Elemental Expands With Fallen Enchantress

(EDIT: OK, missed this. Fallen Enchantress will also be free to anyone who purchased Elemental before 2010 (Surely you mean 2011, Quinns? - Jim). That's a Hell of a thing.)

Couple of things. First of all, Big Download's assembled the information on Elemental: War of Magic's upcoming expansion pack, Fallen Enchantress. Who is the Enchantress? Why did she fall down? Was she drunk? We don't know, but we do know the expansion will add new spells, equipment, new ways of using magic and new areas that must be purged of enemies before you can settle in them. These will include the Bhinadmi Fissure, where a player must walk up to the edge and challenge the Elemental Lord that lives within. Mm! Mm.

Second, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has been making some interestink predictions in an interview with Gamasutra that Elemental is going to end up costing his company money.

Wardell's opinion relates to Elemental's notoriously buggy launch. While he states that "Elemental made its money back on day one and has continued to be profitable to this point," he adds "Based on our projections we anticipate by the end of second quarter 2011 that Elemental will end up losing money overall as our objective is to spend what is necessary to ensure that the game meets the expectations of our customers... While this short-term loss is unfortunate, it is crucial in the long term that PC gamers know that the Stardock name means quality and support."

Which is a curious thing to say. I'm no PR guru, but mentioning you made pots of money releasing a game that failed to meet the expectations of your customers, but that you're going to drag the project into the red to fix it... I don't know.

On a lighter note, did you catch that Stardock hired Civilization V project lead Jon Shafer? That'd be the same boy genius who went from modding Civilization 3 in high school to being the lead on Civilization V in a little over three years. Have you read our interview with him? It's pretty good!