When they released Elemental, Stardock's reputation was close to perfect, the troubled launch of Demigod having been the sole black mark on a record filled with good strategy games, pro-consumer policies, and encouragingly PC-friendly policies.
Elemental destroyed a lot of that credibility. It had huge technical issues at launch and Stardock's initial response was hostile denial. However, now that redesigned follow-up Fallen Enchantress is released, Stardock are finally making things right. Not only does Fallen Enchantress address a lot of issues that crippled Elemental, but people who bought Elemental are receiving it for free.
In a Reddit thread about Stardock's honoring its promise to make things right with Elemental customers, a quotes an email from Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: "While we did update Elemental: War of Magic (you can still v1.4). Its design just wasn't adequate to make it into the kind of game it should be. So we decided to start over. From scratch. We made a new game called Fallen Enchantress.
"So even though it's been two years, we haven't forgotten about you. This week, we released Fallen Enchantress. It is a vastly better game and, we believe, lives up to the expectations set for the original Elemental. This game is yours. Free. It's already been added to your ."
It's a generous and decent gesture from Stardock that goes a long way to proving Elemental was an aberration. It's good of Stardock to the people who felt burned by that earlier game, and to finally give them the game they thought they were buying.