society posts

Sins of a Solar Empire was a big sleeper hit for developer Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock back in 2008. Recently a major new patch for the game and its two micro-expansions was released. But it sounds like Ironclad and Stardock are prepping up plans for a major follow-up for the space strategy game.

In the just released annual Stardock customer report, company CEO Brad Wardell states, "We will also be making some important announcements regarding Sins of a Solar Empire in 2011." That's about as close as he would come to admitting a sequel is in the works. The report also states that Stardock's gaming/entertainment division "anticipates making 3 big announcements in 2011 concerning its future plans for the PC."

The annual report also goes into some detail over the issues surrounding the launch in 2010 of Stardock's fantasy turn-based strategy game Elemental War of Magic. As we have reported before, Stardock has hired new team members and is developing an all new stand alone game, Elemental Fallen Enchantress, which Wardell states in the report shares little from the original game apart from some art assets. Wardell also states that Stardock is still looking to hire a "seasoned lead developer" for Stardock's game studio.

Finally there's a small update on the long-in-development free-to-play MMO Society which was first announced by Stardock several years ago. In the customer report, Wardell states, "The project has not had full funding yet and the company is considering creating a new business unit dedicated to Society to allow for more partners on this ambitious project."

[Via email press release]

Developer Stardock has had a rocky 2010 thanks to the issues that surrounded the launch of its fantasy turn-based strategy game Elemental War of Magic. However in a new post this week, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell revealed the company's tentative future plans for development of its internal game studios. All of Stardock's future games will be based on its in-house Kumquat game engine.

As previously announced Stardock will continue to update Elemental while also making new stand alone games such as Elemental Fallen Enchantress and a third unnamed game. The roadmap also shows that Stardock plans to make an RPG game based on the Elemental universe at some point. Wardell states, "This year we will begin to reconstitute this team as we bring in a lead studio developer and some senior developers to help ensure that we don't have another War of Magic episode." The long-in-development MMORTS game Society is still in the works and there are other unnamed games that are scheduled for release in 2013 and 2014 that are not connected to the Elemental franchise.

Finally there's "Mod Layer" which Wardell states will be a way for anyone to make games using its Kumquat engine. He says, "The idea is to create a piece of middleware between Kumquat and future games that would allow people to make games using mostly Python." He plans to take his long mentioned sabbatical from Stardock to develop "Mod Layer and says that when its done" ... modders can easily create a wide assortment of games that are either 2D or 3D and potentially portable to (at the very least) Xbox Live Arcade and Windows Phone."

By the way this roadmap does not include third party games that Stardock might or might not publish. Wardell states, " ... this doesn't count future titles from our partner Ironclad who developed Sins of a Solar Empire nor does it address next steps in the Demigod franchise."

Last week we had a feature article that took a look at many PC games that are currently being developed in near secrecy with little to no info on what those games are actually like. However, there also also a number of games that have been fully announced, with screenshots, trailers and more and yet even after years of waiting (and in case of one game over a decade) we are still awaiting those titles to finally be released. These are the games that we have decided to put in our Vaporware Vault.

Sometimes a game is officially announced and can ship to stores inside of a year (in a very quick turnaround, Electronic Arts officially announced Need For Speed Undercover in August and it's set for release in November). Sometime it can be two years between the game's reveal and its appearance in stores. However we have seen games take much, much longer. For example the original Max Payne game was announced in 1997 but wasn't released until 2001. The just released Spore was first revealed in March 2005. Valve's Team Fortress 2 was first announced in 1998 but the final, and much changed, version didn't get released until 2007.

So what PC games are we still waiting on? Quite a few and they come from developers both big and small. Our criteria for inclusion in our list of tardy games is that they must have been officially revealed in 2006 or later and that they are not scheduled for release until at least 2009. Many of these games have had little to no info on their status since their initial announcement. The reasons for their delays are sometimes unknown. Yet they all have one thing in common besides having their release dates pushed back. They all could be terrific games. We begin our feature with the grand champion of delayed PC games, Duke Nukem Forever

Click on the image above to continue reading "The PC Games We Are Still Waiting On"

Is PC gaming dead? Not if Stardock and its CEO Brad Wardell have anything to say about it. The company has developed and published its own games like the Galactic Civilizations and Political Machine series but has also been an online and retail publisher on a large number of third party games. Last February, Stardock and developer Ironclad Games shocked the industry with the sales success of Sins of a Solar Empire. The space strategy title got great reviews as expected but no one expected the game to be a huge sales success as well, staying on the NPD Group's top 10 sales list for PC game software for over three months straight.

But that;s not all Stardock is doing. Their just released 2008 update to The Political Machine also has the debut of Impulse, the company's new digital download service for games that's also aiming to simplify how PC gamers install and play games in general. The company already has agreements in place with Epic Games, THQ and other developers and publishers to use their platform.

Big Download got a chance to ask Wardell a number of Stardock related questions, including some updates for Sins, their plans for Impulse, The Political Machine 2008, and some hints about Stardock's future game plans.