Something Positive

from Elemental Forums

Whether or not this gets read by the Stardock employees or not I just wanted to say Thank You!

Unlike almost every other game company out there you guys don't make me feel like a wallet or a dollar sign.  Sure you've made some mistakes along the way with EWoM but you've owned up to each of them, explained to the community what happened, and provided dates when we could expect patches, and met (more or less) those deadlines.

I was especially grateful, and impressed, with the way the 1.08 patch was handled last night.  The forums were flooded with new threads about bugs and Istari (He seemed to be the one responding to everything that I noticed) was doing a great job of reading and responding to each of them in turn, and what's more the responses were polite, relevant, and helpful leaving me at least with the impression that you actually cared.  I don't think I've ever seen that level of communication and effort from a company, especially after a problematic patch.

With all the negatived feedback, and constructive criticisms coming your way the last few weeks I just thought I would take a moment to let you all know that what you've been doing right has indeed been noticed and is appreciated, at least by me.  So thank you for being generally awesome about all this, my only wish is that all companies will learn from you about how to deal with customers :)

 

P.S. The community is also generally awesome and respectful, it's almost creepy when compared to some other forums I've visited ;)

 

(Edit) P.P.S. The game is good too, and getting better every week :)

elemental
6,715 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Good post, the game is just my type of game I guess because I just love it, even with its issues.

Stardock has been improving the game with each update to, hope they keep it up!
Thanks for a very addicting game!

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Fourth'd!

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting mentalinstra, reply 2
Rome wasn't built in a day.
End of mentalinstra's quote

Was it built on a day? Or in a night? Or on a night? Or in a clearing? Or in a forest that was made into a clearing? Or on a Mickelmas Tuesday? Or on a ...

:P

No seriously though, this community is better than most. The ratio of productive members to trolls and whiners is pretty good considering, and I think that is in large part due to the way the company interacts with us. Well done on that front.  :)

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Good post :)

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the encouragement.

A lot of people don't know this but I originally wrote Galactic Civilizations in 1993.  It was for OS/2.

The Windows version came out in 2003, 10 years later and had the benefit of having gone through a lot of refinement.  Galactic Civilizations II came out in 2006, 3 years after that.

Now, I don't think it'll take u 10 years to get Elemental "right". :)  My point is that when we make something, we stick to it for the long run. We work on it and work on it and refine.

Our company's business model isn't somewhat atypical. We don't generate our revenue on the game's initial release but instead it's continual revenue over a long period of time.  For us, servicing the community over the long haul with free updates works because it continually brings in new people. 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 6

Our company's business model isn't somewhat atypical. We don't generate our revenue on the game's initial release but instead it's continual revenue over a long period of time.  For us, servicing the community over the long haul with free updates works because it continually brings in new people. 
End of Frogboy's quote

See now that is a business model that is very suitable for game design. As opposed to the type-writer style of most other companies, (i.e., type code, slide the typebar, hear the cash 'ching', and move onto the next line of game).

Things will only get better over time, so anyone who likes PC games should have the sense to support you, even if only for a selfish cause.

Thanks for keeping at it and keeping your passion despite everything.