Blog: Game piracy, ImpressionCreator, ObjectBar 2, and more...

The big story this week for us was the release of TotalGaming.net. But what made just as much noise was a blog I wrote about why PC games sales are going down (or at least my take on it). Got a lot of email on that. It's kind of a weird dual job here. Those of you who use WinCustomize may not even realize Stardock makes games. And those people who use our games may have no idea about Object Desktop. Separate worlds.  So yea, this week was mostly a game week. It could have ended better, one publisher can't pay its bills and another publisher seems intent on antagonizing us for no apparent reason. But that's another story. Suffice to say, being a game developer isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

On the other hand, we're having a blast with the betas of DesktopX 2.2.  If you don't use DesktopX already, I really hope you try out DesktopX 2.2 when it comes out. Even if you tried out DesktopX 1 or something long ago and hated it, it's really come a long way.  Even DesktopX 2.1 to this new version is a big step. For me, the big thing is the new overlays feature.  Hit F9 (which is settable) and your widgets/objects that are set to normal z-order will pop on top, disappear, or return to normal. It's almost like having a whole new product because it can fundamentally change the way you use your desktop.  On my computer, I have a bunch of really cool stuff on my desktop (bandwidth monitor, store status, weather, clock, task list, handles monitor, and a few other little widgets). But I keep them hidden. When I hit F9, they all appear on top of what I'm doing.  So if I quickly need to check out something, I hit F9 and voila, there they are. Very handy.  We should have DesktopX 2.2 available on Object Desktop towards the end of next week. The public version will have to wait until mid August due to vacations.

We hope to use DesktopX 2.2 as the way to kick off our upcoming corporate solutions initiative. Stardock is increasingly licensing its technology into the corporate markets. But we've been very slow to push this aspect.  Go onto Stardock.com and try to find a way to find out how to license our software for corporate use. Good luck. We suck, what can I say.  But that's going to change.  With DesktopX 2.2's release we can start really pushing DesktopX Pro on a large scale.  I saw in PC Magazine recently this program that lets you build your own custom web browsers. It was something like $200. Just remember that DesktopX standard is only $20 right now and can do a lot more than that.

Awhile back we were noticing how awful most auto-runs look.  So we decided that this was an area we should get into. After all, we were using DesktopX Pro to make our auto-runs for our games. So why not make a product designed specifically for that based on it? The result is ImpressionCreator. A program that we'll be releasing next month (also based on DesktopX 2.2).

Meanwhile, work on ObjectBar 2 continues. I should probably mention what the big things in it are so people aren't surprised that we aren't doing the things they thought we would do with it.  First off, it's basically a rewrite.  A lot has been learned and we want to apply that here.  The biggest change you'll notice is that it'll have a whole new UI.  Secondly, we are going to set it up so that it will be able to embed DesktopX widgets.  So instead of poor skin authors having to jump through incredible hoops to make interesting bars and menus and such, we decided it would make sense to combine the strengths of DesktopX and ObjectBar together.  Hence, a bar with a widget integrated into it.  And lastly, we hope to make it so that you can export your finished bar as a stand alone program.  That will allow us to build ControlCenter 2.0 with it.  If you have Object Desktop, we hope to have that out for you in late Fall but it's been slow going, this stuff isn't easy to do as you can probably imagine.

I had hoped we would have an ObjectDock Plus update tonight. There's been a lot of new fixes this week to it but as we start getting close to "gold" with it, the last fixes get increasingly hard to duplicate and fix. We feel the stability and reliabilty are going to be tantamount here as ObjectDock, while looking fantastic, is really about making Windows fundamentally better as a useful environment which means users have to feel like they can completely rely on it. For me, it'll reach that point when I can ditch the Start bar entirely.  Think about it, ObjectDock Plus can do the Start menu, it can organize your programs and websites, it can handle the taskbar including grouping, and it it'll do the system tray better than the system tray does.  So it's all there potentially. It's just a matter of making sure it's bullet proof.

The other big thing going on these days is the development of WinCustomize v4 (which is also known as WC2K5).  The site is being recreated from scratch using .NET which allows for all kinds of improvements to performance. It's going to be a very different site from today and a lost faster one too. But fundamentally, we think it'll be a better website. The current WinCustomize was born in the days when skinning (ahem, "customization") was still kind of niche. But that time has passed.  We need to have a lot more community features, a lot more skinner appreciation features, and a lot more ways of empowering users to influence the direction of things themselves.  For instance, most people like these "blogs" but some people don't. I can see where those people are coming from because they're news items masquerading as blogs.  in WC4, subscribers and apprentices and up will be able to write their own articles and help contribute to the community in ways currently not possible. There's nothing quite like it out there.  I'm told that we'll be able to start phasing it in when I get back from Higgin's Lake (second week of August).

Meanwhile, next week, we hope to have a certain super hero premium suite done.  I.e. licensed from Marvel and all that. Had to make sure it was done correctly to ensure we had Marvel's approval. It's going to be slick.

One last thing, somebody asked why we support "non-Stardock" "competitors". Let me tell you why: A rising tide lifts all boats. The better legitimate customization software developers do, the better we all do. We want to support those who in turn will help support the rest of the community. We want to see other hard working developers succeed because if we all help each other, we all win...