Thank you very much for posting that link! While it's the opposite of your intention, you actually backed up my position(s):
That article pretty well slams SF for not paying Stardock for GalCiv's retail sales, it also mentions that they intend to release their next game by both download and retail (via Ubisoft as a publisher). So Stardock, in spite of its bad experience with SF apparently still believes that retail has some merit, else why would they give it a third try? Perhaps the retail sales figures showed them that they *would* have gotten a decent amount of money were it not for the exception of making a mistake in choosing their publisher? I can only hope that Ubisoft treats them better than SF did (they can hardly do worse).
The article also conclusively states that Stardock (1.) doesn't have a significant problem with piracy from digital downloads, and (2.) is showing a healthy profit (or at least paying all their bills) by going that route.
Brad also answers the "question" regarding console vs. PC games:
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I think that's a major reason consoles are starting to really crush the PC game market. People are getting fed up. They're getting a cold pizza and being told to lump it. It doesn't have to be that way. For example, The Political Machine comes out in August. We plan to have a free update available for it on the first week that adds some new features and extra goodies. There will be "bug" fixes but they'll likely be bugs no one would run into. And we'll put out updates as regularly as Ubi Soft will let us ... If the competing technology (consoles) can't be updated with new stuff after release, then you should exploit that advantage. And that means add new features, not use the Internet to supply updates that finish the game!
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Basically, it's the developers/publishers releasing shoddy, half-finished games (knowing that they can finish it after release by providing patches) that he says is killing the PC market.
His concluding paragraph bears repeating:
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Make it a no-brainer for someone to purchase games electronically by keeping costs reasonable and make using the games they've purchased easy and convenient. After all, it's their pizza, deliver it to them as they want and they'll support you with future orders.
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