ANN: Stardock to publish Demigod from Gas Powered Games

Stardock, Gas Powered Games team up

from GalCiv2 Forums

PLYMOUTH, MI- April 7, 2008- Stardock and Gas Powered Games announced today that they have reached a publishing agreement for Gas Powered Games' upcoming PC game, Demigod.

Demigod is a team-based action game with RTS and RPG elements. Players take control of a massive Demigod with the goal of annihilating their opponent's position in a given arena while preventing the opponent's Demigod from doing the same to them. Although the game supports superb one-on-one duels, the title will truly shine in team play either with other human-controlled Demigods or with ones controlled by a sophisticated computer AI. As the game progresses, the player's Demigod will acquire items, attributes and experience.

Gas Powered Games, having become one of the leading PC game developers with hit titles such as Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander chose Stardock as its exclusive worldwide PC publisher in part because of Stardock's tremendous success with the award-winning Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations.

"Forging our new partnership with Stardock is a big deal for all of us at GPG, and we couldn't be more excited about it," said Chris Taylor, founder and CEO of Gas Powered Games. "Not only do we have a proven retail publisher, but we get to partner with a pioneer in the digital distribution space a company that totally understands what kind of experience our customer wants and the quality game they demand. The whole proposition is truly refreshing."

Stardock's most recent release, Sins of a Solar Empire was the top selling PC strategy game at retail according to NPD, and the second highest selling PC game overall despite selling immense numbers of copies digitally which are not counted in sales rankings. The game has received universally high reviews in the media and many have noted how seamlessly Stardock and developer Ironclad worked together.

"Were very excited at the opportunity to work with Gas Powered Games," said Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock. "By integrating our teams and working together, we will be able to create something that represents the best of both teams."

To fully support a public beta that will launch this summer, the launch date for Demigod has been moved to February 2009. This will give the development team sufficient time to incorporate feedback from the beta players while polishing the game. Like Stardock's other games, Demigod will be released without any on-disc copy protection and has been budgeted to receive many months of free post-release feature updates.

The official website for Demigod is in the works, but users who want to begin discussing the game can visit http://www.demigodthegame.com.

About Gas Powered Games
Gas Powered Games was founded in May 1998 by acclaimed game designer, Chris Taylor.The company's first project, Dungeon Siege, was released in April 2002 and its sequel, Dungeon Siege II was released in August 2005. Both games were critical and commercial successes. GPG's recent releases include the award-winning and genre-defining Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance.

About Stardock
Stardock is one of the world's leading developers and publisher of PC games and desktop software.Its PC games include Sins of a Solar Empire, the highest rated and best selling PC strategy game of 2008 as well as the critically acclaimed Galactic Civilizations series. Its desktop software includes Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, and a host of other programs for customizing the Windows experience.

37,981 views 49 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good Stuff... you know I actually had a funny feeling about this might be happening down the road and hey it happened. :CONGRAT:
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Best of luck!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think this means you have to attend the GDC from now on :)
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hardly PC industry changing, but intriguing nonetheless. I was hoping you were going to announce your fantasy game *frowns*.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hardly PC industry changing, but intriguing nonetheless. I was hoping you were going to announce your fantasy game *frowns*.
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Its totally PC industry changing, you apparently haven't read much about Impluse. They want to move to a 'microsubscription' service for games after they've gone through their free updates. I think this is a great idea. Not to mention digital downloading without having to deal with annoying CD/DVD protection is the no-brainer way to go.



Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
stardock's anti-drm policy has a tendency to deter pirates because people do become loyal customers whom will acutally go and purchased their games instead of just pirating them. With Chris Taylor singing the doom and gloom song of the death of pc gaming industry, this marriage will breath back some new life into the industry.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Best of luck to Demigod! I have nothing against it as such, but ... What does it mean for the turnbased games, the fantasy game??! I became hooked on Stardock thanks to the brilliant GC2 ... then Sins was released while the TA release was pushed back at the same time (was that why?) - we are still waiting and drooling BTW, and now it is Demigod that should change the gaming industry. I just hope that Stardock hasn't veered off in another direction after the apparent commercial success with Sins. I mean, something is missing here, there isn't a single decent fantasy TBS out there and here we sit rolling our thumbs in agony and talk about 2009. And now there are rumours the fantasy release will be in 2010 instead. I hope these are false, evil rumours. Because projects seldom tend to get finished quicker than planned ... Personally, as a player I must admit I am more interested in getting good games than about the gaming industry as such (since I don't know the industry that well standing utside it). So I still hope for that good TBS game that only Stardock seems (or seeed - there hasn't been any news in a long time) both interested and capable of producing.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Impressive. Congrats to Stardock on landing this title, and congrats to GPG for making a great decision on publisher.

Now where do I preorder? ;)
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
WOOT!

Demigod looks awesome. Even though the release date was pushed back in the name of betas (typical Stardock), it looks sweet! Yay!

Nice job Stardock and Gas Powered Games! :CONGRAT: 
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is pretty good. If the Stardock, "public beta upfront, free updates after, no CD-drm" becomes the industry standard, it could change the industry!
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
DAMN ... Thats .. sweet ... :D

Two great companies working together ....


Looking forward to it's release ...
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
OPS ...

Double post ...


Time to make the donuts ... :CONGRAT:
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Before I get flamed to a crisp, allow me to state that I am a major fan of stardock, GalCiv 2, Sins, and their anti-drm approach.

However, it seems that nobody around here has ever heard of a little program called "Steam" that has already -changed- the industry toward digital distribution, and has made great strides for indy developers getting their games out.

As for Demigod, any strategy game that focuses on team-play over one-on-one only detracts from strategy. The real merit of a cunning general is one-on-one, with no backup and no hope for reinforcements. However, being married to a gamer chic I do enjoy games with teamplay, so I shouldn't complain too loudly.

I hardly call this industry changing, however. But maybe it's just me. Best of luck, stardock!
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The news is nice, but Stardock really overhyped this, a bit disappointed with the overhype.

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
stardock's anti-drm policy has a tendency to deter pirates because people do become loyal customers whom will acutally go and purchased their games instead of just pirating them. With Chris Taylor singing the doom and gloom song of the death of pc gaming industry, this marriage will breath back some new life into the industry.
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Lord knows it did with me. The main reason I bought Gal Civ II in the first place was because of Stardock's stance on DRM and them treating their customers like customers rather than thieves. Would never have bought the game if it had followed the usual Safedisc/Securom garbage route.

So by making their choice to not use DRM, Stardock have received over $100 from me they would never have had if they "protected" their title. And they will be getting more in the future.

Disappointed in this announcement though. Hardly industry changing.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Of course everyone here has heard of Steam Xyvik. Listen to the GFW podcast with Brad. He implies that Steam is a decent program, but feels better having competition in the marketplace, which is one of the reason they're ramping up their digital distribution with Impulse.

-HM
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What I'm more interested in is Impulse! Wish the write-up had something about that. I saw a link to it in another thread but I'm not about to install it yet. I hope the migration to is goes smooth i.e. my products in my current Stardock Central account don't get mangled. And beyond that, yay Stardock! I'm so happy to hear this because it gives me even more confidence that Stardock will be around for many more years to come!
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While on the face of it, this is not very industry changing, I do think that it has the potential to change it with some of these independent and quasi-independent studios working together to put out quality products. Anyone that has played or used a Stardock product has (probably) come away very satisfied with the quality and functionality of it. I love ObjectDesktop, GalCiv2, the old school Stellar Frontier...even Entrepreneur was tons of fun!

I haven't had a chance to play much of the GPG library. I did play Dungeon Siege a little bit, and liked what I saw from it. And Supreme Commander looked awesome. However, most of their games have gotten solid scores that I have seen and thats always a good start.

