Brad Wardell of Stardock talks about GPG/DemiGod, Stardock's upcoming Impulse distribution, and why they feel the current model of publishing is broken. Brad Wardell on Demigod and Impulse (PC)
We talk to Brad Wardell about Stardock's partnership with Gas Powered Games.
By Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch | April 7, 2008
In a surprising announcement today, Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games (creators of Dungeon Siege) and Brad Wardell's Stardock (publishers of the Galactic Civilizations series and Sins of a Solar Empire) revealed that they would be partnering for both retail and digital distribution of GPG's newest title Demigod. The value for Stardock is obvious as the company prepares to morph "Stardock Central," its fledgling digital distribution system, into "Impulse," a full-service digital game seller. According to Wardell, Stardock plans to have rough content parity with competitors like Steam and Direct2Drive by the end of 2008 and will also include non-gaming content such as anti-virus packages, disk utilities and other PC applications.
The value proposition for Gas Powered Games in this latest move is a little harder to see, but according to the press release issued on the matter, Stardock's most recent game release, Sins of a Solar Empire, was the top-selling PC strategy game at retail despite selling a large number of copies digitally and having no copy protection. Demigod will apparently be following this pattern -- releasing without copy protection, an extensive beta program (which occasioned a new February 2009 release date) and many months of post-release support and free updates. We were able to sit down with Stardock's Brad Wardell to discuss the two companies' initiative.
GameSpy: Let's start with the obvious question -- what are the terms of this deal?
Brad Wardell: Simple enough. Stardock is the exclusive worldwide publisher of Demigod. That means both retail and digital.
Oh, so this goes beyond just digital sales....
Stardock has GPG's Demigod even for Retail, too.
GameSpy: You've been involved with the digital distribution business for some time, although Stardock Central hasn't been as high on the gaming industry's radar as, say, Steam or Direct2Drive. What does this mean for your business -- do you intend to be directly competitive with those other services?
Wardell: Stardock was the first to have a digital distribution network for games starting with "Drengin.net" for our own games and then TotalGaming.net for independent titles. Up until recently, we didn't really pursue third parties to make use of our digital distribution network, but with the growing emergence of Steam, we decided it would make sense for us to expand what we were doing. As good as Steam is -- and we're all big Valve fans around here -- those of us who come from a strategy or RPG background have different ideas on what a digital PC game platform should have built-in and how it should work. To that end, we're in the process of creating "Impulse," a new digital distribution platform that brings all our stuff together as well as signing on major PC publishers (both games and non-games) to be on it.
Most gamers don't realize that Stardock's historical strength is as an application developer, not a PC game developer. With Impulse, we are able to bring our development experience into play and develop an open architecture that will allow game developers to have things like bulletproof match-making, persistent game worlds, digital expansions and much more. Since Stardock is also a publisher as well as a game developer, we can help bring together the talents of our partners to create the ultimate gaming experience -- particularly for PC strategy game players and RPG players.
Interesting.
GameSpy: How did this deal come about? Who approached who and what made this so attractive for both of you?
Wardell: We've both observed that PC gaming as an industry has to evolve. With Demigod, we have the opportunity to combine our capabilities together to not just make an awesome game but to do it in a different way. Our partnership goes beyond the traditional publisher/developer relationship. It's our intent to integrate our teams together on this project to develop, market, release and support this game in a way that hasn't been done before.
GameSpy: Does this mean Demigod will ship without copy protection as other Stardock products do?
Wardell: Yes. Demigod will not include any CD/DVD copy protection. As we've shown in the past, there are more effective ways to protect your IP than CD-based protection. Our job is to reward gamers for supporting our work with lots of free after-release updates rather than inconveniencing them.
GameSpy: Are you collaborating in any way with the design of the game?
Wardell: Both Stardock and Gas Powered Games will be involved in all parts of both the game development and marketing processes. Together we can gain the benefits of a larger company without any of the downsides.
GameSpy: You've been pretty successful in the smaller hard-strategy genre, especially at creating a strong bond with your customers. Demigod is a much higher-profile game, though. So you think you have both the retail presence and marketing strength to do justice to it?
