I bet it's a thorny issue for you when a lot of people don't realise you don't have direct control over the ongoing development of the Demigod franchise, it would be great to see more content released for it or even better a sequal. It would be easy for you to say "nothing to do with me" and blame the problems on GPG, then forget about the whole episode.
Stardock's name is on the retail box (at least in North America) so we are definitely share responsibility for the game's success (or failure).
With Demigod, I'm happy with how fun the game turned out but I had really really pushed to have a much larger single player game (including a single player aspect which was the result brainstorming by myself and a VP at GPG who had designed and coded the old Amiga game Defender of the Crown). But the ultimate decision was that Demigod was MP centric.
Of course, the problem with a MP centric game is that we (Stardock) had never published a MP centric game so I didn't really have a lot of advice or suggestions to give to them on what features a MP centric game should have.
One of the reasons why Sins of a Solar Empire turned out so well (I think anyway) is because we were very familiar with that genre and could suggestion and craft a lot of features to make the game itself better. In Demigod, the game itself was heavily influenced by us (the flags, the concept of upgrading your citadel, flags giving you specific abilities) but when it came to MP, we didn't have much to say on it because the last MP game I had played intensely was Total Annihilation.
Could you not buy the intellectual property rights to do a sequal off GPG if they don't want to do it? Then you could produce the game you knew it could of been. I appreciate this may not be financially viable but you seem like the sort of chap that would get it right if you were in direct control. It's just a shame more people don't play it online although after the recent sale theres a good 30 games up and running most evenings and at weekends. I do think online games should be played on servers and not peer to peer as peoples pc's and connection capability differ so widely.
I don't know what GPG's plans for Demigod's long term is. I talk to them pretty regularly (especially Chris) but right now their focus is on an unannounced title and Kings and Castles along with helping promote SupCom 2 which comes out shortly.
Stardock's business model as a game developer is very different from GPG's. Our business model is predicated on releasing regular updates for YEARS because it generates additional sales. GPG's is based on the more traditional publisher pays for development model. With Demigod, the budget was over $5 million with GPG paying nearly half of it.
The only realistic way they could do significant post-release updates for Demigod is if Stardock pays for them - which we did.
The post-release support budget Stradock provided for Demigod was greater than the entire budget of Galactic Civilizations II.
I don't think the DG concept will die. Demigod is a great game. Either GPG will make a sequel or Stardock will ultimately make a game that is in the same genre (with special pricing for Demigod players - you can quote me on that) to expand on the concept.