There was an article posted earlier today on PC Gamer UK outlining some of the frustrations that the reviewer had with the pre-day 0 version of the game as well as a problem he was having with tactical battles.
In the article, he quoted an inflammatory forum posting I made on a site I participate in called Quarter to Three. This is a site I’ve been a participant in for many years and many of the people I discuss things on there are personal friends of mine.
During one such exchange with my friend Ben Sones, I angrily responded with a statement “Ben, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don’t buy our games.”
This comment was totally out of line and I apologize for it. It was made in the heat of a ~2000 comment long thread and is not how I honestly feel. Ben’s a friend of mine and his comment that the game felt like a “beta” to him upset me and I responded inappropriately. I post a lot on many forums and unfortunately, sometimes the things I say are inappropriate or inflammatory.
As the CEO of Stardock, I want to be clear that my comments on the Quarter to Three forums do not reflect my team at large. They were words spoken out of frustration and sleep deprivation and I am truly sorry. We stand behind what we feel is a great product, one that we will continue to support for a number of years.
With regards to a post on Rock Paper Shot Gun, which picked up the PC Gamer UK story, they erroneously point to a 2+ year old URL to a Stardock news item that is no longer active (we switched news systems a year or so ago). Their article falsely implies that we have stepped away from our commitment to the Gamer’s Bill of Rights.
The site, www.gamersbillofrights.org was set up and is run by Stardock. We stand by it. It is, with some irony, our commitment to no DRM on our DVD release that ultimately caused the rough pre-release experience of Elemental. Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.
However, it also became clear that the pre-day 0 version of the game was problematic as outlined in the PC Gamer UK article. The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described. That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop.
I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports.
I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.
[quote who="Aractain>" reply="151" id="2733762"]Its almost like everyone had this pent up RAAAGGE about the 'unfinished game' stuff but they wouldn't dare say anything against someone 'important' (like EA or something who have far more fanbois than Stardock) so when Stardock screws thier sister (that dosn't really sound like a bad thing...) they become the perfect target even though its not as if they are the only ones.[/quote]
You dont' think anyone has said anything to EA about their games. Did you completely miss the Spore issue they had? That game might had sold well, though I still can't figure out how it did, but there weren't enough fanbois on the planet to silence the people upset over the game, not just the DRM but the actual patchwork of a game they released. Ubisoft certainly gets its fair share of rage these days, including from yours truly. Paradox is getting some flack from HOI3 too. There is plenty of rage to ago around.
Oh how could i forgoet my favorite unfinished, buggy as hell released shallow garbage put out by Cryptic? CO or STO, take your pick. They're only separate by an IP and a couple of features. I am sure the'll suck the life out of NWN too.
I supose thats not the kind of RAAGE Im talking about? When I talk about Ubis DRM, Im not calling them out to be the devil and irrelevant as a company. (Side note: starcraft II keeps going "beep beep beep beep as it discons and reconns all the time like OMFG COONECTION IS DOWN! ACHIVMENTS GONE DUDE! No wait, ITS BACK UP! ACHIVMENTS OKAY!).
Ubi is annoying, their launcher dosn't work very well and slows the launch of the games down most of the time but Im not posting on threads saying "UBI SUCK! Never buying from them again! STEAM RUUUULE!!".
I guess its fun to revel in a pile of your own rage now and then?
Edited for editness: Some guy at cryptic said "we made mistakes" with the other two and that roper guy left. Maybe they won't mess it up ... yes they will.
No publisher or developer is immune to backlash. I am not sure how Blizzard became the holy grail of the PC world, but their RealID plans certainly were not received well and they dumped part of it as result. I was a beta tester for HOMM V. That game was so horrific the week before release, the beta forums were full of angry fans who did not want to see the game released in such a state else it take the series down with it. They delayed the release but it was still released in a poor state. Stardock isn't so special even if the fans think the media has somehow targeted them. They're taking their lumps like everyone else, and maybe an extra helping because of their Gamer Bill of Rights which some question whether they practice what they preach.
Name a publisher or a developer, and there is probably some sort of shit storm in their past. The good ones will learn from the experience, the others will demonize the media and use the same execuses over and over again.
