Elemental: War of Magic Interviews
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Gamasutra kicks things off:
But there's also a lot on the line at a privately-owned company like Stardock. Like you mentioned, Elemental had a rocky launch, but was then later patched, then the studio had to issue layoffs, before ultimately rehiring workers back. Did those issues worry you at all, coming on board just a few months after that happened?
JS: I don't think it's something that will really affect the long-term future of the company. Even though Elemental's launch was rough, and there were the layoffs, even before the game was out, it had already broken even with pre-orders.
That's from the approach that Stardock takes to making games. They don't have 500 people working on it; they don't spend nearly as much. So they don't need to sell 2 million units in order to break even.
The big issue with [Elemental's rocky launch] was just projecting future revenue for continued development, and Brad was having a hard time with that, but he's dedicated to the game and wants to make sure it gets what it deserves.
In the past, every Stardock game has done incredibly well, given how much it actually cost to produce. The issues with Elemental are very much a momentary blip, and that's part of the reason Brad wanted to bring myself and Derek Paxton in -- to help fill in some of the needs and bring some of the experience that wasn't there when Stardock was really focused on games as more of a hobby than major projects.
It's not something that really concerns me at all. I think we're going to be very successful. Stardock has a very smart plan about what's coming up in the future. I'm very confident about where things are going.
And Shacknews quizzes him further:
Shack: Do you foresee any challenges or benefits to shifting to Elemental, which has already been released, but is still very much in active development?
Jon Shafer: Every game is a challenge. From start to finish, you're working against lots of problems, and if you're able to overcome them all you get a good game in the end. As you note, there's still some room to define the final form Elemental will take in the end. But it's a game that people have paid for, so we have an obligation to make sure it's always as fun as it can be. With more time out of the spotlight you can afford to dig a little deeper and make bigger changes, but without that opportunity we'll have to be more cautious with what we do. We have a great team here that's very excited to continue improving on what's already been done, so I'm feeling very good about where we'll end up.
