This week we should be relatively feature complete for The Political Machine 2008. We're pretty happy with how it's turning out.  The first edition we did was a pretty good game, but it wasn't really well polished and its replayability was limited (it was hard coded to 1 map with one set of data).  The 2008 edition is just so much better in every way.  I'll be glad to take Memorial Day off and so will the team. It's been a pretty rough month for all of us.  I'll also be happy to get to spend some time on GalCiv.  There's a number of tweaks and changes I want to put in there such as the research cost algorithms and I still want to release the expanded new manual.

About once a month someone, somewhere, will comment on something I've written saying how "A CEO shouldn't act so unprofessionally in public". Over the years, I've gotten that message hundreds of times along with predictions of demise for my company due to my "public" behavior.

Now, I think the case could be made that we live in a different time. The new age of companies have executives who hang out on forums and mix it up with people. But I'm not going to make that argument because, ultimately, it doesn't matter. I would still do what I do no matter what.

My personal and professional objectives have always been the same: I want to do what I want to do.

That is my top priority. Freedom.

Freedom has consequences. I am certain, beyond a doubt, that my public postings on various topics over the years has alienated some percentage of users who have encountered what I written to the point that they have decided to not purchase products and services from my company. I'm okay with it. It's a price I'm willing to pay to be able to do what I want.

Stardock isn't a public company. It's not investor run. It doesn't even have investors. It's my company. It's a company with around 60 people these days that I can proudly say has not had any voluntary turn over in over 2 years. How many other software or game companies of that size can make that claim? And the reason for that is that my public attitude is my private attitude too -- we're going to do what we want to do. Not just me but the people there too.

Sure, there's a cost to doing what you want to do. I have gotten plenty of ribbing that we're working on a TURN-BASED fantasy strategy game instead of making it an RTS. But I want to make a turn-based fantasy strategy game. It won't sell as well as an RTS would but so what? What good is more money if you can't do what you want to do?

Every day at Stardock is FUN. Even during crunch-time it's FUN. And why is it fun? Because every day we do what we want to do.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether I'm justified or not because I'm going to do what I want to do. And so far, it's worked out pretty well for both me, my family, my coworkers, and our customers.

About once a month someone, somewhere, will comment on something I've written saying how "A CEO shouldn't act unprofessionally in public".  Over the years, I've gotten that message hundreds of times along with predictions of demise for my company due to my "public" behavior.

A long time ago I took a calculated risk:  Most people would prefer a CEO that is transparent, open and tells the truth even if those truths are sometimes not what they want to hear versus the traditional CEO that seems more like a politician.

Obviously, the company's continued survival tends to imply that the fact that I look at customer / developer relationships as a partnership of equals rather than one of master / slave as some "customers" online seem to think is not too damaging.

And even if it were damaging,  I would still do what I do no matter what. That is my primary motivation for having a company: To do what I want.  I want to make stuff for other people. Those people are my partners. It's a coequal relationship.

My personal and professional objectives have always been the same: I want to do what I want to do.

Freedom has consequences.  I am certain, beyond a doubt, that my public postings on various topics over the years has alienated some percentage of users who have encountered what I written to the point that they have decided to not purchase products and services from my company.  I'm okay with it.  It's a price I'm willing to pay to be able to do what I want.

I don't subscribe to the belief that because someone buys a product that they get a license to behave terribly.  A person exchanges their money for a product or service and that does not imply giving them the right to heap abuse on us or others.

Stardock isn't a public company. It's not investor run. It doesn't even have investors. It's my company. This makes it a bit unusual in the investor-driven technology industry. In the case of Stardock, it means that the company reflects my values. In particular, transparency and collaboration with others. That means I'll discuss things like legal cases or matters that people will predict will be our ruin.

Transparency is a double-edged sword. We won't tell people what they want to hear. We simply tell them what we believe is the truth -- even if that is not necessarily good news for us. Moreover, it also means we work on the things we want to do rather than what is arguably the most profitable.

Sure, there's a cost to doing what you want to do. I have gotten plenty of ribbing that we tend to prefer to make TURN-BASED fantasy strategy games instead of making action games.  But I want to make a turn-based fantasy strategy game. It won't sell as well as an FPS would but so what? What good is more money if you can't do what you want to do?