I have an extreme dislike that for that gentleman roper, and am glad to see him go. Unfortunately this industry just seems to recycle these hack jobs so he'll show up again somewhere else I am sure. After all, someone who brags about the number of MMOs he has under his belt, despite the fact most of them are not well received, certainly has his priorties straight . As for Cryptic admitting they made mistakes, they usually do... right before they are announce their next project and tell everyone to jump aboard, everything is different this time.
Hey frogboy - this reminded me of the following quote
"I had the right to remain silent, but not the ability" - Now go get some sleep already.
Well thumbs up for your appology though I've gotta say that in my eyes the start was also too early. I mean I've seen it coming back some months ago when I played the Beta, to me even v 1.05 somewhat feels like a Beta. It is rough. But I understand, you are not a giant like Blizzard - I suspect that with Blizzard Elemental would be in Beta for an additional 6 months. I get crashes every time I try to load a game while playing a game (a real bugreport will follow, I hoped it would be fixed in the day 0 version but it wasn't) and generally some controls aren't that good. With some additional time spent Elemental would have been even better, it's a great game nontheless (read: I got Starcraft 2 here but I'm playing Elemental, and maybe I will even minimize my Dragon Age Origins time for it). I consider Elemental still a work in progress but I'm confident that Stardock won't let us down.
Long time Lurker, first time poser.
Just wantet to give my 2 cents to stardock.
I live en Denmark, EU. And got the game importet. paid almost dubble for CE edition
No Regreds It is a great game with great potintial. And in time hopefully bug free
I standby frogboy and Stardock as many others.
I don't feel this game as beta. It have some problems, but with patches - all be ok. Some rebalancing work i think needed too (), and work on AI, but if you planned support this game about 2 years, or even more - i think this game will be shine like rare diamond.
Maybe players will create huge expansion pack, like Fall form Heaven for Civ., so it too will be nice. What reason for later release, if game in phase, able to playing and need in players opinion for further advance? I think it released at the proper time.
Bah PC Gamer UK can shove it in my humble opinion. I used to be a loyal reader of theirs until they started taking the piss charging £6 for their magazine and giving over bloated scores to media hyped games like Far Cry 2 and Starcraft 2. Over time they also malformed what was originally a witty approach to writing and commentary, into a distasteful air of arrogance and elitism which didn't go down well with me.
Did I mention 6 quid for a magazine? Yeah whatever PC Gamer.....
Brad, hold your head high. Don't let the media's persecution of you for having opinions stop your communications with your fans. You and Stardock are the best development house around -precisely because us fans feel like you really care.
You know they had fustrations about game and said some stuff about it that dose not full represent the situation, of the game there should been a wavier in there review that said that this game was release but its release is 0 finnal alpha style verison and is still in testing and has problems that the devloper is currently working on and then link to stardock and its forum.
and then should had things review liked about the game and things that still needed to be fixed about it to be a fair review.
if review was just a crape talk I hate review or a bias I love review its not a good review.
if it was just hate fest though I think legal actions could be taken to have it removed or corrected.
for example I run a store and if someone had bad exprince instead of stating review of what the exprince was and why it was bad and what store did to fix situation and how it finnaly turned out, that be one thing but instead made review about my store based on exrpince of a product that they bought from me that ended up not being what they wanteda nd instead of returning it or, trying to work with my store they instead started flaming and crape talking my store I could legal take action aginst them becuae the facts are not being represented correctly and its destorying my reputation that is not legal at least not here in USA.
but I think that this release of the beta has been a good thing theres been alot of bugs and issues that have been fixed, be honest the release should happened on internet way sooner then it was releaseed to the stores just for the fact that alot of stuff has been fixed and more stuff needs to be fixed.
I just got my LE copy of Elemental today. Keep up the great work Brad, and I will continue to support you guys. So very few developers these days take the risks you do. Elemental is in an investment for the future and I look forward to seeing how great you guys can make this game. Don't let others dissuade you; I can wait for greatness. Thanks again for keeping us in the loop.
