Stardock

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Stardock Corporation

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1991
Seat Livonia (Michigan) (1991)
Plymouth (Michigan) , United States (2005) United StatesUnited States 
management Brad Wardell
Number of employees approx. 35 (May 2011)
sales $ 15 million (2009)
Branch Software development
Website http://www.stardock.com/

Stardock Headquarters in Plymouth, Michigan (2011)
Brad "Frogboy" Wardell, founder of Stardock (2007)

The Stardock Corporation is a software development company founded in 1991 , which was reorganized as Stardock Systems in 1993 . Stardock originally developed for the OS / 2 platform, but was forced to switch to Windows due to the collapse of the OS / 2 software market in 1997/98 . The company is known on the one hand for programs that allow modification or expansion of existing GUIs , and on the other hand for self-developed computer games , especially computer strategy games such as the Galactic Civilizations series or Sins of a Solar Empire . Stardock was a pioneer in digital distribution solutions , but its own Impulse platform was unable to position itself sufficiently on the market in the long term.

history

Stardock was founded by college student Brad Wardell as a PC company, which soon expanded into the field of software development.

OS / 2 era (1993-2001)

Stardock's first software product was the computer game Galactic Civilizations for OS / 2. Stardock never made any income with it, as they were cheated by the publisher, but created a market for later expansion packages, e.g. B. the Shipyards extension. Stardock also licensed the game under the title Star Emperor for publication as part of the Family FunPak to IBM , of which a considerable number were sold again. Stardock then created the OS / 2 Essentials and its successor Object Desktop , with which the company was able to build a broad user base.

During this time, IBM also decided to give up the OS / 2 platform, but without making this public. Stardock therefore continued to develop games for OS / 2 such as Avarice and Entrepreneur . With the appearance of Windows NT 4 , however, Stardock found that the customer base was gradually dwindling and was now forced to reinvent himself as a Windows developer; but not without first losing a lot of money and personnel. The crucial point was the commercial failure of the Trials of Battle game , a 3D hovercraft fighting game that Stardock had expected to sell in the millions but could only sell a few hundred. Brad Wardell estimated that the death of OS / 2 had set the company back three years.

Windows Era (1998 to the present)

The new, smaller Stardock aimed heavily at the existing old user base, hoping that they would buy the Windows version of the Object Desktop , in positive anticipation of the product yet to be created. With the creation of a basic package (also containing old OS / 2 favorites) Stardock began to develop new products with external developers.

Stardock's first major Windows success was WindowBlinds . In 2001 the widget creation and desktop modification tool DesktopX was added, based on Alberto Riccio's VDE. In 2003, Stardock became a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with the “ Designed for Windows ” certificate for WindowBlinds .

Digital distribution

Stardock was one of the first companies to rely on their own freely available client for software sales . The first variant was called Component Manager , which was later replaced by Stardock Central . In 2008, this was expanded into the digital distribution platform Impulse , which, in addition to the acquisition, also enabled the integrated patching and installation of purchased products on several own computers. Stardock's vision for Impulse was to create a general platform for computer games, both for their own titles, the titles of smaller studios and games from larger publishers. Stardock also allowed the use of a less intrusive version of SecuROM on Impulse.

In May 2011, however, Stardock sold Impulse to the game retailer GameStop . After selling Impulse to Gamestop, Stardock began offering its own titles via alternative and formerly rival distribution platforms such as Steam .

Computer games

Stardock's successes in the Windows computer game market were rather mixed. In the beginning, the company's own games were marketed by third parties: The Corporate Machine ( Take 2 ), Galactic Civilizations ( Strategy First ) and The Political Machine 2004 ( Ubisoft ). Although all three titles sold well, Stardock was dissatisfied with the proceeds. In the case of Galactic Civilizations , publisher Strategy First owed the company large sums of money as the company went bankrupt. This finally convinced Stardock to publish his own titles himself. Due to the success of its desktop applications, Stardock was able to finance its own PC games without any further donors. After the sales success of Galactic Civilizations II , Stardock began to appear as a publisher for products from other studios.

The first game published by Stardock was Sins of a Solar Empire . Stardock and Ironclad Games made an unusual arrangement, both companies integrated their teams on all levels. This cooperation was successful, the game achieved an average rating of 88 out of 100 on Metacritic and became a top seller in sales.