I'm 36. I'm a pretty happy guy.  I enjoy what I do. I enjoy hanging out with people online (most of the time).  And I get to work every day with people who I really like. Not just professionally but on a personal level.  So I tend to think I'm probably doing something right. But more to the point, I'm way past the point where I have to do anything I don't want to do. So I'm not inclined to put up with crap.

There is always some guy on the net who insists that THIS time, something i've said or done is going to be the end. Not a week goes by that someone doesn't insist that we're doomed because of something I've posted somewhere. 

But you know what?

Every day at Stardock is FUN.  Even during crunch-time it's FUN.  And why is it fun? Because every day we do what we want to do. It's why we are able to attract the best and brightest. Because the best and brightest are often motivated to have the freedom to work on the things they want to do work. To do the things they want to do.

And part of doing what you want to do is being able to show some obnoxious customer the door or making clear that we don't want or need jerks using our stuff.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether I'm justified or not because I'm going to do what I want to do. And so far, it's worked out pretty well for both me, my family, my coworkers, and our customers. 

It would seem that TGT Soft has quietly died.

See http://www.withinwindows.com/2008/05/13/hellloooo-tgtsoft-anyone-home/ for more details.

  Rafael from WithinWindows visited us this past week and took some great pictures. I'm stealing this from his site.. Rafael is best known as the world's leading expert on uxtheme patching (XP and Vista).  But he's not just a great developer, he's a great guy too.

The wetlands on the Stardock property.

Bee hives

inside the hives

Outside the Stardock building

Rafael inside

Inside my messy office (panoramic view)

The first review of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor has arrived and it's from GameSpy.  Mega reviewer Allen Rausch has taken an extremely in-depth look at the game and put together a very detailed review.

Here's a quote:

The technology trees alone make it impossible for someone who's sampled Twilight of the Arnor to ever go back to just playing Dark Avatar. Add to that impressive customization tools, new gameplay dynamics, better AI, graphic upgrades, new ship-builder components and completely re-done flavor text and hundreds and hundreds of smaller tweaks, fixes and changes and what you have is an absolute triumph and a new standard for turn-based-strategy games. Bravo, Stardock. This is how expansion packs should be done.

Please check out the review for yourself!

Far be it for me to invite scorn and ridicule on our hard work in the form of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor but let's face it, GalCiv has long since stopped being any sort of traditional "product".  We love working on it. If I didn't work at Stardock, I'd be modding it in my spare time.  But I do work at Stardock so that means I still get to mod it in my spare time but I have the source code.

That said, in this post can you list the 5 things you would want changed or fixed about Twilight of the Arnor first.  Not things that you eventually want changed or modified or whatever but 5 things that you would want done as soon as possible.

I'll then read through your lists and put together a summary and start working on them at night after working on The Political Machine during the day.

Don't feel bad for me, the GalCiv team wanted to go right on to making a GalCiv III but I'm integrating them into the fantasy strategy game team instead.  So I deserve some scorn and ridicule.

-Brad

Tonight (4:28am so technically this morning) I'm hanging out on the GalCiv II forums between compiles.

The above is the issue editor for The Political Machine 2008.  In it, I must go through every conceivable issue, write a description and then put in the values.

The values on position are between -10 (strongly against) and positive 10 (strongly in favor). The other variable (new in this version) is how important the issue is which is on a scale from 1 to 10.

I also have the ability to go and create different values in different states. We have a lot of census and polling data to look at to come up with different values in the states. So it's going to be a long month.

Tonight (4:28am so technically this morning) I'm hanging out on the GalCiv II forums between compiles.

The above is the issue editor for The Political Machine 2008.  In it, I must go through every conceivable issue, write a description and then put in the values.

The values on position are between -10 (strongly against) and positive 10 (strongly in favor). The other variable (new in this version) is how important the issue is which is on a scale from 1 to 10.

I also have the ability to go and create different values in different states. We have a lot of census and polling data to look at to come up with different values in the states. So it's going to be a long month.