First let's go back to when GameStop decided to break the game's release date. Can you confirm that all GameStop stores actually broke the release date embargo? Also have you chatted with the retailer about what happened and are you planning any actions against Gamestop since the early release at the very least forced Stardock to launch their multiplayer network earlier than planned?

Yes. What happened, according to GameStop, is that Gamestop corporate set the release date correctly on their web stores but not on their brick and mortar stores.

The early release resulted in a heavier than expected strain on our connection servers partially because of legitimate customers but primarily because the retail version got leaked out early in the warez channels as a result and our validation servers (bearing in mind that this happened over the Easter holiday) weren't set up to handle that load prior to release.

Once the official release date hit (the 14th) we were able to set up a separate set of servers and release an update that put legitimate customers onto those servers at which point the connectivity dramatically improved though with the down-side that we got hit by a couple early reviews.

You have been extremely open with all the multiplayer networking issues with Demigod. Do you think some of the issues might not have gotten as much attention for the game's actual reviews if Demigod had more of a traditional single player component?

Definitely. Demigod's connectivity woes in its opening days are serious but from our experience, they are, sadly, on par for many new games. Most gamers (and until Demigod I count myself amongst them) don't realize that any sort of match-making service is only as good as its weakest part and if that part (such as a custom third party DB library) can't handle thousands of people, it's going to fail and the only solution is to rapidly expand capacity and fix the parts that fail under heavy load.

But in Demigod's case, while the game has a decent single player experience, it is much more of a multiplayer game than anything we've done before. For example, Sins of a Solar Empire, has a good multiplayer component but it too would likely have fallen over if it had the same level of MP load that Demigod has. But Sins of a Solar Empire has a lot more of a single player base.

Apparently the first week of sales for the game were very strong but have you seen any evidence that the multiplayer networking issues will affect sales down the road?

It's too early to tell. Word of mouth will ultimately determine how well the game does long-term.