Stardock is moving next week. It probably won't disrupt things too much. After 7 years being based in Livonia Michigan, Stardock has purchased a building over in Plymouth Michigan and is migrating to it. So if we seem a bit out of touch next week, that's why.  The network setup is being done while we move which should make things as seamless as possible. [read more]
6/11/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
LIVONIA, MI (February 28, 2005) – Software developer Stardock Corporation released Multiplicity today. Multiplicity is a program that enables users to control multiple local computers with a single keyboard and mouse. Multiplicity works by having a primary computer with a keyboard, mouse and monitor connected to it and multiple local secondary computers that still have a monitor connected to them but no keyboard or mouse. When the user moves their mouse cursor from the primary computer to on... [read more]
2/28/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Stardock has released a trial version of RightClick.  RightClck is a program that lets users extend or even completely redesign the Windows desktop right-click mouse menu.  When a user right-clicks on their Windows desktop, RightClick's custom made menus comes up.  Users can add short-cuts, tasks, system commands, and much more to the menu. It's also fully skinnable and can be set to automatically inherit the user's current WindowBlinds visual style.  For users who normally h... [read more]
2/17/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
ObjectDock and ObjectDock Plus 1.1 are now available! ObjectDock is a freeware program launcher and task manager that is highly configurable in how they look and feel. ObjectDock Plus adds tabbed docks, multiple docks, fly-out menus and other features. New in ObjectDock / ObjectDock Plus 1.1: Zooming tabbed docks (icons in tabbd docks can now zoom). You can now always resize tabbed docks from corners Can now run on limited user accounts Supports WinKey+D now (show desktop no long... [read more]
1/11/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
ObjectDock & ObjectDock Plus 1.1 are now available! ObjectDock is a freeware program launcher and task manager that is highly configurable in how they look and feel. ObjectDock Plus adds tabbed docks, multiple docks, fly-out menus and other features. New in ObjectDock / ObjectDock Plus 1.1: Zooming tabbed docks (icons in tabbed docks can now zoom). You can now always resize tabbed docks from corners Can now run on limited user accounts Supports WinKey+D... [read more]
1/11/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Natural Desktop is a program that gives your desktop a natural look, feel, and sound to it. First, it changes the wallpaper on your desktop based on the time of day and time of year. The wallpapers were created by Ryan Bliss, founder of Digital Blasphemy. Mason Fischer created nearly a half hour sound track that is based on the time of day. Morning doves in the morning, crickets at night, rain when it''s storming. And finally, the most advanced weather visuals available created by Matt Crockett ... [read more]
1/10/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Natural Desktop is a program that gives your desktop a natural look, feel, and sound to it. First, it changes the wallpaper on your desktop based on the time of day and time of year. The wallpapers were created by Ryan Bliss, founder of Digital Blasphemy. Mason Fischer created nearly a half hour sound track that is based on the time of day. Morning doves in the morning, crickets at night, rain when it''s storming. And finally, the most advanced weather visuals available created by Matt Crockett ... [read more]
1/10/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Natural Desktop is a program that gives your desktop a natural look, feel, and sound to it. First, it changes the wallpaper on your desktop based on the time of day and time of year. The wallpapers were created by Ryan Bliss, founder of Digital Blasphemy. Mason Fischer created nearly a half hour sound track that is based on the time of day. Morning doves in the morning, crickets at night, rain when it''s storming. And finally, the most advanced weather visuals available created by Matt Crockett ... [read more]
1/10/2005 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
You can now purchase and download The Political Machine from Stardock! We are also working on version 1.1 of The Political Machine with updates to various campaign issues, new candidates, and more! We expect to have that out in the next couple of weeks. It will be a free update for all players of The Political Machine. To purchase and download the game immediate go here: https://www.politicalmachine.com/purchase.asp [read more]
1/5/2005 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
ATI™ has always provided outstanding support for the PC customization community by participating in activities such as the GUI Olympics. Now ATI is offering skinners the opportunity to design the user interface for the Catalyst™ Control Center” The Catalyst Control Center was made skinnable through the integration of DirectSkin from Stardock. DirectSkin integrates easily into programs and allows software developers to use WindowBlinds technology to create new user interfaces for their produc... [read more]
11/5/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
In early October using tweaked issues that will be further adjusted in v1.1 coming out later, The Political Machine correctly predicted 47 of the 50 states in this year's election. No polling of candidates. All based on its issue model. So why didn't it get all 50? The Political Machine's turn out model can't predict the actual turn out. It is based on historical norms. In this election, Republican turn-out was significantly higher than in any previously recorded election resulting in Bush vi... [read more]
11/3/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
LIVONIA, MI (October 29, 2004) — Software developer Stardock Corp. released Blog Navigator 1.0 today. Blog Navigator is a program designed to make it easy for users who enjoy reading blogs (short for “web logs”) to read and organize them. Blog Navigator works by reading RSS feeds and displaying them in a clean, easy to understand way. It includes a host of different news and blog sites for users to read through. Blog Navigator is arguably the most advanced program of its kind and it’s ... [read more]
10/28/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
