I-War vs Egosofts X games

I admit that my number one gaming passion is Space Combat/Trading games. It all started with Elite on my C64 and now, years later, I kind of time share between I-War2, X2 and a little of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion to SWG.

I've read here and back on the original I-War forums that Space Combat games are a niche game and not profitable enough for publishers to buy into. So I have to wonder how Egosoft manages to do it. X2 is a pretty good game, the combat is a little weak but they nailed down the trading part of the genre.

Is it possible that there are more X game fans than I-War fans? If so, why? Is it that I-War was too difficult? Maybe it was too much of a simulation and not enough arcade-ish?

If Stephen is still around, I'd like to hear what he thinks.

I've not played the X series extensively, but the bits I have played were too slow paced for me. It seemed like a trading sim first and a space sim second.

As for the space sim genre, well apart from Star Wars games (maybe including them too) it's pretty much dead. I doubt many publishers would consider commissioning a new space-sim these days.

There's just not a big enough audience these days to justify the huge expense of developing them.

If I were to do a modern PC space sim now, I'd insist on it being very easy to get into, have extremely pretty graphics and allow mouse or joystick control, with the default being mouse - many PC gamers don't own joysticks or game controllers. I'd insist on a large amount of action, but have some real depth that people could get into. I'd probably make it more RPG like too.

-- Steve
Stephen Robertson
I-War series co-designer.

i've TRIED to enjoy teh X games....but i think theyre poodoo....way too much trading emphasis, not enough action...it's boring; i DO like their cockpits though...i like the feel of them for some reason; but it takes me 30 minutes to get from one station to another! i think IWAR has the best travel setup ever too...no "gateway" things or whatever...you simply point to a star and fly to it....not many games get that right (i love freespace, and a new one, nexus, so a good game doesnt NEED the freeform movement...but it never hurts )

same with freelancer for me...i tried so hard to like that game....and they made it even worse by requiring that lame mouse-control (i dont like 3rd person mouse control...the mouse control in StarShatter is neat sorta; but for the sake of bananas, they should have had the OPTION for joystick control...they turned it into one of those mindless clicky MMORPG games....boring again)