space captain wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 17:55:
i wonder what ROLLINGCHIKN has to say about this...

Creston wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 10:39:
Right, so Elemental was a PoS because you lost all your marketing data? Ooookaaay.

Look, if she deleted shit and stole a company laptop, sue her ass off. But don't try to blame your pisspoor alpha-state game on your fucking marketing manager.

Creston

Prez wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 17:18:

I don't care if you listen to "The Glenn Beck" (as everyone who listens to him seems to refer to him), just... keep it out of the goddamn video game business. And if you don't, don't be surprised when people avoid doing business with you.

Agreed. Brad's problem was that he never realized the value of staying completely apolitical from a business standpoint (At the time I occasionally listened to Beck myself, but I soon realized he was a self-marketing melodramatic fear mongerer). Best to just STFU and see to running your business as best as you can.

I don't care if you listen to "The Glenn Beck" (as everyone who listens to him seems to refer to him), just... keep it out of the goddamn video game business. And if you don't, don't be surprised when people avoid doing business with you.

Prez wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 13:16:
It kills me that things turned out the way they did for Stardock. Back when Galactic Civilizations first shipped I absolutely loved it. The company was mod friendly to the nth degree, they were indie and also supported other indies, and just seemed to want to do right by the customer always. Sins of a Solar Empirecame out, was awesome, Impulse launched with no DRM (unlike Steam), and for a time it seemed Stardock could do no wrong. Despite his penchant to say to much, I even loved Brad's passion. Along the way though the wheels just fell off the wagon. Suddenly Stardock couldn't release a working game, Brad's constantly running mouth became a huge liability, and it seemed controversy followed them everywhere. They were laying off employees and shafting customers left and right. The shit icing on the turd cake was selling off their digital service to one of the worst companies in gaming. It's sad if you stop and think about it. The company that was poised to become the modern day champion of PC gaming ended up another sad footnote in the PC's sordid 21st century history. It really couldn't have gone any worse for Stardock. They had so much promise too.

Ozmodan wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 14:07:
If Alexandra did do such, then shame on her. As to Stardock accusing her of them losing money on the game that is completely laughable. They were the ones who released a horrible and buggy game, no one else.

BTW Stardock, ever heard of doing server backups??? Most successful businesses I know, do so and keep some off site.

Looks to me like Stardock has not a clue when it comes to protecting their assets.

It kills me that things turned out the way they did for Stardock.

DG wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 12:47:

Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 10:41:
... However, I'm guessing there is more to this story than we are hearing so far...

I'm leaning in that direction too. I've had indirect experience of a director in a company doing shady things, but it's very difficult to prove or prosecute. Basically using company resources to try and set himself up as a competitor, whilst running the company into the ground.

Silicon Avatar wrote on Aug 16, 2012, 11:27:
Stardock sure does come across some weird problems. It is hard for me to feel too sorry for them though. This sort of thing is very preventable and any competent IT group would have had that data back online in a day.

Smells like bad management to me.

The game sucked too.