So often people hear about developers and publishres fighting every step of the way during the development of a game.

I want to say that working with Ironclad has just been totally awesome. We've been working together for well over a year now and in that time I don't think we've ever had a serious disagreement on..well on anything at all.  It's been a perfect team up.

Playing through these gamma builds (we just got done with a 4 on 4 multiplayer here at the office) I can honestly say that Sins of a Solar Empire is the best multiplayer strategy game I've played since Total Annihilation. 

The game mechanics are a perfect blend of Ironclad's vision and Stardock's input.  Case in point, the resource system (of mining asteroids) and the research system and such were contributed by everyone on the team -- and by team and I mean the Ironclad/Stardock team.   When we've submitted ideas that Ironclad didn't agree with, they made a good case and we all ended up happy with the end result.

Similarly, while Stardock had a lot of input into the game. Ironclad has had a lot of input into the marketing side.  In other words, the developer/publisher team up was very unusual in the sense that we literally integrated our efforts together.  This website you see here was largely designed by Ironclad.  The advertisements in the game magazines are a team up of our design teams.  The box, the story text, etc. are all the result of both teams working together.

I wish I could say that the team up could be used as a model for other developers and publishers. But I think a lot of the success is because we're both indies and we both love this specific type of game and thus already have a lot of understanding of what needs to be done.

I remember hearing an EA executive talking about "small" projects in which the development team had over 40 people on it.  To give you an idea, 40 people is bigger than the Stardock + Ironclad teams combined.  And that also means not just a game that can take chances on game play and such that others wouldn't do. 

The efficiency of indies also means lower costs. The Collector's Edition of Sins of a Solar Empire costs the same as most new AAA title standard editions. 

So in 3 weeks, when Sins of a Solar Emprie hits Best Buy, Walmart, EB, Gamestop, etc. and you see it on the shelf, you're buying a game that has gone through a very unique process.  A game that has gone through a public NON NDA beta over many months.  

We don't have the marketing juggernaut that most games have.  But given how the game has turned out, we think word of mouth may make Sins of a Solar Empire one of the top if not the top (and I'm aware of what other RTS's are coming out) RTS's of 2008. 

But what we lack of sheer logistics, we have some advantages.  For example, like with Galactic Civilizations, we'll be releasing free updates to Sins of a Solar Empire that go well beyond "patches" for bugs and what not. They'll be new features and enhancements that you ask us for after release. 

In just two weeks, the game goes gold, is put into manufacturing and should hit store shelves on February 4 (and be available for download that day as well with boxes hopefully starting to arrive on people's doorsteps that day too).