LIVONIA, MI (October 29, 2004) — Software developer Stardock Corp. released Blog Navigator 1.0 today. Blog Navigator is a program designed to make it easy for users who enjoy reading blogs (short for “web logs”) to read and organize them. Blog Navigator works by reading RSS feeds and displaying them in a clean, easy to understand way. It includes a host of different news and blog sites for users to read through. Blog Navigator is arguably the most advanced program of its kind and it’s free... [read more]
10/28/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Slate has a great round-up of all the political strategy games for this campaign season. We are pleased to say that our own game, The Political Machine, was ranked as the best of the group. Read the whole story the whole thing and to check out the other games. If you''re a political junkie, you may want to try out these other games as well. http://slate.msn.com/id/2108292/ [read more]
10/26/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Check out this article over at Gamespy that goes through the various US presidential based games and what their backgrounds are. The article is located here: http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/559/559987p1.html [read more]
10/26/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
Polls are interesting things but statistical analysis is my thing. And based on our models in The Political Machine, Kerry is going to squeak out a victory in November barring a sudden change in events. But the Florida of 2004 may be where you least expect it - Iowa. Ohio and Iowa are going to be the key states this time. But it is Iowa that people should be keeping an eye on even more so than Ohio or Florida. It has a relatively low population which creates all kinds of opportunity fo... [read more]
10/15/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
If you are interested in game development, here is an inside scoop on how The Political Machine was made and what went right and wrong on it. http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041011/wardell_01.shtml [read more]
10/12/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
The official 1.02 patch is now available for download from Ubisoft (for CD orders) or via Stardock Central if you preordered or have TotalGaming.net from Stardock. If you have previously had Safedisc issues and contacted [email protected] for those, please followup on those again now. This update will go over 1.01 or the 1.0 retail CD release. https://www.politicalmachine.com/Download_Update.asp 1.02 Update ----------- Changes: Endorsement costs ta... [read more]
10/12/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
This week we expect to release v1.02 of The Political Machine which improves support for Windows 98 systems and makes some gameplay tweaks with regards to the endorsement system (it'll be slightly harder for Republicans to get liberal endorsements and vice versa). But what about after the election? Stardock plans to continue to provide new updates to The Political Machine in various forms. One area we plan to try to update the game regularly are on the issues. We don't want the ga... [read more]
10/4/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
WindowBlinds 4.4 is now available for public download. WindowBlinds is a program that enables users to completely customize their Windows user GUI. That includes their title bars, push buttons, Start bar, toolbar icons, radio buttons, progress animations and nearly every other part of the Windows GUI. WindowBlinds is the most popular desktop enhancement program of all time according to CNET with over 7 MILLION downloads from CNET Download.com. It is used by companies such as Microsoft, Sony... [read more]
9/27/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
We're putting the final tweaks on v1.02 of The Political Machine. Amongst the tweaks and changes come in the endorsement area. Based on player feedback, we've decided to make conservative special interest groups harder to win the support of if you're a Democrat and vice versa if you're a Republican with the liberal special interest groups. Most of our energy has been trying to make sure the game works on the widest variety of hardware. The game should run fine on pretty much an... [read more]
9/21/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
The first major PC publication review of The Political Machine has come out - Computer Gaming World's 4.5 star review and an editor's choice award. We are very excited and pleased about this. As you can imagine, trying to create a political strategy game that has the right balance of realism and fun and put it together into a $20 package that has very high production values still was really a challenge. But one that we enjoyed immensely and hope you have been enjoying as well. Make sure yo... [read more]
9/21/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
Stardock Launches JoeUser.com Blog Community New website combines blogging and magazine features Livonia MI (September 20, 2004) – After a year of development and testing, the new blog community JoeUser.com has been officially launched. JoeUser.com is a website that allows individuals to sign up for free web pages that include tools for easily adding user-created articles to their pages (blogs). Blogging, short for web logs, has grown in popularity as users from around the world ... [read more]
9/20/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
USA Today reviews The Political Machine and gives a play by play example of a Bush vs. Kerry game. Check it out at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/games/2004-09-09-politicalmachine_x.htm [read more]
9/14/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
The Political Machine is published by Ubi Soft, one of the world's premiere game publishers. But the game was designed and developed by Stardock ( www.stardock.com ). Stardock came up with the idea for The Political Machine back in 2000 during the Florida debacle. Realizing that the country was split evenly, a strategy game idea was born. Stardock's last game, Galactic Civilizations , won numerous awards including best turn based strategy game and editor's choice awards from Com... [read more]
9/14/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
Next week will mark the official launch of JoeUser.com, arguably the world's fastest growing blogging community on the Internet. On JoeUser.com, you can create your own free blog site and post articles on any topic you can imagine. Articles in the politics category gets syndicated out to sites like this one for instance. Visit https://www.joeuser.com to check out the articles written by thousands of others on-line or to create your own free blog. [read more]
