The Elemental Forums have a response from Stardock's Brad Wardell to this morning's post on PC Gamer recommending gamers avoid buying Elemental: War of Magic and other news-bits about the new turn-based strategy game. He apologizes for his comment in the Quarter to Three forum thread, saying this was directed at someone with whom he shares a personal friendship, but admits that he "responded inappropriately." He also refutes reports that they have pulled the Gamer's Bill of Rights from their site over the game's problems, pointing out they maintain the Gamers' Bill Of Rights Website. Here's what he has to say about the issues identified by PC Gamer:

The site, www.gamersbillofrights.org was set up and is run by Stardock. We stand by it. It is, with some irony, our commitment to no DRM on our DVD release that ultimately caused the rough pre-release experience of Elemental. Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.

However, it also became clear that the pre-day 0 version of the game was problematic as outlined in the PC Gamer UK article. The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described. That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop.

I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports.

I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.