Stardock Announces the Creation of Stardock Design

haha..nice work, Ive actually been dealing with the front office of the New Orleans Saints after designing an NFL theme for them for quite some time now.

Good to see commercial theming is taking an upward turn! Great news!

Oh Nooo! A FSU Seminoles theme. I hope no one in the office finds out. I've bragged on you guys too much....The SHAME.....

and claims some of the world best skinners among its team of artists

I checked my email TWICE and haven't been contacted. Stardock, please check your email system.

...it's all about the Benjamins.

Kind of sad, IMHO, as I'm sure more and more creators will be lured to the profit side with less and less quality material available for free. So we buy a subscription in order to buy skins. What a deal.

Flame me if you want, but I've been on this site almost since the beginning and I really hate seeing it become so commercial rather than a community.

I don't think the community has lost anything. We are gaining visability.

Good luck team!

There's still a ton of free content out there. In fact "pay" skins are still pretty rare. Stardock Design is working with larger companies such as ATI, NVIDIA, Nintendo, and organizations like the Florida State University to provide themed desktops for their user-base. This is something that doesn't actually take away from the community.

Even the skinners we've hired or contract with to work on projects still put out quality content for free. MikeB has recently put two new skins out (Parsec and Fett) on the GUI Champs. Essorant has his khado icon set up for download. The free goodies are still flowing and a good rate.

While I admire Brad's entrepreneurial spirit. After checking the site, my stomach became a bit queezy. Initially it appeared you are/were targeting the commercial market but, it seems you are also targeting the consumer market as well?

Could this be why some of the questions haven't been answered regarding desktopgadgets.com? I've been working on a Slot Machine gadget for sometime and have been considering desktopgadgets as the potential marketing avenue; so, when I saw the Texas Hold Em Suite for $8.95 you could imagine my concern.

Obviously, who's going to pay $5 or $6 bucks for a gadget when they can get an entire suite for practically the same price? Also, after the significant wait for placement is an updated suite or new suite going to appear containing similar gadgets to those developed by independent developers? Is the inside team going to get newer development versions ahead of the market? Just a lot of questions, concerns, and worries.

The reason I bought DesktopX Developer Edition was for the eventual creation of gadgets that could earn me a little cash.

DesktopGadgets.com is something completely separate from the SD Design effort. There are some ideas about it going forward, but at the moment we're focused on projects like WC2k7 with it's master skins storefront (Master level skinners will be able to sell content via WC).

Is the inside team going to get newer development versions ahead of the market?

No. The most that the team would recieve would be the beta versions that are available to anyone with an Object Desktop subscription.

Call me "Mr. Glass half-empty", but it just doesn't seem to make much sense for a Texas Hold'em suite (poker theme) to have a BLACKJACK gadget.

Maybe it's just me???

I think this is a good thing for the community overall. It gives more exposure to WindowBlinds, gadgets and skinning in general and it gives more credibility, in the eyes of some people, by making it more "official", i.e. taking it from the realm of a niche product used by few hardcore fans to a commercial product with, what will hopefully become, wider distribution and consequently wider exposure and adoption by the general public. Well that was droll... Stardock rules! WindowBlinds FTW!... that's better

Theres nothing "sad" about this.. fact is the skinners that have invested years in learning this trade deserve an opportunity to make a living at it, some of these guys have delivered dozens and dozens of skins for FREE to the community and now its time for them to reap some reward from it all of a sudden its unfair? Artists in every other field use their talents to sell their works, how is this any different?, as was mentioned this is directed more towards corporate entities and organisation members who more than likey dont even know they CAN skin and shouldnt adversly affect WC community at all, there will still be plenty of non master skinners to provide new content and free stuff periodically from the better skinners. If the newer skinners spend the time and effort needed to becaome a master perhaps they can make some money too.

It all seems fair and makes perfect sense to me.

Kind of sad, IMHO, as I'm sure more and more creators will be lured to the profit side with less and less quality material available for free. So we buy a subscription in order to buy skins. What a deal.

Stardock Design is not WinCustomize.  There will always be free content on here.  If anything, the ability to make money off from the work now and then *keeps* people in the community.  They make their own skins for fun (and learning) and then are able to get paid for commissioned work.

it just doesn't seem to make much sense for a Texas Hold'em suite (poker theme) to have a BLACKJACK gadget.

Well...I poker gadget would be too hard.  So, we stuck to a simply card game. 

Obviously, who's going to pay $5 or $6 bucks for a gadget when they can get an entire suite for practically the same price?

 

Stardock Design is primarily Corporate work.  However, we also handle the consumer themes that you have seen come out lately (Logika 2007 on).  DesktopGadgets.com isn't going anywhere, and WC is going to have a premium section for Masters and above to sell work through.  If a gadget fits a premium theme or corporate use, Stardock Design may approach the owners and commission a custom version (such as Fortune ball).  I see it as a success for all involved.