9/14/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
If you have DesktopX installed ( www.desktopx.net ) you can run this electoral college status widget: https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=34&SkinID=109 [read more]
9/11/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
DesktopX 2.21 has been released. DesktopX is a program that extends Windows to support true objects on the desktop. These objects are used to do everything from have "super icons" to being combined together to create "widgets" as well as building entire desktops. DesktopX is actually what Stardock used to develop the user interface in The Political Machine. With DesktopX, Stardock was able to create the actual game screens and prototype them at the same time. The finished screens... [read more]
9/9/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
For those of you interested in trying out the game before you buy it, you can get a taste of what the game is like by going here: http://www.download.com/The-Political-Machine/3000-8027-10312016.html?tag=lst-0-1 Have fun! [read more]
9/7/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
If you want to see the reviews on The Political Machine, visit the site below to see a round-up. Very useful site btw for seeing people's views on movies, games, and more. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/politicalmachine/ [read more]
8/30/2004 By Draginol in Political Machine News
Before there was The Political Machine there was The Corporate Machine. A real time strategy game in which you start a company and try to crush your opponents. This criticially acclaimed (ex: Gamespot review ) strategy game allows you to pick a chosen market (cars, computers, aircraft, etc.) and then puts the company in your hands as you compete against other companies (either controlled by the computer or others via the Internet) for world wide dominance. Research new technologies, ... [read more]
8/27/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
The Political Machine gets another positive review, this one from Gamespy. A very in depth look at the game on both its pros and cons. http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-political-machine/541810p1.html [read more]
8/25/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
The San Francisco Chronicle has taken a look at The Political Machine. It concludes with "The Political Machine is another winner, in an election year or any other time. " Read the whole thing at: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/24/DDGIH8CH0P1.DTL Meanwhile, Gamespot has posted The Political Machine on their home page as a recommended title: "We put our vote behind Stardock's charming new political strategy game" [read more]
8/24/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
The Political Machine 1.01 is now available for download for those who purchased the retail boxed version. The new version adds a multi-save game manager and now includes much better multiplayer support (a built in lobby is now available). It also fixes some bugs that users have reported. Most notably, the save game during a campaign game bug is fixed (if you saved a game during the middle of a campaign and came back, it wouldn't count it as a victory). We also improved the load time... [read more]
8/19/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
Wired News has reviewed The Political Machine. "The game itself, at least at intermediate levels, is quick-moving and addictive. I was able to hustle through the 41-week election cycle in about three hours. That's all the time you'll need to win at the beginner's level. But as you boost the difficulty (the levels are labeled "tough," "painful," "masochistic" and "crippling" -- enough to dissuade anyone from going pro), each decision requires considerably more thought and research." ... [read more]
8/19/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
Pick up the August 23rd edition of Time Magazine or check out CNN ( http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/fun.games/08/18/political.machine/index.html ) and read some reviews on The Political Machine. The game should be generally available at most retail outlets that sell PC games. [read more]
8/18/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
If you like The Political Machine, you may want to check out Galactic Civilizations, Stardock's award-winning space based strategy game. In it, players take on the role of leader of a United Earth and must expand into a galaxy that is filled with hostile alien civilizations. Players must balance diplomacy, manufacturing might, economic power, and military skill in order to survive and eventually win. The game won editor's choice awards from most of the major PC game publications. ... [read more]
8/17/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
On August 10 The Political Machine began shipping. What this means is literally the manufactured retail units began shipping from the manufacturer to stores and other resellers. If you pre-ordered just The Political Machine after June 1, we expect to receive our boxes imminently at which point your orders will get charged and units sent out to you. If you pre-order just The Political Machine before June 1, we should have the gold version available via Stardock Central for you to down... [read more]
8/11/2004 By Frogboy in Political Machine News
San Francisco, CA–August 11, 2004–Ubisoft, a leading company in the multimedia industry, announced with Stardock Entertainment the release of The Political Machine, which ships today to retailers nationwide. A PC-CD strategy game based on data collected from surveys, exit polls, and the 2000 U.S. Census, The Political Machine users are challenged to spend 41 weeks on the campaign trail, serving as a campaign manager for a presidential candidate. In an effort to secure a spot in the Oval Offi... [read more]
8/11/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
Stardock Entertainment is pleased to announce the availability of The Political Machine (published by Ubisoft). The Political Machine is a strategy game in which players take on the role of campaign manager for a US Presidential candidate. In it players compete against either the computer or against other players via the Internet in a contest to win the White House. Candidates must campaign, raise money, take out advertisements, win endorsements, and even go on cable TV news shows such as Th... [read more]
8/10/2004 By Stardock Central in Political Machine News
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