Author’s note Some years ago Stardock developed a game called Elemental: War of Magic. We loved it. Unfortunately, it was a bridge too far. Too ambitious and it largely collapsed under its own tech. The name Elemental was tarnished and we moved away from using it. The original plan was to have: Elemental: War of Magic (2010) Elemental: Fallen Enchantress (2012) Elemental: Legendary Heroes (2014) Elemental: Sorcerer King (2016) Ah the b...
I run a software company. I have for over 20 years. Once in awhile, someone will ask me what my “net worth” is. I have to respond, “It depends on whether you value intellectual property”. Intellectual property, IP, would be things my software company owns or has rights to such as Galactic Civilizations or Start8 or our websites and our patents and trademarks. How much are they worth? It depends. There are a number of ways of valuing intellectual property. If the...
Awhile back I wrote about depression . I wasn’t really intending to revisit the topic despite the apparent suicide of actor/comedienne Robin Williams but some of the analysis I’ve seen about depression written by people who clearly have no personal experience with it has motivated me to talk about it a bit. Depression is a physiological disease. Its severity is different from person to person who suffers it. It is not about being in a bad mood. When one is suffering from an “ep...
For most of my adult life, I’ve suffered from what I euphemistically have described as melancholy. And like most people, I mistakenly considered it to be a “mood” as opposed to a serious physiological issue. If I just did X, then I’d feel better. When the issue began to seriously affect my life, I readily accepted “advice” that included “appreciate what you have”, “look on the bright side”, “try to reduce stress from your life”, “don’t sweat the small stuff”, etc. However,...
The time machine worked like a charm (this time anyway) and I got to spend a few hours in 2020. Things haven’t changed nearly as much as I imagined (I was hoping for Amazon delivery drones, but alas, none to be found). But my friend drove me up north and showed off a relatively new feature on his BMW: Super Cruise. Now, admittedly, I had hoped there would be self-driving cars by then but apparently they still aren’t a thing in 2020 which was a big bummer. However, most of t...
When I was 20 I had nothing. I was working multiple jobs to pay for college and started Stardock as a way to pay for school. 20 years later, it’s now worth 9 figures. How did this happen? The number 1 rule for success I’ve found is to build partnerships. This can mean your employees and it can mean external companies, contractors, etc. that you team up with. What does “building” partnerships mean? To me, it means, working towards their success. Th...
Ever wonder how popular a given game really is? How many times have you read on a forum about how some game is way more popular than some other game. Is there a reasonable objective way to tell? Actually, yes. www.steamcharts.com Here are some Stardock games: LH: http://www.steamcharts.com/app/228260#All Sins: http://www.steamcharts.com/app/204880 GalCiv II: http://www.steamcharts.com/app/202200 There are a lot of metrics you can come up with to t...
I’m going to do a follow up article soon on how I almost killed myself with cough suppressants. Long story short, I came down with a bad cold in January but I’ve been traveling like crazy so to function, I just took a bunch of cough suppressants to control the cold. Unfortunately, that led to a pretty severe case of bronchitis which has basically taken me out for the past 3 weeks. Lots of stuff going on in the Elemental universe though. An additional year of development ef...
Clearly my offensiveness is a genetic condition. Therefore, I have a disability and nothing is my fault. Seriously though, here’s some fun my teenage son had with photoshop he sent me. Top X rejected flavors for chips. I won’t post the others he sent. They’re unprintable…
Clearly my offensiveness is a genetic condition. Therefore, I have a disability and nothing is my fault. Seriously though, here’s some fun my teenage son had with photoshop he sent me. Top X rejected flavors for chips. I won’t post the others he sent. They’re unprintable…
Sometimes I’ll hear someone marvel at how amazing it is that humans have been able to adapt from hunting and gathering to the information age so well in just 10,000 years. Of course “so well” is subjective. In reality, as a species, we’re struggling with it. A lot. Most of my friends who are, let’s say, economic peers of mine, suffer from a surprisingly consistent set of brain demons as I do. The brain demons giveth and taketh. I suspect many of you readi...
Many people have dreamed of writing the great American novel. Few people actually do it because, well, it’s a ton of work and even harder to get published. These days, you can release your indie book on Amazon but don’t count on selling any copies. The age of publishing isn’t over, not by a long shot. I’ve talked to many indie authors and I’ve yet to meet one whose book outsold Destiny’s Embers . Not because my book was better but because Random House was my publish...
What do you do if your troll husband gets banned from a forum for being an obnoxious dick? Well, most people might ask their husbands what has gotten into them. Why would they put so much effort to alienate people that they would get kicked out of a forum that they’ve spent years on? But if you’re Angie Gallant and you run a site dedicated to smearing other people, you respond by putting up a fake review of the book written by the person who was the target of your husband&rsquo...
My day job is in Michigan at the Stardock building in Plymouth (just outside Ann Arbor). But we’ve got a bunch of activity going on in the Baltimore area with the launch of Oxide Games and Mohawk Games. Rather than living in hotels for weeks at a time, I decided that we would buy a house in Maryland (Towson). If you know any game developers or artists in Maryland who are looking to work on really cool stuff, apply here: https://www.stardock.com/about/careers.asp Ignore wh...
Every few weeks someone writes an article comparing some amazing statistic from the Nordic countries in Europe and then compares that statistic to the United States in total. It’s always some ridiculous apples and oranges comparison that results in a meaningless comparison. So just as a reminder, the populations of these countries are: Sweden: 9.5 million Denmark: 5.6 million Finland: 5.4 million Norway: 5 million In addition, demographically and cultu...