impulse-reactor posts

Stardock has announced as part of GDC 2011 that its Impulse::Reactor game development tools will soon be able to support microtransactions for PC games. The new features will be added to the tools in an upcoming update for Impulse:Reactor's beta testers later this month.

The new features will allow any game developer who uses Impulse::Reactor to add support for microtransactions in the game without the need for a separate client software tool such as Valve's Steamworks. In a phone conversation with Stardock CEO Brad Wardell last week he told Big Download that Stardock would get 30 percent of all the revenues generated by games using the Impulse::Reactor microtransaction features.

So will any of Stardock's current and upcoming games use these new features? Stardock's PR head told us today, "Right now the migration has begun, but we'll be announcing which titles are ready when the time comes." Impulse::Reactor, originally scheduled to be made to all game developers in 2010, is now scheduled to be released in full in the summer of 2011.

There's just a few days left before the end of February 2011 but there's a few (actually a lot) of PC game sales that will make the last days of the month fly by:

• Steam has cut the prices of all of the games it has in the Command and Conquer series by 75 percent off.
• Direct2Drive has cut the price of all of the MMO games in its lineup by 15 percent this weekend if you use the promo code "hotpockets" at check out.
• Impulse has a number of games on sale this weekend, including 50 percent off its Might and Magic V bundle. Also for today only it has MySims on sale for 50 percent off and the FPS Chrome for $5.
• GamersGate has a lot of Atari published games on sale for up to 60 percent off this weekend.
• Games For Windows Marketplace has Tropico 3 Gold Edition on sale this next week for just $14.99.

While the Impulse PC game download service from Stardock doesn't have as big of a market share of that business compared to Valve's Steam service, Impulse is still doing very well for Stardock, according to the company's recently released annual customer report. According to Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, "In 2010, Impulse experienced phenomenal growth, becoming Stardock's most profitable business unit."

While specific revenue numbers were not revealed in the report, Wardell did state that Impulse had about 3 million users. For 2011 Wardell states in the report that it plans to focus its efforts on working on the previously announced Impulse: Reactor game development tools. The tools, which have most of the same features as Valve's Steamworks (including in-game achievements, DLC support and more) do not require a client download to work.

It's been an interesting week for game developer and publisher Stardock. On Tuesday Big Download was the first to announce that the company had hired Jon Shafer, formerly of Firaxis Games and the lead designer behind Civilization V, to come on board Stardock to continue to develop the company's 2009 released turn-based strategy game Elemental War of Magic. Stardock also announced it had hired former Pocket Book editor Dave Stern to the team to expand on the game's lore.

Things were not looking as bright back in August as Elemental's launch hit a brick wall due to numerous bugs that were not discovered even after months of beta testing. Stardock laid off some of its team members a few weeks afterward as it tried to fix the problems. Stardock remains committed to Elemental with at least two paid expansions planned along with more free updates.

At the center off all this is Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, one of the most open and available game developers and executives to both the media and fans. Big Download got Wardell to answer some more questions about Elemental's future. Wardell, as usual, is honest about how Elemental could actually turn from a profitable game to one that will lose money and how he is OK with that if it happens. He also updates us on other topics, including his Impulse PC game download service.

Just four more days until The Big Day arrives. But until that magical time why not relax with some cool PC game sales. Today we have some one day only sales along with a special deal for a cool upcoming game:

• The FPS-RTS game Natural Selection 2 is selling two copies of the game for the price of one ($34.95) for a limited time. The price includes access to the current beta test for both copies.
• Direct2Drive has the racing game Blur on sale for one day only for $14.95.
• Impulse has put Avencast: Rise of the Mage on sale today only for just $3.75.
• GamersGate has put Real Warfare: 1242 on sale today only for $7.99.
• Telltale Games has put the full season of Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People on sale today only for $9.95.

Direct2Drive's daily sales even continues by offering another 2K Games-based PC game on the price chopping block. For the next day or so you can pick up Gearbox Software's first person shooter Borderlands Game Of The Year Edition (with the original game and all four mini-expansions) for just $24.95, a 50 percent price cut.

Impulse's daily sales event is for Gish, the cool platform action game from one of the creators of Super Meat Boy. You can get the game for today only for $9.95, another 50 percent price cut. And don't forget that Deus Ex Game of the Year Edition is just 99 cents from now until 1 am Eastern time.

The troubled launch of Stardock's turn-based strategy game Elemental: War of Magic will be getting yet another patch sometime later this week. According to a post from Stardock's Brad Wardell on the game's official message boards, the 1.08 patch will finally enable the game's online multiplayer features that have so far not been available to the game's players.

The 1.08 patch will also have a number of bug fixes, performance improvements, some weapon balance changes and more. Also folks who have purchased Wardell's Random House-published novel Elemental: Destiny's Embers will be able to download some of the exclusive in-game content via the download code that can be found in the book. Wardell adds, "A lot of the internal "exciting" work has been going on with regards to modding the mod gallery is expected to go up in the next week or two along with easier in-game submissions of mods that aren't maps."

Last week's release of Stardock's turn-based strategy game Elemental: War of Magic had issues out of the box. While many of those issues have been fixed with some post-release patches, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell is now admitting the game had a "disastrous launch" and that it was "the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part."

Wardell states that it would not have changed anything to delay the release of the game, saying, "It was blindness, sheer blindness. We felt the game was finished. And I speak of v1.0, not v1.05. Blindness." He says that Elemental's launch will have "massive consequences for Stardock's game studio" but so far specifics were not mentioned.

In related news, the latest patch (1.07) for Elemental has been released via the Impulse client. The patch notes go into detail on the number of performance improvements and bug fixes in the game.

The team at developer Stardock continues to issue new improvements and bug fixes for its just released turn-based strategy game Elemental: War of Magic. Late on Thursday, two days after the planned "day 0" patch for the game, the latest patch for the game (version 1.06) is now available to download via the Impulse client.

The patch notes are quite extensive but there are quite a few gameplay balance changes in this new version including an increase in the cost of weapons "in terms of gold and materials." There are also lots of bug fixes, including one where a "white screen" would pop up in tactical battles for PCs with certain hardware configurations. The 1.06 patch, however, is not compatible with save games from earlier versions

It's hot, humid and in some places dry here in the US. Time to stay inside in an air conditioned den or office and play some PC games. If you want to get some titles to add to your collection but have little money here's some suggestions:

• As we reported earlier this week GamersGate has a ton of action games on sale for as much as 75 percent off.
• Also as previously reported, Steam has a Booster Trooper free weekend and 50 percent sale his weekend along with the QuakeCon 2010 bundle of 27 games for just $69.99.
• Impulse has a number of games on sales this weekend including Command and Conquer 4 and Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 for just $14.99 each.
• GoG.com has the two Phantasmagoria games on sale in a bundle for 30 percent off or each for 15 percent off.
• EA's online store has three EA racing games on sale: Need For Speed Shift for $22.46, Burnout Paradise for $7.49 and Need For Speed Undercover for a mere $4.97
• Direct2Drive has Men of War on sale for just $7.50 all this week.