Story: space sim
BY T. THÜMANN
STORY: SPACE SIM
202
No genre took a larger leap of faith than Space Sim. In early 90ties the games Wing Commander and X-Wing were the Call of duty and Battlefield of their time, but after a decade the vanished into thin air. At the same time Game consoles were beginning to replace PC's and this is why it isn't a coincidence. Space Sims was considered to be unfriendly for gamers. Meanwhile the PC made made a massive comeback, indie-designers now could make games through digital channels like steam without a publisher and through the use of crowdfunding they could finance their projects. Everything they needed for a comeback of Space Sims was there and game designer Chris Roberts grabbed the opportunity without hesitation: Star Citizen with a budget of 40 million is absolutely the record holder of crowdfunded projects.
Roberts quickly found out he did not need the investors. The more money he could get through crowdfund the more control he has. “Eventually all investors want to make as much money as they can and the quicker the better. When the game is a success after 3 years and the publisher will make bid to take over for 400 million dollar that is when the investor strikes because he would earn 10 times as much as he originally invested. I want to manage this universe for a long time, so I don't want to be taken over by anybody.” Roberts knows of what he is speaking: origin and Wing Commander where taken over by EA, and his later company, Digital Anvil, where Starlancer and Freelancer were created, Where taken over by Microsoft. “I don’t mind about being taken over by the people of EA, but when you are part of a publisher, then that will lead to another corporation and eventually destroy the DNA of the small, unordered development studio which actually made sure this part was working.” Origin is an example of how this can go wrong: where the studio initially made the motto “we create worlds” true with projects like Ultima, Wing Commander, Crusader: No remorse and BioForge there eventually became a sequel factory which only respected Ultima Online when it was shut down in 2004. “when you work with a big publisher, you have to not only need to create your game, you also have to fight for your money, fight for the attention you require, fight for a better release date and fight for a good marketing campaign. You have to do a lot of stuff which don't have to do anything with the game itself,”says Roberts.
Besides that the external pressure subjecting you to decide the period of release to set right the first financial quarter of a year, or if necessary temporarily make it a console exclusive for a marketing’s deal you made.”