substance & flare.

Good honest answer - nice to hear from a CEO who responds and doesn't give trot out PR mush...

Check out some of the mods when you do get the game.  They add a lot of flavor to the game and make it that much better.   Welcome to the community.

By the way, talking about mod, I though that Stardock was going to "incorporate" them wih their own in the lauch menu... is it me that had hallucination or will they eventually put them in the downloadable menu?

I'd just like to say I'm glad you guys didn't decide to shut down the games division entirely.  The Elemental launch may have been a pretty high profile misfire, but it would've sucked if the games division at Stardock was one of the casualties.  Flawed or not, the games you guys make are virtually impossible to find from other studios these days.

You sort of can. However, it's only maps right now. I think they may do it at some point, but it would require a bit of work (and mods would have to change somehow to incorporate a new system). In other words, don't expect it any time soon .

I will check out the mods guys.