I pre-ordered and downloaded early (which I appreciate). I'll be honest though and tell you that I was a bit disappointed at first. I started with the campain thinking that a guided experience would be prefered. The short chapter, the bugs, and the learning curve dulled my impression.
After playing the sandbox game though I am blown away. HOMM2 was the game that started it all for me and I have been waiting for fifteen years for a game to suck me in that way. This game is awsome, Thank You so much!!!
As for the issue of the shape of the pre-release version, it was and still is unfit for "OFFICIAL" release "From any other company than Stardock". What I mean by that is ... As the purchaser of a product, I expect it to be complete. I am not going to buy a car if I need to stop at the dealership once a week for parts that should already be on the car. In that sense Stardock should not have released the game until it was finished. I don't view version 1.05 as "finished" so the difference between the gold and day-0 versions is irrelevent, It's still not ready.
This would be unacceptable from any other company, but because Stardock is willing to break the norms to provide a great game, I am willing to overlook a flawed "OFFICIAL" release especially since I know that developement is still ongoing.
I have purchased other games that put 95% of their budget into MARKETING and really don't care what you think of the game as long as the HYPE caused you to part with your dollars. This game will stand on its own merit to become a classic and the complaints will be silenced.
You do NOT have to explain yourself! You are a CEO and a private person, not both at the same time, noone is.Whatever you say or do in your private time, in real life or in forums, has no fucking relevance to anything else! What next, are we gonna go stalk some PC Gamer journalists and go through their trash, looking for that elusive used bottle of Viagra pills? (which i'm sure many of them are on)
I cant believe they couldnt just review the game objectively and properly, a review is supposed to be about the game, nothing else. Then again I stopped reading reviews years ago, and stopped reading PC Gamer (or any gaming mag for that matter) even longer ago.
I think that was in very poor taste and offering an apology now only makes it look worse because you shoudnt have posted those comments in the first place as its very unprofessional and on the same level as forum trolling so to speak.
I have already thought this game was not going to do well and case in point in launch. I really wanted to like it but it seems i will have to wait for a while for the issues to be fixed.
In my opinion judging from soley the vidoe previews and info. the game seems really bland. the graphics while i know they were made so people on netbooks could play it...still feel rather bland as is the game world itself ...now with all the issues is said to have upon launch that is not great either!
What happend? I mean sins of the solar empire was a great game it had pretty nice graphics and was quite fun. i really hoped you had made the next game as a follow up to that as to be honest i think Sins of the Solar Empire so far is the only stardock game i have bought and really enjoyed the others i just were not that interested in.
but it doesnt bode well when you have a rough launch and in reply to an editor pointing it out..you had to flame him basically.
Sighs
also i would add sir to be careful with the way you react towards comments and all.
I have had another run in with another game developer: Derek Smart he is the founder of 3000 Ad and the Universal Combat series of games... However unlike Sins of a Solar Empire, 3000 AD has yet to make a game that was highly praised or really good. His attitude seems to be that he feels his ideas are the best in the world and refuses to listen to any of his critics concerns and instead keeps making new games that are subpar..with outdated graphics and controlls that are way too complicated... his responce is once he banned me from the forums because i had a concern about one of his games requiring a pixel shader graphics card (which i didnt have and didnt notice till after i bought the game)....!
I think its important for smaller game companies to work on their Public relations more so, if you come across as "cocky" and unable to take critisim in a civil way then it just looks bad.
Lets hope in the future you will focus on listining to feedback good or bad and then instead promising such issues will be fixed soon instead of attacking those who do not agree with you!
Stardock you have the reputation of providing great patch content and making your users happy so try to keep that up!
Please don't ever mention DSmart he will come. We don't want that. Don't ever mention him and stardock/brad in the same paragraph. They are so different it isn't even funny.
Civ IV also had misprinted discs - the play disc and the install discs were printed backwards, making installing a bit confusing.
For me, Civ IV wouldn't function at all - there was a "disc not found" error. After an hour or two I figured out what to do - I had to UPDATE THE DRM, FFS. Seriously. I had to go to the safedisc site and INSTALL IT. Only found this out to do some dude's forum post when he figured it out.