 

In the end, artists need to make money just like anyone else.  If they can turn their hobby into a business, what is the harm?  We still get free skins from the people involved (just look at GUI Champs).  If anything, I think that the quality of the free skins has increased since the premium skins started picking up momentum.  Seems like a win-win situation.

 

I checked my email TWICE and haven't been contacted. Stardock, please check your email system.

yeah, right there with ya bud.. but since I'm not an "artist" its not likely ill be invited.

Alright lots of new suite coming, but is there any way that you could bring back X-men or Spiderman deskstop suite? Even i pay double for it!

Good comment, Big Cheese KarmaGirl!

I think this is one smart and natural move for Stardock, and I am very pleased with the choice of skinners involved so far. I have already bought the Argos, Texas & Fortune suites and for quality work like that, I am more than willing to pay for skins like that in the future to support Stardock & the skinners.

While I admire Brad's entrepreneurial spirit. After checking the site, my stomach became a bit queezy. Initially it appeared you are/were targeting the commercial market but, it seems you are also targeting the consumer market as well? Could this be why some of the questions haven't been answered regarding desktopgadgets.com? I've been working on a Slot Machine gadget for sometime and have been considering desktopgadgets as the potential marketing avenue; so, when I saw the Texas Hold Em Suite for $8.95 you could imagine my concern. Obviously, who's going to pay $5 or $6 bucks for a gadget when they can get an entire suite for practically the same price? Also, after the significant wait for placement is an updated suite or new suite going to appear containing similar gadgets to those developed by independent developers? Is the inside team going to get newer development versions ahead of the market? Just a lot of questions, concerns, and worries. The reason I bought DesktopX Developer Edition was for the eventual creation of gadgets that could earn me a little cash.

The primary purpose of Stardock Design is to create content for corporate customers not consumers. It does create content for Stardock to sell to consumers (like premium suites) but 95% of its efforts are on corporate work.  The FSU suite is the first of many many such examples of companies, universities, sports teams, OEMs etc. that want to provide a custom-branded experience to their users.

Stardock Design is totally unrelated from WinCustomize.com. It's like Pixtudio or Skinplant and such but taken to the next level (in fact, Stardock Design involves the skinners from both).  As it grows, we'll tap more and more people from the community (RomanDA comes to mind on gadgets). 

Thanks for clarifying that Brad.

After reviewing some of the further response & thinking a little more. Obviously Stardock is not going to hurt a potential source of talent that continues to renew itself as more people become interested in skinning.

The trickle-down effect from corporate skinning definitely looks exceptional considering the number of people who will experience something never experienced before. Then look towards varying levels of customization for home use. Exciting Times.

WOW

I say about time this happened. This is what I hoped would happend a couple of years ago. I guess there is a time for everything. I hope it works out for the best. I think it will.

This is simply a logical progression for a company so heavily involved in the GUI mod 'game'.  Probably the only mildly surprising thing is that it's been so long in the coming, though I trust it's a contemporaneous decision with the imminent release of a quite new OS [Vista].

Every time a new commercial entity emerged from within the skinning community [in particular Pixtudio and The Skins Factory] there has been voices of trepidation "the sky is falling". etc. when infact this very commercialism gives validation and shows mainstream acceptance of what was/is a 'young' industry/artform.

The first 'official' skin TSF did for a film company....or the first WB theme Pixtudio did for Nintendo, etc....they simply demonstrated a 'coming of age' of the craft.

This is ALL GOOD, and should never be seen as a negative as it ultimately benefits all, skinners and users alike...

the future is looking brighter...nice move Stardock

Can I get A response???? I send e-mail to support and it is rejected, fes up with your corporate a**
what has happened to Sound Packager????? Can everyone see that there has been no response to this question for months!!!!!!!!!!!! I have tried all avenues of communications, I have purchased your products, can I have some response to my question???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Contrary to popular belief, Stardock is not an unlimited fountain of resources and people. They are a small company, and as a result, must direct resources to what they feel is most important. As stated on several occasions, the current focus is the re-vamp of WinCustomize for the coming year. I would suggest emailing [email protected] again with your question about SoundPackager, making an attempt to use proper grammar and punctuation. There is much less chance of getting filtered out as spam that way.

(By the way... the developer of SoundPackager is also the dev for SkinStudio, and I suspect he's pretty busy with the ongoing development of WindowBlinds Vista... patience! )

D.B.S. no promises were made to you for any app. Your interest in the app is noted, but unless you and a thousand of your friends start clamoring for sound packager Stardock will use it's own experience and judgment on deciding where to spend it's resources.

Posts like yours only make you look like a crackpot. We should all endeavor to avoid such situations.

Patience.

its a good good news that commercial skinning is gaining grounds...good luck to Stardock design!