Why is Space Sim Gaming so unpopular?

[Pinback]

Star Citizen, E:D, No Man's Sky and I would add Valkyrie are all good getting publicity and drawing more people into playing this sort of game which should in turn should have a knock on effects for the other indie space games where I think the real action is to be found in terms of ideas. As indie developers are more open to try an idea, which a more commercial developer will avoid

[XenonS]

Star Citizen, E:D, No Man's Sky and I would add Valkyrie are all good getting publicity and drawing more people into playing this sort of game which should in turn should have a knock on effects for the other indie space games where I think the real action is to be found in terms of ideas. As indie developers are more open to try an idea, which a more commercial developer will avoidYep, I agree. It's astonishing that I missed this whole post for all these years, I've read it up to the review of Freelancer - WC5 - Darkstar One. I have played FL and DSO, and I liked both for some special aspects. Freelancer has the perfect suited and a really convincing plot while DSO has a very challenging space combat where you need to correctly update your ship. I also agree that in DSO the voice-over and the story is pure Bu******. But that's the point: Do we space simmers really care about the story? Well, in a game like WC5 the story is the game (I cannot remember if you can roam around and do free missions in WC5, I think not, you have to stay with the story). Freelancer, and more recent space games (after 2005) have to convince in the Sandbox aspect (Free Roaming) where the player really influences the limited sector of the galaxy where he acts. So the player's consequences should not be predictable and once the story ends there should still be plenty of things to do like in X: Rebirth, X3. These things are limited however. I dunno about a space game that really has a high replayability.So, NO: the story is not the central thing in a space game, that's where the reviewer above is wrong and his ratings biased. I have started X:Rebirth, SPG2 and very now Spaceforce: Rogue Universe HD, all these WITHOUT the story, starting in Free Play mode. If I get good entertainment there then the sim is good for sure. I think that the arising space sim No Man's Sky, together with a few other titles if they finally come out, will be a huge success, at least well above the selling numbers of other space sims. NoMS will have success not because of its in-game story (I highly doubt there will be any), but because of its huge immersion, the absence of travel limits, because of the excellent artwork that also makes the player more interested in real space problems, and there are many of them.I still hope that Star Citizen will have a good single-player game mode, with or without story I don't care, and not only tagged for Multiplayer, I'm not glad to hear that single-player is just an option with some shipped mission series, that sounds bad.A game like Shores Of Hazaron, but also for the offline single player, with good AI for NPC ships, this is the formula for a good space sim IMO. In general, why are space games not popular?Except for science-fiction litterature or movies, space technology and projects don't make the cut on common people. They are seeing incredibly expensive projects that they pay with taxes.But this can change, also in the long future mankind has to go into space, not just for fun but for a number of very solid reasons, one of them is survival IMO.As for space games: there must be much more than a simple arcade play in space to make it to the selling charts. For a good arcade shooter, FPS game or else I don't need the space environment in a game, so a publisher may well ask me to take this out. Or: you do a real good arcade game in space. Is Spaceforce Homeworld by Dreamatrix the One? Don't know, IMO it's much worse than the console games Space Invaders or Phoenix, but just another background. These are not space games. Space games are indeed popular, for the gamers - not for bigger publishers :spiteful:Very unfortunately games like Freelancer, X: Rebirth, ED and future space games, they all assemble the most huge amount of features that all cost money to develop, much more than in any other game genre. And yes, altough I'm not terribly interested in, they aslo should come with a in-game story. The work involved for good voice-overs and the related artwork for sequences etc. are not cheap to develop either. Unfortunately these are all reasons for a bigger publisher to dismiss such projects, unless you would convince him about an exceptional aspect that really sells well. Retro-games (copies) of Elite or Wing Commander won't do it, so what remains? No Man's Sky will teach us. XenonS