Stardock Studio's CEO Under Fire
CEO Brad Wardell filed a lawsuit earlier this month against a former employee, an employee…who sued him for sexual harassment two years ago.
Elemental: War of Magic
Players: 1 offline player, 2-16 players online
Publisher: Stardock Entertainment
Genres: Strategy
Publisher: Stardock Entertainment
Genres: Strategy
Release Date: August 24, 2010
Developer: Stardock Entertainment
MSRP: $49.95
Developer: Stardock Entertainment
MSRP: $49.95
Players will expand a magical empire through a combination of magical power, military might, diplomatic skill, technological advancement and bold adventuring in Elemental, a fantasy strategy game.
Stardock Studio’s CEO Under Fire
Posted By Robert G. about 8 months, 1 week ago
CEO Brad Wardell
Stardock Studio’s CEO Brad Wardell is making waves in the gaming media this weekend in perhaps one of the ugliest ways imaginable. The CEO of the Michigan-based PC developer filed a lawsuit a few weeks ago against a former employee, marketing manager Alexandra Miesta, for $1 million in damages for the mishandling of Stardock’s 2010 release of Elemental: War of Magic. The claims made by Wardell state that Miesta “destroyed and/or stole Starock’s Elemental materials, analytics and trade show information weeks before the release of Elemental just before quitting, causing the company to lose all their marketing data and analytics for Elemental: War of Magic only three weeks before the game’s scheduled launch.”
Considering the reception of Elemental was subpar at best and Wardell at the time admitted to the game’s shortcomings, the claim does not seem so groundless upon first glance. However, in December 2010 Miesta filed a lawsuit against Wardell for sexual harassment. According to documents obtained by Kotaku, Miesta was seeking unspecified damages in the excess of $25,000. Allegations of harassment include Wardell sending emails to Miesta with sexually explicit material and a 100 question “purity test” survey asking sexual related questions such as “have you engaged in group sex?” or “have you engaged in anal intercourse?”
Wardell also seems to have a track record for harassment at Stardock. Several witness dispositions have revealed that he made several comments about female employee bra sizes, asked Miesta to attend a media tour because “[her] nipples look better on TV” and, the straw that would break the camel’s back, touching Miesta’s hair during a media tour dinner in May of 2010. Shortly after that media event, Miesta would send a letter requesting Wardell to stop the sexual harassment because of how it made her uncomfortable at Stardock.
Letter to Brad Wardell from Alexandra Miesta
Brad,
I wanted to talk to you about some of the events that happened on our media tour on 5/27/2010 to San Francisco, CA. This past week has been an emotional rollercoaster for me and I’ve struggled about some of the things you said and did at dinner on Wednesday, 5/29/2010. Dinner ended up being extremely awkward and I really feel that I need to address what happened. As a professional working for you, I would really appreciate it, if in the future you would please refrain from the following behaviors:
Please never touch my hair or any of my body parts; not even jokingly.
Please do not talk about my private life or about my boyfriend/future husband in any terms especially negative terms.
Please be careful with your “jokes” which are at many times inappropriate, sexist, vulgar and very embarrassing not only to me, but everyone present.
Please keep your negative personal opinions of others (including family members and/or coworkers) not present at the time of your comments, to yourself. I feel, at times, it puts me in a very uncomfortable position.
With the above few behavioral changes, I’m hoping our previously friendly and professional relationship can be reestablished. My goal from day one (June 04, 2007) has been to work for this company 110% and to work together with my peers to build a high quality, successful company. I would like to continue to work with you in the future and keep striving towards that very goal.
Respectfully,
Alexandra Miseta
Wardell would reply to Miesta through an email, promising to change “some of” his behaviors.
Letter to Alexandra Miesta from Brad Wardell
Hi Alexandra,
Thank you for bringing these up to me as I certainly do not want you to feel uncomfortable at work.
I don’t recall item #1 but will certainly endeavor to be extra careful.
I understand #2. I will be more conscious of this in the future.
#3, however is not acceptable to me. I am an inappropriate, sexist, vulgar, and embarrassing person and I’m not inclined to change my behavior. If this is a problem, you will need to find another job.
#4, Again, I am not willing to adapt my behavior to suit others. IF you find my behavior problematic, I recommend finding another job.
I’m not some manager or coworker of yours. I own the company. It, and your job here, exist to suit my purposes, not vice versa. The company is not an end unto itself, it is a means to an end which is to further the objectives of its shareholders (in this case, me).
While I certainly agree that your rights as a person (certainly in terms of physical contact or interms of comments made towards you regarding your private live) take precedence over my rights as the owner of the business, that is as far as it goes.
I sincerely apologize for offending you while on our trip. I certainly would never intentionally try to upset you or make you uncomfortable and will endeavor to avoid doing so in the future. However, I won’t change my basic personality to suit anyone (i.e. being an inappropriate, sexist, vulgar and embarrassing person).
