CJ_Parker wrote on Oct 3, 2012, 09:25:

dj LiTh wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 18:12:
... and bet he'd raise more money if he went the kickstarter route.

You'd most likely lose that bet. The last space sim on Kickstarter didn't even reach the low initial target for financing. OK, it didn't have the name of Chris Roberts to it but still... space sims seem to be seriously out of fashion. How many people do you know who still possess a joystick? Right.

It's pretty mysterious, too. Fuck, I remember a time when you bought a new PC and they gave you a cheap joystick for free as a bonus so you could play MS Flight Sim, Wing Commander, Strike Commander, X-Wing or TIE fighter on your shiny new 486DX-40.

So what happened?

You know what? I think Microsoft happened. There used to be a time when people were looking forward to every major Microsoft OS release more because of the latest version of MSFS that usually came along with it than they were looking forward to actually trying out the new OS. Every new MSFS and flight and space sims in general were marvels of technology. Those were the "killer apps" back in the day, the system sellers.
Every new incarnation of Direct3D, OpenGL and Glide was a major milestone on the path to more realistic graphics and people were able and willing to plunk down the cash for the hardware to let that realism happen.
Then comes along Microsoft and releases the Xbox which results in laziness and (relative) stagnation. No longer is the PC the elite leading platform. Cross platform becomes the new buzzword and due to technological limitations space and flight sims no longer manage to stand out from a mass of very same-y looking games. The end.

dj LiTh wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 18:12:
... and bet he'd raise more money if he went the kickstarter route.

Panickd wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 20:25:
...they dumbed the game down considerably...

Muscular Beaver wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 16:23:
Well, it doesnt seem he has the rights to Wing Commander or Privateer, so this will be no game in Wing Commander universe. So I am not that excited yet, because Freelancer was only meh.

J wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 13:12:
The Blues News cheerleaders are out in full force again today!

Creston wrote on Oct 2, 2012, 16:30:
It'd be awesome to see a new space sim made by CR, but without the actual TEAM that did the Wing Commanders, who knows how much of the feel he can recapture?

It'll be an interesting thing to watch, that's for sure. And I'm glad he's (apparently) managing to avoid having to work with the fucking publishers who would be death to a game of this kind. Here's hoping his private funders will allow him to build exactly the game he wants.

Creston