Stardock 2008 Report

from JoeUser Forums

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Like most companies, Stardock puts together an internal business plan for setting up goals and objectives for the company for the forthcoming year (Stardock's fiscal year begins its execution phase every October 1).  As part of this business plan is an appendix that acts as a critical analysis of what Stardock customers can expect to see and what challenges the company faces to better satisfy customer expectations. 

For this year, it has been decided to make this appendix available to the public. The Stardock 2008 customer report goes over some of the successes Stardock has experienced but also looks at the failings with a considerable amount of criticism in areas that the company needs to improve on.

The contents include:

  • Impulse digital distribution status report
  • The status on Stardock game projects
  • Stardock's position on "DRM" and copy protection explained
  • An update on the Gamer's Bill of Rights
  • The status of Object Desktop
  • A look at the dock technology now used by Dell and others.
  • The results of the 2008 customer survey report (VERY interesting results)

If you're interested in the inner workings of a consumer PC software company, you may find this document to be very interesting.

URL: https://www.stardock.com/media/stardockcustomerreport-2008.pdf

59,981 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I have to repeat my post from another thread:

 

Evil teaser is evil. }:)

 

Me wants more info about not-MoM.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Transparence to any degree beyond the company community relations and sales walls is always a good thing for consumers. Hats off those running things at SD for giving consumers and critics alike a look into their privately held company.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

What do you mean by the following (page 15)?

We are going to add IP protection services to the Impulse Reactor platform so that publishers at least
have an alternative to methods like SecureROM, Tages or Steamworks. As a practical matter, most
game publishers who want to protect their IP have few options right now.

 

If this means adding DRM to some Impulse content, this will greatly reduce my interest in it, as Impulse was toted as the DRM-less source of software. At least any DRM restriction should be clearly labelled in the store.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

What do you mean by the following (page 15)?

I expect it simply means that developers using reactor will have the option of using the same system as alreaady used on GalCiv2, WindowBlinds, etc.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

wow, I did't do the survey, but I approve every single point of it. now is it good or bad that I am this "mainstream"? :D

btt: I appreciate that we as your customers get informed about your status quo and your future plans! SoaSE is my first digitally bought game and I don't regret it at all. (And your support is working on my problem with the retail box, I'm sure they'll solve that one, too)

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

If this means adding DRM to some Impulse content, this will greatly reduce my interest in it, as Impulse was toted as the DRM-less source of software. At least any DRM restriction should be clearly labelled in the store.

The Impulse Reactor is planned to be a tool for other developers to get their stuff published on Impulse without much hassle, it's supposed to use a standard licensing agreement (between publisher and developer, not the EULA for us) and the hope is that it will make it fairly painless for developers to get their stuff published digitally. The caveat of course is that not all developers think alike, and so to attract the majority of them, the Impulse Reactor does need to offer protection options that the developers will be able to select for the protection scheme that they are comfortable with, but at the same time one that's not nearly as bad as SecuROM, for example.

And it is noted on a product's store page if it uses "extra" protection besides the basic Impulse verification on patching.

In essence, it's aspiring to be a good thing. It will help bring more developers to put up their stuff on Impulse while offering them essentially a Stardock designed protection scheme if they want one. And since Stardock isn't one for intrusive protection, it'll be much friendlier than the few options developers have currently, as Frogboy mentions.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Ephafn, reply 3


What do you mean by the following (page 15)?
We are going to add IP protection services to the Impulse Reactor platform so that publishers at leasthave an alternative to methods like SecureROM, Tages or Steamworks. As a practical matter, mostgame publishers who want to protect their IP have few options right now.
 
If this means adding DRM to some Impulse content, this will greatly reduce my interest in it, as Impulse was toted as the DRM-less source of software. At least any DRM restriction should be clearly labelled in the store.

Impulse is not touted as a DRM-less source of software. STARDOCK's retail games, do not.

Whether it be TotalGaming.net or Impulse, third-party games have always been and are always free to use whatever they want to use provided that they inform the customer what they are doing.  

For example, if EA were to put Spore on Impulse and they insisted on using their own copy protection scheme, we have to abide by that whether we agree with their position or not. 

So what can be done to improve that? The answer is to try to encourage publishers to move away from draconian (or "harsh DRM" as I think the EA CEO said) over to something that's effective but doesn't inconvenience customers. So we're evaluating whether to include that sort of thing in Impulse Reactor (the back end API set we provide).

That said, STARDOCK games, will continue with the same policy we've had for 5+ years now. No CD copy protection.

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I am really disappointed that there's no mention of DesktopX in the PDF. I think it's one of the best softwares Stardock makes. Second only to Windowblinds, IMHO.  Some say it's too hard to learn...it's child's play compared to making a windowblind.  Just an opinion....    X(

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The results of the 2008 customer survey report (VERY interesting results)

Indeed. Also very interesting to me is how the survey sample was selected. 2.4 million customers seems like it should be a large (majority?) share of the total; it's (edit) nearly (edit) half the highest Member Number I've noticed around here.

Did you by any chance deliberately exclude frequent posters on the forums? I'm no stats jock, but I can imagine that regular participation here is a definite "outlier" flag for the total universe of SD customers.

(edit) I also didn't notice any info on how many of the recipients actually responded.(edit)

Not that I'm a transparency junkie or anything...

