The big sleeper hit for PC games in 2008 is without question Sins of a Solar Empire. The space strategy game from developer Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock spent a number of weeks early this year on the top 10 best seller lists. Today Gamasutra reports that the game has sold over 500,000 units; 400,000 of those sales came from retail stores and over 100,000 units were from digital download sales. The game itself cost less than a million dollars to create.

Besides just being a great game, Sins is also designed to run on older PCs. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell stated that the game could have had the ships' turrets move but that would have required the game to have a higher hardware system to run properly. He states, "You make those kinds of design decisions, and you greatly increase the number of people who can play your game. You lose out on some piddly super-mega effect, but you get those units. The results come in sales." Last week it was announced that instead of a full expansion pack, mini-digital expansions for Sins of a Solar Empire will be released for $9.99 each, beginning in December.