News
The Kerry VP sweepstakes!
Some of you may recall that back in very early May we predicted that Kerry would pick Richard Gephardt as his running mate. Why? Because in The Political Machine simulations, the AI version of John Kerry kept wanting a running mate to win Iowa or Missouri. AI controlled John Kerry realized that he only needed to win one of those two states in the election to essentially wrap up the white house. At the beginning of June we noticed that that the governor of Iowa was a Democrat so we added Tom...
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News
Galactic Civilizations & Altarian Prophecy both updated
Just in time for the holiday weekend is a fresh update to Galactic Civilizations and its expansion pack, Altarian Prophecy. Galactic Civilizations is a space based strategy game in which players must compete against several alien civilizations for control of the galaxy. Fight wars, conduct trade, research technology, negotiate treaties, manage your economy on the path to becoming the leader of the galaxy. The game won several editor''s choice awards in 2003. Altarian Prophecy is the recent...
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News
Altarian Prophecy
LIVONIA, MI (June 15, 2003) – Independent game studio, Stardock Entertainment, released its expansion pack for the award winning strategy game, Galactic Civilizations. The expansion pack, called Altarian Prophecy, has been in development and testing for some months to get all the features and enhancements put together just right. “Our goal with this expansion pack was not just to add new content to Galactic Civilizations but add in the kinds of features and tools thatwould give the game, ...
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News
Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy now available!
LIVONIA, MI (June 15, 2003) – Independent game studio, Stardock Entertainment, released its expansion pack for the award winning strategy game, Galactic Civilizations. The expansion pack, called Altarian Prophecy, has been in development and testing for some months to get all the features and enhancements put together just right. “Our goal with this expansion pack was not just to add new content to Galactic Civilizations but add in the kinds of features and tools that would give the game, as ...
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News
Tentative release date
The Political Machine is very close to going gold. At that point, it goes off to manufacturing and then to the stores. Ubi Soft, the publisher, plans to have it in stores in between the Democratic and Republican conventions (first couple weeks of August). Not much time until release.
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News
Kerry and Bush neck and neck according to PMachine model
The Political Machine's statistical model is not poll based. When we designed it, we concluded that since ultimately it's a video game, we should only concern ourselves with the macro-based statistics. That meant not worrying about day to day fluctuations in polls. Instead, the goal was to use data (political party registrations, exit polling, census data, etc.) that was publicly available to get a clear understanding of the people who live in the states. From there, we then look at the...
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News
GUI Olympics Week 4 results
The 4th week of the GUI Olympics has been completed. The GUI Olympics is an international user interface design contest featuring many of the best graphics designers from around the world competing in a series of user interface challenges. This week saw the best OS user interface design (using Stardock's WindowBlinds ) and best themed media player skin designed for Nullsoft's Winamp . Visit here for the full results of this week.
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News
The Political Machine: Beta 4B now up!
Beta 4B of The Political Machine is now up with lots of bugs fixed, play balancing, and more interview questions. PLEASE try this beta out and let us know how it's working for you! We are getting pretty close to going gold so we want to ensure that everything is working. We have done various things to the videos to see if we have improved video compatibility.
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News
Reuters interviews Wardell about The Political Machine
With The Political Machine heading towards its Summer release date, Reuters interviews Stardock's Brad Wardell regarding the game mechanics and why they think this game will be fun for both political junkies and casual players. Full story: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=5327231
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