Stardock Faces Layoffs Due to Poor Elemental Launch

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Stardock Faces Layoffs Due to Poor Elemental Launch



An overall negative response to the launch of Elemental: War of Magic has forced Stardock to conduct a round of layoffs.

When Stardock head Brad Wardell Elemental: War of Magic [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103243-Stardock-Calls-Elemental-War-of-Magic-a-Complete-Fail] a complete "fail," he added that it would have consequences for the studio/publisher. Those consequences have turned out to be a round of layoffs.

The confirmation of Stardock layoffs came after Shacknews first received an anonymous tip claiming that several employees were let go. Amongst the laid off were members of the Elemental design and sales teams. The source claimed that the layoffs were caused by Elemental's "disastrous launch."

Through the Stardock forums Brad Wardell confirmed that the rumors were true and that the layoffs were necessary due to Elemental's poor reception. "Elemental's revenue was anticipated to provide the revenue both for our main games team's next project as well as a second team," Wardell wrote. "Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen so we've had to start laying people off."

Wardell pointed out that Stardock hasn't been forced to get rid of an employee since 1998. He breaks down the layoffs as follows: "A DB manager, a receptionist, a QA tester, a developer, a designer, a sales executive and a web designer." He asserts that these people are not being fired, and that nobody did anything to deserve a firing, but the company's financial projections and budget revisions were simply not positive enough to be able to keep everyone around.

Wardell calls the "ultimate casualty" the second Stardock team that Elemental was meant to fund. The core Elemental team will still remain in place to presumably support the game with planned fixes, as it has been doing regularly since the game's release on August 24.

Sources: Shacknews [http://forums.elementalgame.com/395168]

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GoGo_Boy

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May 12, 2010
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Oh man, it's awful seeing all of this just because they didn't take their fucking time. I bet their development team is pretty pissed at the responsible person.
 

Fr]anc[is

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May 13, 2010
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NO! Poor stardock :'( They had potential. It sucks to see a relatively small guy fail
 

RvLeshrac

This is a Forum Title.
Oct 2, 2008
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Suki the Cat said:
This is so typical modern games industry (and not only games, mind)
Not really. Stardock has owned up to doing stupid things, causing their own launch to fail miserably. That's pretty rare.
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
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Suki the Cat said:
This is so typical modern games industry (and not only games, mind)
It's typical for them to admit their mistakes, and take their losses without complaining?

And with no lawsuits!
 

Bretty

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Jul 15, 2008
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Shame, but when you put your eggs all in one basket then repeatedly hit said basket with a baseball bat this is bound to happen.
 

Kavonde

Usually Neutral Good
Feb 8, 2010
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Wait, was this the fantasy Spore-like customizable strategy game I saw like one preview for a year and a half ago and thought looked kind of cool?

Gee, with advertising like that, who could have guessed it'd fail?
 

Fasckira

Dice Tart
Oct 22, 2009
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Kavonde said:
Wait, was this the fantasy Spore-like customizable strategy game I saw like one preview for a year and a half ago and thought looked kind of cool?

Gee, with advertising like that, who could have guessed it'd fail?
Couldnt have said it better tbh.
 

AugustFall

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May 5, 2009
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I really sympathise with them, they made a mistake but they owned up to it and are trying their best to fix it.
Tis a shame, Sins of a Solar Empire was immense and I'm sure if they had done it right this game would have been good too.


Edit: Also feel bad for the people laid off, but at least they aren't firing them for incompetence. Just foreseeing a lack of revenue to pay for them.
 

Albino Boo

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Jun 14, 2010
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Well to the anti steam drm guys, this is going to hurt. It just shows how tight the margins that stardock are operating on. When steam screw up they give away copies of L4D, when stardock screw up people lose their jobs. It looks like Gamer's Bill of Rights is luxury that cant afford.
 

Fearzone

Boyz! Boyz! Boyz!
Dec 3, 2008
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^^People who have Elemental now will be getting the first X-Pack for free.

There seems to be a general awareness of the major issues in game mechanics and UI, and bugs are getting fixed at a reasonable pace. I believe this game has a future. But it always sucks when people lose their jobs.

As for the Gamers Bill of Rights, yeah it is pretty ironic, but when they say customers are entitled to complete finished games I think they mean games intentionally released in an incomplete state that need to be made whole with DLC, not game designers screwing up.
 

Casimir_Effect

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Aug 26, 2010
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And it's nice to see they haven't once cried "Piracy!" on Elemental sales. Even though loads of people are probably doing it, even if just to see how horrifically bugged it is
 

Doug

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Apr 23, 2008
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Kavonde said:
Wait, was this the fantasy Spore-like customizable strategy game I saw like one preview for a year and a half ago and thought looked kind of cool?

Gee, with advertising like that, who could have guessed it'd fail?
No, it wasn't. At least, I don't think this is the one you're on about - I think you're on about "Dark Spore" from EA.

Anywho, this sucks. I liked the game myself, and it sucks to see them suffering over its launch.
 

Tiamat666

Level 80 Legendary Postlord
Dec 4, 2007
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I'm a huge Master of Magic fan and I never even heard of this game until it was mentioned on the Escapist.
I might get it, if the price is right.

Having just looked it up, 49$ seems quite steep for a game with sub-par graphics that looks more like an indy title than AAA.
Of course, people saying that it sucks doesn't help either.

edit: okay, the screenshots don't look very attractive, but the video on their site is rather cool. I like the zoom-out feature.
 

Hammer_Wizard

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Dec 1, 2009
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Maybe they should have a second release on Steam so they put it on a platform people know about and use.

Who is the company that owns Impulse anyway? they must be doing badly if Stardock is having so much trouble on it.
 

Rocksa

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Jul 26, 2008
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Game was supposedly released half-finished on purpose as part of a DRM thing. Buy the game now, get the patch that gives you the entire game off the net at home. Problem with that is that not everyone actually has the web. That combined with the huge list of bugs and game crashing glitches along with the less than piss poor attempt at raising awareness for the product (seriously, I remember seeing one tiny little blurb about it in a copy of Game Informer like a year and a half ago or so, and that's it) and you have this horrible recipe for failure. It's a shame though, I've loved all the Stardock games so far, Galactic Civilizations I and II were phenomenal, Sins of a Solar Empire is one of my favorite RTS's ever. They make good products...mostly.
 

SimuLord

Whom Gods Annoy
Aug 20, 2008
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That game launch money was supposed to save orphaned children. Nice job breaking it, Brad Wardell.