Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion has crushed the existing records at Stardock to become the fastest-selling title in the company’s history. Since the release of Sins: Rebellion in mid June 2012, Stardock has sold over 100,000 units. The game is the first major Stardock game not released at retail, and instead, it was released initially via Steam, GameStop, and direct from Stardock. Additionally, Steam sell-through of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion in the first 30 days beat the combined sell-through of all physical retailers during the same period for the original Sins of a Solar Empire.
Brad Wardell, president & CEO of Stardock said:
“When we combine our direct sales of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion with the sales from GameStop, we see unit sales similar to what we’ve seen previously when at retail. This contradicts our projection that sales via Steam would share the overall digital pie we’d previously seen. Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion on Steam didn’t cannibalize its GameStop or direct sales.”
Wardell continued:
“Normally, when you get sales figures, the publisher is talking about overall sell-in, not sell-through. But that figure is largely irrelevant, other than sounding awesome because anything that doesn’t sell at retail later gets marked down or returned.”
Stardock is in the process of re-evaluating its global retail strategy with future games. As a result of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion’s success, The Political Machine 2012 and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released digitally through Steam, GameStop and other digital distributors, skipping retail.
Wardell added:
“I remember it was somewhat dramatic in the community when we announced that Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion wasn’t going to be at retail. The reason was because we have moved away from having set release dates, which are largely announced for to kickoff presales, or for shareholders and retail distributors. Now we don’t plan a release date until the game has reached a quality level where we feel comfortable doing so.”
He continued:
“Retailers require a six-month lead-in to reserve shelf space for indies, and that’s if you can get in. By contrast, with Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, we didn’t set a release date until after the public BETA feedback was universally positive.”
Reviews for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion have been positive with the game averaging an overall 85 out of 100 and the title garnering several Editor’s Choice awards.
Stardock has two more titles scheduled for release in 2012 – The Political Machine 2012 on July 31st and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress with a release in the fall.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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