Kind regards,
Brad
Miesta did just that back in August 2010, finally achieving her lawsuit in December of that year. As for the sexual harassment lawsuit, it has been slow-going for a year, until July 13th. Wardell had motioned for a dismissal of the case, alleging that not only did he not sexually harass Miesta. In July, Judge Robert Ziolkowski denied the dismissal, ensuring that Miesta v. Wardell will go to trial.
For those still following this, basically, Wardell sexually harassed Miesta, Miesta sued him, Wardell tried for a dismissal and failed, and about a month later Wardell filed a lawsuit against Miesta. It should be noted that in the move for dismissal, Wardell’s lawyers do mention that Miesta deleted files before she left Stardock in 2010, but several witnesses contradict this claim. In fact, an anonymous member of Stardock revealed to Kotaku “that at the time, nobody mentioned any materials having gone missing or any sabotage having taken place and showed Kotaku communications from Wardell that indicated satisfaction with how Miseta’s staff replacement was taking over the review kit and review guide process.” Considering most of the problems with Elemental, the game in question, were QA issues and technical glitches, it seems unlikely that marketing material would be the cause for Elemental’s failure, something Wardell said over a year ago.
Finally, there is one more bit of news from Wardell, who responded to these allegations on the message board Quarter to Three:
Letter Response from Brad Wardell on Quarter to Three
Ok, I’m going to respond here since I’m being directly accused of something.
The incident that started this happened back in 2010. Myself, Alexandra, and a few others were at a pub while waiting to go to the Qt3 dinner that Lloyd case had set up.
While there, Alexandra got teased and got mad. At the time, i didn’t realize she was so upset about it. So we went to the Qt3 get together (that some here may have even been at) and that.
She later emailed me telling me she was mad about the incident – to which I apologized for hurting her feeligs but also insisted that I watch what jokes I tell around the office. (To understand the context, we’re a relaxed software company, lots of Family guy jokes, Simpsons references, Robot Chicken references, etc.). To which I responded, admittedly, very very harshly to.
Now, you can argue that I was a jerk in how I responded to her. But it does not justify her getting pissed off, quitting without notice and using her network access to wipe out our marketing assets 3 weeks before the ship of the game forcing me and a few other key team members to scramble at the last second to deal with it.
In addition, I would ask those who are so quick to condemn me personally to ask themselves this – what impact do you think it would have on your team if a key person quit, wiped out a bunch of stuff and made a bunch of legal theats? Think of the effect it would have around the office.
NO one has suggested that if she hadn’t done this that Elemental would have been a great game. But there is a huge gulf between having a “great game” and a “total disaster”. The ultimate blame for the game’s failure lies with me for reasons I’ve stated countless times. But that doesn’t excuse someone from maliciously and intentionally wiping out years worth of marketing data, assets, etc.
And the charge that this is “retaliatory” is ridiculous and, frankly, offensive to not just me but virtually everyone here at Stardock – who I can assure you are at least as pissed off as I was about what she did.
The only thing that has recently changed is that our case against her got moved to federal court and that we have continued our position of not settling her frivolous case.
Both cases are currently pending at this time, but that is truthfully irrelevant in the end. The lawsuit by Wardell against Miesta just reeks of desperation on his part for his behavior. To blatantly sexually harass an employee, and then accuse her of destroying materials from her job through a one million dollar lawsuit after her case is pushed forward becomes a motion of hypocrisy. If this was the case, why didn’t Wardell sue Miesta after she left the company? Why wait two years to make that claim, and why wait until the timing for the lawsuit was perfect because of your own losing battle? Those type of moves are transparently obvious in the end.
I would wish Mr. Wardell luck on his cases, but I hope that he get’s what is coming to him. Call me biased, but his behavior is deplorable in this situation, and I have no sympathy for him or his actions. As for Ms. Miesta, I hope that she never has to suffer that sort of abuse again. It just goes to show how jokes can sometimes blow up in your face, be it intentional or not, but owning up to your actions instead of making things worse is the way to go.
Sources: Kotaku , The Verge Polygon
Elemental: War of Magic Review
Stardock games in its ever vigilant pursuit to make the ugly release of their magical RTS Elemental have released their first major patch. The game appears to at last be not only fully functional, but worth an in depth look too.
Stardock Studio's CEO Under Fire
CEO Brad Wardell filed a lawsuit earlier this month against a former employee, an employee…who sued him for sexual harassment two years ago.
Elemental: War of Magic Review
Posted By Johnny Maloney about 2 years, 5 months ago
Elemental: War of Magic Review
I’d like to begin this review for Elemental: War of Magic with an excerpt from my diary, dated August 25th, 2010, the day after its release:
“Elemental: War of Magic Released. Balls.”
I had tremendously high hopes for this title, and when I started it up the first time I was amazed with how difficult it was to play. The memory leaks were so bad I had to restart the game once about every ten to fifteen minutes, and I had to restart the campaign no less than three times before I realized it was utterly unplayable.