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I am really disappointed that there's no mention of DesktopX in the PD

Towards the bottom of page 24

Control Center had the best virtual desktops around but there were free o;
the same held true for Object Edit and ObjectZIP.  By contrast, programs like WindowBlinds have no are .
What Stardock needs to continue to explore is how to develop software that adds functionality that 
DesktopX 4.0 is an area where we plan to explore this further.  Stay tuned.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

this is a very nice thing to do for us customers, such transparency is very welcome to someone like myself :D

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 9

Did you by any chance deliberately exclude frequent posters on the forums? I'm no stats jock, but I can imagine that regular participation here is a definite "outlier" flag for the total universe of SD customers.

(edit) I also didn't notice any info on how many of the recipients actually responded.(edit)

Not that I'm a transparency junkie or anything...

For what it is worth I was one of those people. I must be lucky since I got the survey last year and the year before as well if memory serves.

:borg:

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Interesting. Can't say I agree with every little thing, but it's good.

Couple of typos though. }:)

 

:fox:

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Whether it be TotalGaming.net or Impulse, third-party games have always been and are always free to use whatever they want to use provided that they inform the customer what they are doing.

For example, if EA were to put Spore on Impulse and they insisted on using their own copy protection scheme, we have to abide by that whether we agree with their position or not.

As long as everything is transparent, it's okay for me. (Okay for me to use Impulse to buy games with acceptable protection schemes.)

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I am really disappointed that there's no mention of DesktopX in the PD

Towards the bottom of page 24

Oopsie!  :blush:

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 9
Did you by any chance deliberately exclude frequent posters on the forums? I'm no stats jock, but I can imagine that regular participation here is a definite "outlier" flag for the total universe of SD customers.

I woke up with a plausible answer to my whiny "why no survey for me" question: I probably took every opportunity to set no marketing message options, and Stardock might have considered the survey to be a marketing project.

Still curious to know what the return sample size was in comparison to the total of customers logging in to the SDC or Impulse servers for the period.

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Hey Brad,

Congratulations on 15 years! This is a very remarkable achievement in an industry well known for company overnight shutdowns. Best wishes to you and all the staff. If there's anything I can do, even though I’m further away, don't hesitate to ask.

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

GP just published an article on the revised GBR from the report info. Do you want to know more? If so, go here.

Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top

As always, information about how Stardock is doing is appreciated.

i always smile when i read the results of surveys.  Yes it went out to 2.4 million folks, how many responded?   Demographics of the responders (gamers or customizers etc.)  Surveys are nice, I usually answer those that I receive.  Surveys though really can get you into trouble.  If the businesses that sent out surveys only went soley by the responders they could find that they made a lot of bad decisions.

I wonder how the survey responses stack up against the daily info that is available through the forums, email and IRC?   I wonder if someone is looking at that.

 

Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I wonder how the survey responses stack up against the daily info that is available through the forums, email and IRC? I wonder if someone is looking at that.

This is basically a version of one of my favorite questions from when I was a working "social scientist." But those shudder quotes mean that I was on the losing side of the current claims in the discipline that they are "scientific," and they're there because I have steadily increasing doubts about survey methodologies and think we might well be best of ditching them all and trying to limit our arguments to more "concrete" results like election returns, product sales, and *possibly* aggregate forum posts *if* you can present some sort of plausible schema for classifying and summarizing them mathematically. Without serious math, it ain't science, IMO.

Mind you, I strongly believe that lots of academic work done in the name of "political science" and "economics" is worthwhile--it's just been done under an arrogant rubric. I don't think they deserve to claim they're sciences until they consistently base their arguments on empirically testable hypothoses, and IMO, no survey will every yield empirical results because they depend on the inherently subjective nature of language. Medicine's closer to being a real science, and that's really only because they have a bunch of rigourous biologists to rely on.

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Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Mind you, I strongly believe that lots of academic work done in the name of "political science" and "economics" is worthwhile--it's just been done under an arrogant rubric. I don't think they deserve to claim they're sciences until they consistently base their arguments on empirically testable hypothoses, and IMO, no survey will every yield empirical results because they depend on the inherently subjective nature of language. Medicine's closer to being a real science, and that's really only because they have a bunch of rigourous biologists to rely on.

Spot on.

Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 7
For example, if EA were to put Spore on Impulse and they insisted on using their own copy protection scheme, we have to abide by that whether we agree with their position or not.
As long as the unlimited downloads is non-negotiable, EA wouldn't be able to implement their copy protection on Impulse anyway.

It's not negotiable, right?

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Never before seen anything like this. Giving out internal plans so openly.

First thing that comes to mind is the graphics of that screenshot of Not-MoM. Looks like Super Nintendo class graphics :S

I got that survey and from the question "what 3 gametypes do you want Stardock to focus on" I choose TBS types all the way. Not because they're my favorites but because my other favorite genres (FSP, RTS and ARPG/RTRPG) are being made by other gamedevelopers. So I answered tactically 8|

Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Campaigner, reply 23
Never before seen anything like this. Giving out internal plans so openly.

First thing that comes to mind is the graphics of that screenshot of Not-MoM. Looks like Super Nintendo class graphics

I got that survey and from the question "what 3 gametypes do you want Stardock to focus on" I choose TBS types all the way. Not because they're my favorites but because my other favorite genres (FSP, RTS and ARPG/RTRPG) are being made by other gamedevelopers. So I answered tactically

I agree on those ones

I answered the same because there's already a lot of other dev studios working on projects like FPSes, RTSes, RPGs ...

and also I prefer stardock to stay focused on where their development skills are, in a few years from now, when stardock will be 4x the size of now, maybe it'll be time to find new game types to develop, until then.. let's stay focused  :thumbsup: