What Happens if StarDock gets bought out, Goes under, etc, etc, etc

Use SDC's archive function. Burn the archive to a disk.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

The system is designed to bring up a picture of me drinking a margarita on a beach saying "Ha ha, I have your money and now you're screwed."

Seriously though, Stardock isn't disappearing any time soon. We've been around about 15 years and I expect we'll be around in another 15 years.

I turn down offers to buy Stardock several times a year.

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I turn down offers to buy Stardock several times a year.

I'll give you $5.39 (Canadian) and a lifetime subscription to Cat Lover magazine.

waits expectantly

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Sir_On_The_Edge

Join Date 07/2006

+7

They could always out in the contract that they should have to keep the stardock server active and to always have a working stardock with the latest operating system.

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

The system is designed to bring up a picture of me drinking a margarita on a beach saying "Ha ha, I have your money and now you're screwed."

LOL, perfect answer for GOB.

If you ever did choose to sell out I doubt the goal of the new owners would be to instantly alienate the entire customer base

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I know someone who works at a company very similar to Stardock in size and product.

Their running costs are more than covered by their profit margin, so there's no real chance of going under.

I turn down offers to buy Stardock several times a year.

Wow, there's no greater indicator of success than other people trying to take you over.

Either they want you because you're making lotsa money, or they fear that you will be in a position to buy them out someday.

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The system is designed to bring up a picture of me drinking a margarita on a beach saying "Ha ha, I have your money and now you're screwed."

Wow, perfect quote.

Now if only we could get Gates and Microsoft admitting that this is [I]exactly[I] what they do.

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If Stardock were bought out you wouldn't want to play GalCiv2 anymore.

It would suddenly be crippled with DRM, you couldn't install it on more than one computer at a time, and it would be loaded with in-game advertising. Just imagine, the Drengin leader pounding down a can of Mountain Dew every time he comes up on your viewscreen! And you would no longer build farms on your planets, you'd build Applebee's! Entertainment Centers would become Chuck E. Cheeses! (Drengin looooove to go to Chuck E. Cheese!) The horror!

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Drengin looooove to go to Chuck E. Cheese!

Ugh, what would be the Drengin equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese? A torture chamber? (not that that isn't entirely unlike Chuck E Cheese

)

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

I turn down offers to buy Stardock several times a year.

Well if Warren Buffet comes knocking it's perhaps a different situation since he realizes that the reason a company is successful in the first place is because of the sweat equity of those that started and brought the company to success to begin with. The last thing any intelligent buyer would want to do is mess around with a successful business particularly when it's clear that those already in charge are far more knowledgeable about their particular corner of the business world then they could ever be. Under such a situation selling the company while retaining all operational responsibility is like having your cake and eating it too.

You would probably have to admit that such an offer would at least be tempting.

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Under such a situation selling the company while retaining all operational responsibility is like having your cake and eating it too.

The problem is, that situation never seems to materialize. Any larger company which bought Stardock would naturally be filled with suits, and suits will inevitably start meddling in the process. They'll start looking for ways to "improve" things - after all, if a suit can't find a way to improve something, how can he justify his job?

And so you end up with policies like "you can only issue 3 patches for this game before you have to work on something new" (as happened with Total War) and "no way you're investing in that fancy of a graphics engine for something as niche as a 4X fantasy game." And then we all cry...

Bungie was bought out my Microsoft with all of the usual assurances of freedom and non-meddling, but in the end they found what was inevitable - Microsoft wanted them to keep working on what was making them tons of cash, and not branch out into something new and potentially risky. And so Bungie decided to "undo" the buyout (which couldn't have been easy!).

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They would be giving up control though. Working for yourself is 100 times better

. Besides, do you think they really need more money? I'm sure Stardock has done very well for itself...Beyond a certain point, more money is just a way to keep score.

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Ugh, what would be the Drengin equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese? A torture chamber? (not that that isn't entirely unlike Chuck E Cheese )

I'm pretty sure that Chuck E Cheese is the Drengin equivalent.

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Maybe the bugs would get squashed, or at least least the rampant introduction on new bugs would slow...

Ah. That's a bit harsh. Perhaps with anything truely good/invovative/different there will be problems. (Just wish the focus would come around to cleaning up the great work that's already been done.)

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TheRealWarpstorm

Join Date 03/2003

+13

Gallagher118, more likely they would be like most game developers who have sold themselves out to the big companies and start shipping games on the day the marketing suits think will sell the most copies rather than actually being ready and stop supporting their games after the day-one patch.

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Look at the Battlefield franchise - 4 games on the same horrendously inept, buggy engine, with zero optimization, lousy netcode, and they're all still clogged with bugs and bad design.

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I've never been able to get the archive function to work correctly, it always fails and I have to download Gigs of data again to get my programs back in.

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Ugh, what would be the Drengin equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese? A torture chamber? (not that that isn't entirely unlike Chuck E Cheese )

I'm pretty sure that Chuck E Cheese is the Drengin equivalent.

"Here a few credits D'par... go and play a game while we order the pizza..."

"'Bout time! I'm gonna play whack-a-human!"

"What do you want on your pizza?"

"Extra fingernails! and intestines! don't forget the intestines!"

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Brad,
I do remember in the 90s that you were dreaming of shares certificates with green aliens on them...
I would had bought one ... but you never went forward

All,
I've been around for as long as Brad began selling SW (I'm in no whay related to Stardock or any of its employee). I've never seen him acting with greed. Be assured that he stays with his words (as he gave above). It's up to us provide his company with enough resources so they can quietly drop acquisitions from outsiders.
(related) I've seen in the last release that SD is worried about Twilight leaking into torrent. Let's be a trusted partner of SD and not scrap their trusted purchase management so they'll keep going in the good way I've seen since the 90s.

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Thanks rls6699 I didn’t know about the archive feature.
It’s good to know that stardock won’t be up for sale. It’s like before haegemonia the solon heritage was released the expansion pack got scrapped when wanadoo was brought out.

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Which is exactly why I got the download AND CD version

Always have a backup

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ust imagine, the Drengin leader pounding down a can of Mountain Dew every time he comes up on your viewscreen! And you would no longer build farms on your planets, you'd build Applebee's! Entertainment Centers would become Chuck E. Cheeses! (Drengin looooove to go to Chuck E. Cheese!) The horror!

ROFL imagine a Drengin smiling !

Deathfurnaces would become pizza ovens lmfao

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

The Games Division of Stardock isn't their primary money-maker I think- Stardock is more of an apps company.

I have the weird dream of Stardock going into business with SNK releasing arcade games on the PC, but who knows...

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The problem is, that situation never seems to materialize. Any larger company which bought Stardock would naturally be filled with suits, and suits will inevitably start meddling in the process. They'll start looking for ways to "improve" things - after all, if a suit can't find a way to improve something, how can he justify his job?

I prefer Robert Kotick's way of saying it. "And you can expect virtually every one of those properties will be exploited on an annual, or close to annual basis."

Source

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The Games Division of Stardock isn't their primary money-maker I think- Stardock is more of an apps company.

Frogboy can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they said that their applications (ObjectDesktop / Windowblinds (Windowblinds BLEW UP my computer when I used it like 5 years ago)) are used to provide funding for their games, little side-projects.

Hopefully that, given the success of GC2 and the fact that they just published their first game for a third-party developer, they're looking into expanding their games division. I love Stardock because they care (or at least pretend to more than anyone else), they're practical, and their games don't reek of being dumbed-down, ported, or any of the other mortal sins of gaming every other publisher has done.

The only complaint I can have about Stardock, and it's not really something they can do anything about at this point, is that there's a lot about GC2 that kinda reeks of 'indy products are unpolished'. There's countless amounts of tiny things in GC2 that could / need to be improved, but have been around for ages. They aren't game-breaking, but they're there. Maybe someday they can be the 'Lawful Good' version of EA games

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