Performance was always an issue too. Even when I updated to dual core C2D a few couple of years back and an SSD the game didn't run blazing fast. It ran even worse on release - I remember that HUGE maps were unplayable for almost everyone.
Personally i think you guys did a good job. yeah there are some frustrating ui and crash bugs. its all stuff that can be fixed. the bottom line is there is a great game hiding behind all those bugs. I don't take too much stock in what others say. some people are just born to complain about everything under the sun, you fix one problem they find something else to complain about. I experience this often enough in my part time job in the hotel industry. one of my instructors once told me that you should be your own worst critic. as long as you are harder on yourself than we are on you guys, well then i would say that you are right where you need to be. besides if people are complaining about a problems prior to the release. they really should be complaining. A: they got to play the game before everyone else. B: they weren't even supposed to have it to begin with. I bought Sins like a month ago and i adore it because of its differences from every other game in the genre. So far i am loving this game and i will probably be loving it even more once you guys get some of the bigger annoyances worked out.
I only ever play on Huge maps and most my games were multiplayer with friends and family. I do remember the OOS issues, and those came back later with one of the expansions. Occasionally it pops up now too, mostly when a player hits a golden age in late game but now at least it recovers. I remember the OOS issues were pretty bad. It certainly wasn't a perfect release. I certainly didn't mean to imply that, but from what I am hearing on here compared to Civ's launch, well Direct IP made MP fun on day 1. No servers necessary. I do remember one patch made a rather large performance boost and suddenly I could see things I hadn't been able to before because i had a lower end system when it came out I think. I've been playing the game for almost 5 years straight, and having the DRM removed... sweet stuff.
Please do not change your style of communication too much. I would rather see the occasional mis-step than any of the corporate PR-BS I am so fed up of (Creative Assembly, anyone?).
I do like the open and direct way you communicate. Keep that up, please.
Oh, and I will surely buy Elemental in two or three months, when it is polished/finished. That's a promise.
Amen, brother, thank you for posting such a well thought-out post. Beyond all the independent opinions of the release state of Elemental, whether or not it is "fun," whether or not it will be "fixed," etc., the fact remains that the circumstances surrounding Elemental and most other entertainment software releases is the result of our collective behaviors as consumers. Frankly, we deserve what we get as companies will continue to release early as long as we are willing to purchase. Show me one poster on this board that would be willing to buy nearly any other product in an "unfinished state"....
Brad's apology is well-taken as he is human like us all. He clearly did not fail at that, but in my opinion he clearly failed as CEO of Stardock. As the founder of the Gamer's Bill of Rights http://www.gamersbillofrights.org/ the "boxed state" of the game is an egregious violation of precept #2. This coupled with the claim "we don't need the $$" but rushing to an August release instead of a February 2011 release combined with the fact he was clearly advised REGULARLY by many well-regarded beta testers to postpone (check their Karma) leaves an ethical-related taint not soon forgotten. Yes, Elemental WILL be improved. But in my book the company that produced it has lost signficant business credibility and no longer deserves to be at the top of my personal list of favorites.
Personal lesson for me in this-- despite being a 25-year gamer I will never, ever buy another game at initial release regardless of the company it comes from.
I didnt get EWOM at launch. I got it right as 1.06 came out and never had one crash to desktop or a tatical battle failure. I have a subscription to the US pcgamer for years and normally find their ideas and articles to be pretty well on target. However this article seems so far out in left field for me that I'm shocked. I'm loving EWOM and a look forward to the mods and updates.
Also I'd like to say I too enjoy seeing the CEO having the personnel courage to come onto the forums and post. Most companies are so detached to their public and players its really discouraging. DON'T STOP, BE YOU, MAKE GAMES YOU LIKE TO PLAY, and all the other crap will sort it self out.
Who cares about that "incident"..? Answering someone who critizise your game is not a big deal. I don't see what the fuzz is about.
It's a shame this "apology" comes after it hit media outlets. Otherwise, I might have even considered it sincere. Being on the receiving end of one of Brad's rages, I can honestly say it's a shame the CEO of a company acts like this.
I wonder what would happen if Brad was a big-company CEO?
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