I wonder if someone internally will comment on this... It seems that a key part of Stardock's ability to survive is the fact that the majority of its revenue streams come from non-game applications, particularly productivity-type applications, which seems to me to be cheaper to produce and returns a more stable, consistent revenue stream. (This is pure conjecture on my part; I'm not in the industry.)

If this is the case, then maybe this is the model that new indie game developers can take in the future. From a portfolio management perspective, you have to have some stable assets and a few risky investments. If all you do is develop games, then you're going to focus on franchises, sequels, and category killers (a la EA). Maybe the way an indie game developer can get up and running is by building out a portfolio of stable assets outside of gaming before betting the farm on a truly innovative game idea.

Crossing over to non-game product lines also gives you a distribution channel outside of traditional publishers. Direct sales online is nice, and is made possible by the infrastructure it has in place selling productivity software.

amaevis, you are right. Stardock could not make the games that it does if it were subject to the pressures faced by most game companies. Games can make significant amounts of money, but few do, and it is very "lumpy" and delayed income which can result in layoffs due to cashflow problems. The applications side ensures that this does not happen at Stardock.

Our first objective with GalCiv 2 was to make a great game. It will be nice if it made a profit as well (and it should), but as shown by the release of the original GalCiv we'd rather wait a while and take a hit on sales than compromise the quality of the game. After all, we hate it when a game company releases stuff too early just as much as everyone else.

Stardock could be described as a hobby that just got out of hand.

We just want to make cool stuff and we're fortunate enough that people like our stuff enough to keep us in business.

The application side is absolutely our ace in the hole.  Stardock's best month ever in terms of both gross revenue and profitability was this past December.  So even when we're in the midst of making a game, the company is in very good financial shape.

The effect of that creates some interesting situations when dealing with publishers, distributors, retailers, etc.  We can wait until we're happy with a game.  As some gamma testers pointed out, we could have probably gone to manufacturing a couple weeks earlier and not been an issue.  The last two weeks of testing were largely tweaking playability, balancing the campaign, etc.  I can't think of any "killer" code bugs that were fixed in the last few weeks of development.

So I'm not sure if the original poster's goal is applicable generally.  Most game developers make just games.  By having both, we have the luxury of being able to do the whole thing -- develop and publish and do it all without it causing a financial strain.

As much as we love GalCiv II and hope it is a big success, even if the game didn't sell a single copy, Stardock would still be in solid financial ground.  

The future of our game development obviously will depend on how well the game does.  Every sale counts.  But people who buy it don't have to fear about us not being able to support it. Our level of support on the game isn't tied to its sales level.

Wow, those are all very good questions that even I am curious about, and I am only 16 with no plans to start any sort of business.