The second externally developed game, which Stardock released in 2009, was Demigod by Gas Powered Games , which was only moderately successful.

In the third quarter of 2010, Stardock was forced to lay off employees in connection with the sale of the Impulse platform because Elemental: War of Magic , a Master of Magic- inspired 4X game , received poor ratings and sold unexpectedly poorly. Brad Wardell apologized to the fans for the disappointed expectations, took the blame for the poor quality control and promised to have learned from the mistakes for the future. Since 2010, Stardock has been working on the basis of Elemental: War of Magic on a new game called Elemental: Fallen Enchantress , with which lost customer trust is to be regained; For example, buyers of Elemental: War of Magic (depending on the date of purchase) get the new game at a discount or even for free. The game was released on October 23, 2012 and received significantly better ratings than War of Magic.

Developed games

Web links

Commons : Category: Stardock  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dustin Walsh: Super-secure IT center becomes economic-development tool ( English ) In: Crain's Detroit Business . March 14, 2010. Retrieved March 30, 2010.
  2. ↑ a b Alice O'Connor: Stardock: Impulse 'was consuming the rest of the company ( English ) shacknews.com. March 22, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  3. ↑ Alistair Wallis: Stardock's Wardell Talks GalCiv , Indie Power ( English ) Gamasutra . July 27, 2007. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  4. ↑ Simon Carless: Q&A: Stardock's Wardell Talks Distribution Revolution With Impulse (English) , gamesetwatch.com. April 8, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2012. 
  5. ↑ GameStop Announces Acquisition of Spawn Labs and Agreement to Acquire Impulse, Inc. . GameStop. March 31, 2011. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
  6. ↑ Christopher Grant: GameStop indulges in buying some impulses ... no seriously, it bought pulses (and Spawn Labs) ( English ) In: Joystiq . AOL . March 31, 2011. Archived from the original on January 31, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
  7. ↑ Adam Smith: After Impulse Sale, Stardock Comes To Steam ( English ) In: Rock, Paper, Shotgun . November 17, 2011. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  8. ↑ Gamasutra 'Postmortem' April 5, 2006 ( English ) Gamasutra . April 5, 2006. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
  9. ↑ Top Selling PC Games April 2006 (English) . Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. 
  10. ↑ Gamasutra Sins of a Solar Empire post-mortem. (English) , Gamasutra. 
  11. ↑ The Sun Rises for Sins of a Solar Empire (English) . In: www.gamedaily.com . 
  12. ↑ Graham Smith: Review: Demigod ( English ) In: PC Gamer . May 14, 2009. Archived from the original on February 2, 2010. Retrieved June 1, 2009.
  13. ↑ Jason Ocampo: Demigod Review (English) , IGN . April 17, 2009. Retrieved June 1, 2009. 
  14. ↑ Frogboy: Demigod: So what the hell happened? (English) . May 18, 2009. Archived from the original on August 16, 2011 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 1, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / frogboy.impulsedriven.net 
  15. ↑ Elemental: War of Magic PC , on Metacritic .com: "53 out of 100 from 19 critics" (English, December 15, 2012)
  16. ↑ Brad Wardell (posted as Frogboy): Any truth to the rumor on shacknews? ( English ) In: Stardock Forums . September 3, 2010. Retrieved September 4, 2010.
  17. ↑ Anthony Gallegos: Elemental: War of Magic Review ( English ) IGN Entertainment . September 7, 2010. Retrieved September 18, 2010.
  18. ↑ Kyle Horner: Elemental: War of Magic ( English ) In: GamePro . September 8, 2010. Archived from the original on September 11, 2010. Retrieved on September 18, 2010.
  19. ↑ Ben Gilbert: Stardock CEO calls Elemental launch 'disastrous,' promises to do better ( English ) In: Joystiq . September 3, 2010. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015. Retrieved on September 3, 2012.
  20. ↑ Elemental: Fallen Enchantress A Risk and a Promise for Stardock ( English ) rtsguru.com. January 23, 2012. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  21. ↑ Elemental: Fallen Enchantress PC , on Metacritic .com: "77 out of 100 from 11 critics" (English, December 15, 2012)