Published on June 4, 2014 By Island Dog In Elemental News

One of the ways we like to thank our customers here at Stardock is through our annual reports, compiled and authored by Stardock President and CEO Brad Wardell.

This year’s report, as always, combines a look at Stardock’s recent past and its future plans, analysis of the software and gaming industries, and statistics and observations from a survey of thousands of our customers.

Some of the tidbits from this year’s report:

  • Stardock is interested in game consoles for the first time in its history, thanks to the power and ease of development on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

  • We can’t wait to start 3D printing Galactic Civilizations III starships, and seeing what players’ creations look like in real life

  • iOS and Android development “more closely resemble a lottery system” than a viable market

  • Object Desktop Infinite is coming, allowing customers to access the full suite of Stardock’s desktop enhancements for just $3.99 per month

  • Almost twice as many Stardock customers own Android devices compared to iOS machines

  • Stardock customers are evenly split on Windows 8 – 39% have a positive opinion, while 39% have a negative perception


The full report can be downloaded here


Comments
on Jun 28, 2014

Loved the New game options , played.

 

Hated the buggy, vague, hard to play as you want scenario 1 (so far). Just started chapter 4.

Well i hated aspects of it like not so easy to choose heroes or know how to. Being pushed irritating heroes on your team. And bugs making awesome weapons like the sword of wrath not working..... Plzzzz fix sooon.

 

Otherwise awesome vision and work . Keep upp the fixes and polishing

on Jun 28, 2014


Very interesting report. Thank you very much for posting. I'll offer some general comments to the wind:

- Retail didn't die. It was murdered. The reason why numbers dropped so fast was because items were no longer offered on the shelves, and the ones that were required DRM connection.

- Consolidation has only short term gain. The more the software industry consolidates, the more power will go to the vendor. They will be gateway and thus the deciders, as to what publishers are successful and which ones are not; what the customers get to see and what they don't.

- Until consoles come with keyboards, they will never have the same depth to their games as a PC does.

 

- The ONLY way GalcivIII will be successful is if it has the same or better AI as it's predecessor. I'll say it again to emphasize because of how important this statement is: GalcivII set the benchmark in AI design. Everyone and their dog will be comparing GalcivIII's AI to it's predecessor. If the initial reviews do not say "This has better AI than before", then I believe the game will only be fractionally successful. GalcivIII must have the same or better AI.

- Steam &%)# up my SoaSE, so I haven't played that game in quite some time. Still waiting for the mod I use to upgrade to the same update Steam has. It forced an update on me, despite me having updates option set to NEVER and it downloaded in the background during the night, despite me having updates option set to NEVER. Guess what I hate. Yup...I hate Steam.

- Really love the expansion being done to Legendary Heroes. Really fear that LH 2.0 will add many bugs to the game in an effort to encourage players to purchase E15. Steam NEEDS to allow users to choose their version. If I want to play LH 1.2 instead of LH 1.6, I should be allowed to do so.

- Since I love LH so much, it gets a second bullet. There are many, many additions made by the devoted community, and of those additions many are 'fixes' to the game; mostly extra content in an effort to round out a concept. (female henchmen as an example). These should be merged into the base game to give non-modders the chance to play with a fuller version of the game. This move can only help you to make more sales as there are many out there that can't be bothered to spend the time modding the game to an acceptable level before playing. They just want to play and the game should be as full and as complete as possible for those players.

Again, thank you very much for posting this report. Really appreciate the chance to dive in and see how SD is doing on the past/present/future level.

on Jul 08, 2014

Thanks for the report. Like reading those

 

95% males as respondents to the surveys. Not surprised as MEN rule the internetz 

 

Nice to hear it's going well for ya. Looking forward to the game announcements