To have these smaller studios work together rather than heading to the larger (and generally more bottom line focused) developers.....I think it is a great idea and should work out amazingly. I really cannot WAIT for Demigod, and hopefully there will be more to come.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is good news, as long it doesen't make their TBS Fantasy coming out later. I dont't want to wait until 2010 for it, it's needed ASAP, especially after the dreadfull Heroes V!
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Before I get flamed to a crisp, allow me to state that I am a major fan of stardock, GalCiv 2, Sins, and their anti-drm approach.However, it seems that nobody around here has ever heard of a little program called "Steam" that has already -changed- the industry toward digital distribution, and has made great strides for indy developers getting their games out.As for Demigod, any strategy game that focuses on team-play over one-on-one only detracts from strategy. The real merit of a cunning general is one-on-one, with no backup and no hope for reinforcements. However, being married to a gamer chic I do enjoy games with teamplay, so I shouldn't complain too loudly.I hardly call this industry changing, however. But maybe it's just me. Best of luck, stardock!
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Here's the thing. Steam popularised online distribution - I haven't bought a boxed game myself since KOTOR II. A couple of others bought for me as presents but otherwise its all been Steam and SDC. So that's not the story.

The thing that Stardock/SDC do that Valve/Steam doesn't is the no DRM policy. If you buy a Steam game you have to live with copy protection, authentication etc. And while Steam gives you the latest patches most games only get a few updates post release and those are normally bug fixing. Nothing like Stardock's approach to significant new content instalments approaching expansion packs.

Gas Powered Games are a major developer producing big budget, high profile games. Having a big name heavy weight taking up the banner soon after Sins' success puts SDC/Impulse on the map. This is a huge step towards providing customers with an alternative to Steam, something that hasn't truly existed before now. You either went with Steam or some litle developers own download service when you bought a specific game. Now there is competition and a monopoloy is discouraged.

Unless you want Steam to call all of the shots in the market, this is a significant development for how we purchase our new games and a victory against that damnable copy protection software that gets in the way of enjoying your purchase.

Oh and I don't think this development has anything to do with the fantasy game's schedule, that game is being made by Stardock not GPG or the Sins people. The Sin's release schdule might have influenced TotA some though, but I think it benefits from a little extra polish time anyway so what the hell.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

However, it seems that nobody around here has ever heard of a little program called "Steam" that has already -changed- the industry toward digital distribution, and has made great strides for indy developers getting their games out.
End of quote

TotalGaming.net existed long before Steam and was distributing indie games first.

So I would say Steam was "changing" towards digital distribution years after we had already been doing so. :)

 

 

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ahhhhh, that's IT... yet another collaboration development schema to stir up the industry sauce; not --that-- big of a change, but some change indeed.

I can already hear the subsonic waves bouncing off fortresses walls, if anyone cares to listen with attention in there, most probably - we have just witnessed the beginnings of a series of partnership models popping up like mushrooms in the field. And all of that spawning new growth will carry on the hopes of better things on its wings for months maybe years.

Consider this; find me a better business trick than such simple straight takeover buyouts which have been roaming in the manufacturing (ya know, the real industrial plants where people do puts parts to assembly lines!!) sector for a period of time now. Where were you when the truth was spread? Thin and sharp.
Welcome to the WWC (World-wide-COMMERCE) concepts & theories.

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Because success is made of daring pioneers and enforced evolution. Where even the presumed last word thickens to a book in infinitesimal decision time.
Gotta love the idea of a potentially great merger when in fact, it possibly isn't - as of today_EST and clocking, baby.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Congratulations.

Looking forward to seeing the fruits of this collaboration.

Keep doing the great work you do and I will keep supporting you however I can.

Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Congratulations.

lets hope its the first of more good game developers to join up with Stardock.

you deserve every success Brad and Co, if only more company's engaged with their customers like Stardock.