When I finally managed to get enough gameplay time in, I noticed how horribly broken the game was. Not just technically, but also mechanically.
| PROS | Unique genre, customizability, creative content |
| CONS | Slim campaign, resource allocation, AI with Alzheimer’s, still some stability issues |
| WTF?! | This game was released in AUGUST. I’ve only found it playable now |
I have very fond memories of Microprose turn-based strategy games from my childhood. Master of Orion, Master of Magic and X-Com: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown for our European counterparts) were affairs that lasted for months. Even though I was also romancing titles like Syndicate, Return to Zork and a young upstart RTS called Warcraft that year, it was not uncommon for me to frequently return to Master of Magic and its kin to conquer the realms of science or arcane wizardry.
Certainly, we’ve seen a lot of contemporary and futuristic strategy games since then, both real-time and turn-based, but the world of magic appeared for a time to have sequestered itself to either the Heroes of Might & Magic games or the Age of Wonders series. I had been waiting for magic conquest to come back, and to my surprise Stardock games was thinking the exact same thing.
I’ll make this clear right now: I will be writing of the game trying to approach it as a new user. The scoring will *not* take into account earlier versions of the game (the 1.1 patch was released last week) and instead focus on what they have to offer with a complete, working product.
The game itself is not that distant from many other civilization management-style games. Players take control of a powerful channeller who founds an empire and through blood, sweat, tears, mayonnaise, back massages and an inclusive-manner-of-picking-children-for-teams-in-gym-class raises their kingdom up and holds dominance over the lands. Cities are given building and training queues, each allowing the city to produce/augment resources (Currency, Research, Food, etc.) or train military units, both templates and those of your own design. When entering the fray, battles are turn-based on a grid, with each unit getting a certain amount of actions each turn.
My avatar who, as named, ain’t fuckin’ wit him.
There IS a single-player campaign in Elemental, though I wonder why. The story is quite thin, and there isn’t nearly enough depth to the campaign as there is in the free play mode. For example, you don’t manage a research/spell tree in the campaign ever and they disallow you from making your own pioneer units, which found cities. They just give new cities to you when you’ve advanced far enough. What’s more is the story is incomplete, banking on the upcoming first DLC set (and possibly more to come) titled “Book 2: Magea” to continue the narrative. What’s strange is, though lackluster, I’m not completely sure how this contributes to the final evaluation. Most civ-style games don’t bother with a story mode as it tends not to add much, and though that’s true for Elemental (it really doesn’t seem to add much more than a limited tutorial), I’m somewhat glad that Stardock is trying to fill out their games.
6/10
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December 20, 2010 at 05:12pm
I was really looking forward to this game, but when I saw it being demo’ed at PAX 2009 I just had this feeling like it could be a complete disaster – as if they werent quite sure what they wanted to do with the game – they even took one of my suggestions (though im not sure if it ever made it into the game).
Its a shame how it released – I couldnt even get ahold of the people I spoke with to get a review copy at the time – and based on what ive heard of the day one release versions I’m happy I didnt.
I wish the game success and hope it gets realized in the way intended (6/10 for v2 is heading in the right direction) but for a game to release like that is a death spell permanently hovering around it.
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December 22, 2010 at 02:11am
I’m hoping that with a drop in sales price, and some serious out of the gate horsepower in their planned DLC this title could be saved. The saving grace of PC and digital distribution titles is that, though nobody may notice, the game could completely change given enough time and attention. Stardock is the kind of studio that will provide that attention.
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December 20, 2010 at 12:27pm
This is another strategy game that slipped under the radar for me. Still, the complexities you talked about definitely make the game sound interesting, as not many games work quite like this one seems to. I might have to rent the game sometime to see if it’s my kind of deal.
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December 20, 2010 at 12:27pm
Wow. I was about to write a review on this in the user submitted review section. I would of gave it the exact same rating too. Great review.
One thing I will say about this game is that it needs a sequel. Its a great concept (even it if had poor execution), and with a sequel that should be ready for release, fixed the issues this game had, and more features (like the more Total War like combat they were going to use earlier) it should be awesome.
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December 21, 2010 at 09:08pm
They’re talking a really big game about changing a whole lot of things with the first DLC, but I think it’s probably going to be too late to save this game completely. I had all but forgotten about it when the news of the 1.1 patch was released, and by the time the DLC gets released I’m fairly sure I will have uninstalled it and will be playing something else.
There’s certainly a rash of people being overly sensitive to “family guy” humor… but this seems to actually hold merit, not just some woman looking for a reason to sue. Then we have the CEO pretty obviously fabricating facts as some means of petty revenge. Didn’t Kotick do this exact same thing to a flight attendant not too long ago? Being a scumbag seems to be a job requirement for being the CEO of a software developer these days.
Call me the odd one out, but in a country where you’re allowed to deny the holocaust or hold aloft signs upon which are written “God Hates Fags” at the funerals of soldiers under the flag of free speech, telling a dirty joke in the workplace seems tame in comparison.
That said, it seems as though this case is definitely worse then just that; guess we’ll have to see how it all plays out in court or if they settle.
All that says to me is it should be illegal to mess with peoples funerals. It’s like having sex with dead people, we didn’t think we would actually have to make a law against it… but apparently we did.
Seeing as he basically confessed I don’t think this will go so well for him :p