It's one of those moments you rarely see from game developers: someone taking responsibility for a major mistake. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell did just that in a thread on the official forums for Elemental: War of Magic. In the post Wardell admitted that he was too close to the game's development, which blinded him to the fact that the game was just not ready for release.
He also acknowledged that the mishandled release of Elemental has damaged Stardock's reputation and may have long term repercussions for the company's game development division in the future.
Wardell said that he thought that version 1.0 of the game as well as the 1.05 update were ready for public consumption, which proved to not be true. Here's the most powerful part of the post:
I'm going to write more about this but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about.
If the game had come out in February, it would still have been a disastrous launch because lack of time wasn't the issue. It was blindness, sheer blindness. We felt the game was finished. And I speak of v1.0, not v1.05. Blindness.
There will be massive consequences for Stardock's game studio. I'll be talking more about this when I get back. But the game wasn't released early. The game was released poorly. Head in the sand syndrome imo. I've read the reviews as much as possible given my hideous internet access up here and I agree with them. We just didn't see what they were talking about. We thought any complaints would be about polish points or something.
The point is, the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is. I wish it was an issue of the game being released too early. That's an easy thing for a company to "fix". Elemental's launch is the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part.
EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's "Ready". On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality.
We'll do better.
We'll have more on this subject as it becomes available.
Comments
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
It is as I have said before, Frogboy and crew are stand-up people. Things will be made right with EWoM and the customers will be treated with respect and consideration both in the shortterm and the longterm; you can bank on that.
@DirkBelig - SD makes lots of neat software you should checkout. That is after all its primary business. I purchase everything the company publishes as well as maintain a subscription for bonus services. I also never use really use anything but I firmly believe in Frogboy's philosophy and will back the company as much as I can without reservation. I for one believe in leading by example and simply put SD is the example for the gaming industry as well as the general software one.
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"The most difficult pain a man can suffer is to have knowledge of much and power over little" - Herodotus
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
Even though I find the GalCiv games beyond my comprehension and I never tried Sins of a Solar Empire because a friend told me that it'd crush my soul with the difficulty, I've always respected Stardock because they do what gamers claim they want from game developers: honesty, accountability and fair treatment.
Even though they get pirated more as a result, they don't punish their paying customers with DRM. When Gamestop screwed them by putting Demigod on sale several days early, allowing the pirates to get it and then take down the servers with all their traffic, Stardock had staff come in on the Easter holiday they thought they'd have off to try and get things under control for the paying customers who suffered. Because they didn't account for a tsunami of pirates, the review scores suffered, but rather than whine, Wardell took responsibility for the problems even though they weren't totally of his making. They even offered half-price copies of the game so players who were inconvenienced could get copies for their friends who may play with them.
Now in the span of a couple of weeks, he's had to apologize for intemperate comments and the general lousy shape of the Elemental he put on sale. Instead of stonewalling, he manned up and took the hit and has promised that things will change. He knows he's shot himself in the foot, but more importantly, he knows how and why he did it. Unlike studios that stab their fan bases in the face - looking at you Infinity Ward/Activision and your borking of Modern Warfare 2 on PC - Stardock owns up and steps up. I don't think anyone should enjoy buying an undercooked game at the store, but at least you can have confidence that Stardock will fix any problems ASAFP.
I just wish I played the types of games they made so I could support them with a purchase or two.
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
The two worst things about mistakes are not learning from them and not taking responsibility for them.
Mr Wardell has indeed learned from his mistake and is taking responsibility. We all make mistakes, that's nothing new. Far less of us are willing to follow Wardell's example. It speaks well of him and his company and, for me at least, outweighs the transgression that prompted it.
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
And I wasn't even the slightest bit interested in finding out what this game was about until I read this. Congratulations Brad Wardell, your honesty has earned a potential customer.
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
Once the issues with the game are fixed I WILL be buying a copy just to show that someone stepping up and taking responsibility actually HELPS sales.
You hear that EA, Activison etc. This guy's RESPECT is earning his company sales.
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
Wow, total kudos...
Mistakes happen, bad judgment happens but owning up to them is the only way to make sure it doesn't happen again.
You don't find that very often in this buisiness.
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
I hope this does not effect the future development of GalCiv3.....
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
That takes balls for a CEO to up and say that publicly. If I ever meet this man, I'm buying him a round.
Treasure bin: Cult Hits, chea pass gaming options, and rants about gaming in general
Re: Brad Wardell's Mea Culpa on Elemental: War of Magic
Wardell's always shown he has balls. He's allowed pirated copies of Stardock games to access their multiplayer servers (to the point that the Demigod servers were pretty much unplayable for a while there) because he hates the DRM as a concept, he's suggested that certain people shouldn't buy his games, and about a year ago over on the PA forums (where he was actually fairly active until he flipped out and became a troll for a couple days before leaving entirely) he even said that he'd fire people for their political beliefs.
Balls go both ways, yeah, but he's definitely got them.