Wardell: In terms of retail presence, I think we've already demonstrated we can handle that with Sins of a Solar Empire. There are probably more copies of it on retail shelves than most other games right now. Last month we were the number-two best-selling PC game at retail despite most of our revenue coming from digital distribution which isn't counted in such rankings. In terms of marketing, it just means I'll be mowing more lawns for editors this year. Which reminds me, am I going to need to trim your bushes to look like characters from "Xanadu" again?
GameSpy: I don't think so. You never quite got Olivia Newton-John right the last time. Is this deal exclusive to Demigod or does it extend to all Gas Powered Games titles?
Wardell: This particular announcement is just concerning Demigod. There will be more announcements later.
Wow, I wonder whatelse might be announced -- ranging from other companies who might join up to if there's anything also from GPG that might be published digitally/retail store-style by Stardock.
We know Space Siege is being published by Sega for retail outlets, so I really wonder if Stardock could sell Space Siege digitally?
GameSpy: Does this deal mean you'd like to take a more active role in the gaming industry, perhaps working toward becoming a major publisher?
Wardell: Our goal isn't to become a traditional publisher but rather to help establish an alliance of game developers who work together to create awesome games that benefit developers, publishers, and gamers. I realize that probably sounds like pie-in-the-sky stuff, but the current PC game model doesn't work very well. It consumes game studios and leaves publishers with dead IPs and gamers without continuing advances in their favorite games. Look at all those great PC strategy games from years ago -- Star Control, X-Com, Master of Magic, Falcon, Total Annihilation. The studios die and their IP ends up in the hands of a publisher that has little interest in continuing them.
Look at some of the publishers, letting a series that really don't need to die just get rotted away without being touched -- such as Tribes.
Or, the other thing -- publishers revives a series with a sequel that might be put into hands that shouldn't be touching series. I mean, we're all skeptical how Deus Ex 3 (Eidos-Montreal), Thief 4 (Eidos-Montreal), and System Shock 3 (rumored to be in the works by The EA Division that made of Godfather Game) might actually turn out...
Wardell: The question then, is how do we change things? Stardock's model is to turn PC games into assets for the developers through a combination of innovative publishing agreements and digital distribution. That means the people who actually create awesome games will benefit from their success for the long-term and hence have an incentive to keep working on them. Look at Ironclad, the development team on Sins of a Solar Empire. They'll be receiving income from their game for many years to come. That's pretty atypical in this industry. Normally, PC game studios see little to nothing in revenue after the game is released because of advance recouping and games dying off after an expansion pack. Gas Powered Games and Stardock are setting out to change the basis in which PC games are developed and published building on what was started with Sins of a Solar Empire. Even this early on, Ironclad, the developers of Sins of a Solar Empire have been involved in this project.
GameSpy: And the benefit for gamers in this?
Wardell: Our system puts gamers and developers and publishers onto the same side. Demigod is going to have a full non-NDA public beta for users who pre-order the game. We moved the release date back far enough that we can incorporate player feedback into the game. We then set aside a budget for post-release updates so that the game will continue to thrive with free updates to players. On top of that, we're building into Impulse support for persistent universes, optional mini-expansion packs and more so that if gamers want more "stuff," they can continue to get it.
That's a very interesting plan, I must say....
By having a Non-NDA beta, gamers could talk about the game's shortcomings and then the designers go back to the drawing board to actually go out and fix the issues before the game comes out w/ its official release; especially since they are allotting a good amount of time to fix issues.
I mean, a game like Silverfall: Original could've benefited from such a thing, where gamers could've bitched about the very weak Inventory system/Interface to the point that this issue would've been weeded out before the original Silverfall's release. But, instead of taking such an approach -- Silverfall: Earth Awakening expansion pack has to be installed over Silverfall: Original to fix the interface issues when you try to play the Silverfall: Original Campaign portion of the game.
GameSpy: How do you see this affecting the games business going forward?
Wardell: It's not commonly known, but Stardock was the first company to release a PC title both at retail and digitally with the original Galactic Civilizations back in 2003. Digital distribution is still in its beginnings. With Impulse, we are looking to build a platform in which game studios and publishers can take advantage of the new infrastructure we're creating that will allow them to easily continue to enhance their games with both free and premium content, provide better financial stability for game developers and offer a much better gaming experience for players.
