Stardock + Gas Powered Games + Ironclad Games = Gaming Nirvana

Published on April 7, 2008 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

Today Stardock and Gas Powered Games announced their partnership to develop and publish the much anticipated PC strategy/RPG game Demigod. Demigod is going to be a milestone PC game for a lot of reasons that will be made clear in the coming months.

What Gas Powered Games and Stardock are doing is not your typical publishing agreement. Just as Stardock and Ironclad teamed up in an unprecedented way on Sins of a Solar Empire, the three of us are teaming up in ways that, to my knowledge, have never been done before by independent developers in the game industry.

For example, Stardock, Gas Powered Games, and Ironclad are teaming up to build a unified multiplayer architecture. For years, PC gamers have struggled to get multiplayer games going. And then, even when they get these games up, the on-line experience can be, how shall we say, less than ideal at times. With our experiences in this area, we are collaborating on a multiplayer architecture that will make the PC strategy game experience much more enjoyable.

The first step of this will find its way into Impulse. Impulse will allow users to browse through available multiplayer strategy games. A player who has Demigod, The Political Machine, and Sins of a Solar Empire would, for instance, be able to see the available games for all 3 and join with Impulse launching the corresponding game automatically. Moreover, all three games will share an existing account which will have ranking data, achievements, friends lists, kindreds (we'll talk more about this soon), and much more.

From this start, we intend to allow others to make use of this architecture so that eventually, multiplayer gaming for strategy gamers is a seamless, easy to use, and enjoyable experience.

And this is just the start. Over the coming year, the 3 indies teamed up will be delivering content and features to PC gamers that we hope you find worthwhile.

Comments (Page 2)

Loupdinour

on Apr 08, 2008

Hmm, its better than Steam, but it doesn't interest me very much. I prefer to get my games from a store and have the disc. Sometimes I'm without any connection at all, and large programs take a long time to download anyway. It wouldn't be much good for me. It would definitely make a difference in my choice of purchases. I'd probably get a different product because it happens to be in a store.

I'm on the other side of the fence however. I'd prefer to not have the clutter of trying to find the CDs for a game. I have a huge box already of old games that I must root through to find and install a game I haven't played in years. In my time in the MMO scene, if I could get a digital DL of an expansion or the original game I'd prefer that over a CD/DVD.

As for preference to the brick-n-mortar store vs online store. Often I like online better due to lack of the costs of sale tax (and shipping if I can DL it). It cuts my costs and the publisher gets the same amount (if not more) than if it had been sold to a store. Yes, I understand that our economy revolves around retail sales, but if I had a choice to help retail sales or put more money in the pocket of the publisher (as long as they aren't a greedy money corp like some electronic art companies out there...) to help with future publications/improvements into the game, I'm all for it.

BTW, I'm not saying your preference stinks or is wrong....I'm just putting forth my opinion on the subject and the thoughts backing them.

Vinco

on Apr 08, 2008

What will happen with the TG.net token system? For me, it's a great incentive to keep buying everything possible through Stardock's distribution rather than elsewhere.
The token system will probably fade away. I.e. you'll still be able to use it on our stuff and select other publishers stuff but Impulse itself won't use it. A lot of gamers hate it and nearly every publisher we've talked to hates it. Obviously we like it but we can't support it on our own.

Ehh... I figured it would probably die with the larger catalog... But if I can still get Stardock games (and utilities too please?) with tokens, then I'm happy enough for now.

Hollow Man

on Apr 08, 2008

Peace Phoenix, even though I suspect the Impulse browser will eventually allow digital only purchases, what's to stop someone from going to store.stardock.com and buying digital only Sins that way? Once you get the serial, just add it to Impulse and go.

I wish I had actually done the research on the tokens business. I just looked all that up, and realized at $7 a token for the membership of $70, it really does come out cheaper to buy games that way (at least compared to the normal Stardock Store price).

Stardock: please always give the option of a box. I'm not ready by a long shot to give up DVDs and CDs (I normally buy in store, to be honest).

-HM

Tommymac

on Apr 08, 2008

Sounds good to me.

My question, though, is will Impulse still give us the ability to re-download our purchases, or get our serial numbers like StarDock Central does? I have come to depend on that feature - it's like an insurance policy of sorts.

kryo

on Apr 08, 2008

My question, though, is will Impulse still give us the ability to re-download our purchases, or get our serial numbers like StarDock Central does? I have come to depend on that feature - it's like an insurance policy of sorts.

Of course

Alstein

on Apr 08, 2008

I don't mind the token system, except for the required doses of 10.

If you could buy individual tokens, it would be a value- but otherwise, it's only useful if you can use up 8 tokens on things you'd pay for. GC2 + both expansions I'm pretty sure ended up 11 tokens. That's where the problem lies- you can only buy 10 or 20 tokens, not 11. Definitely worth the value in the end, but it requires too much foresight.

One request- I would like to see you try to get the Kohan series on SDC or Impulse- could there be any chance of that happening? Or maybe a new Kohan game?

kryo

on Apr 08, 2008

If you could buy individual tokens, it would be a value

If you could buy individual tokens, then we might as well just put a 30% discount on everything and drop the tokens entirely. Buying in bulk is the entire reason you can *get* the discount.

Alstein

on Apr 08, 2008

Ok, let me rephrase slightly. How about allowing people to buy tokens in amounts that are greater then 10, but no pre-set value, so I can buy 11 or 12 at the same discount I buy 10? I can understand the 10 minimum, as an individual game is 5 or 6 for the "big" titles. The problem is for example- no one can buy Sins+ GCII using the Token system, and games are going to go to 6 tokens.

I understand why you can't offer individual tokens.

Peace Phoenix

on Apr 09, 2008

Peace Phoenix, even though I suspect the Impulse browser will eventually allow digital only purchases, what's to stop someone from going to store.stardock.com and buying digital only Sins that way?

I have bought Sins through TGN tokens on the TGN website. I was just mentionning some problems with the current state of Impulse, as it should allows you to buy the things available on the stardock store. After, Stardock motto is to make things convenient for gamers. And for some gamers, having a download only version of the game to buy is a convenient thing due to all costs associated with shipping boxes

Peace Phoenix

on Apr 09, 2008

Sorry double post

erathoniel

on Apr 09, 2008

I want any game this team makes.

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