We’re now at 10+ years in the making now (and 8.5 since my pre-order).
I do wonder how this is working out in the being-able-to-pay-bills dept:
(June 2011) I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be working on Starfarer full-time from now on.
Last week was the last at my full-time job. For a few weeks before, I’d agonized over the decision to quit. On the one hand, the security of a regular paycheck and working for a great company. On the other, a small glimpse of a possible future for Starfarer afforded by the absolutely incredible reception of the alpha release.
I’ve tried for quite a while to verbalize exactly why I finally decided to quit, and was having a hard time picking out a reason that doesn’t sound like something out of a self-help guide. “Follow your dream!”… pshaw. There certainly was some of that, but would I give up my job and take a leap into the unknown “just” to do that? I’d love to say yes, but I honestly can’t. The reality was less uplifting and inspirational.
After a year and a half of working long nights and weekends, I was, well, tired. The whirlwind of activity after the release, while still working full-time, was more than I could handle. I got extremely burned out, stressed, irritable, you name it. Also a bit delirious due to the lack of sleep. Walking around, muttering to myself. I’m pretty sure I even heard voices once – which made me sympathize with people that do on a regular basis – it’s very unnerving.
He had a big influx of players (and money) when the game was covered by youtuber SsethTzeentach last year (more thean 3.5 million views). In fact the same happened in this thread, some people started playing around that date, and then others followed through word of mouth.
I think he is set for one more year with that money, it isn’t like he will have big development expenses. And if the regular revenue stream starts to dry up, he can finally put the game under EA in Steam.
I check into the Starsector website and forums about once a month, in fact just checked this week, but apparently a couple days in front of this latest announcement.
I start a new campaign whenever he does an update, which is not often, so it’s nice to see this news as one my absolute favorite games is just about ready for another spin around the galaxy.
How long has it been since a patch anyways? It feels like roughly infinity.
Edit: Just to be clear I’m not complaining just antsy. Kind of an interesting blog post. I went through the same thing with stories myself. Once you’ve read enough of them and a few on writing and understand how the sausage is made it’s really easy to become cynical and kind of start hating everything for being derivative or not executing their plot point/characters/dialogue as artfully as product B or whatever.
And then you just kind of get middle aged and can appreciate a well made story that is artfully told, even if it has been done before, and probably better. As long as you can engage the audience and make them care about what is happening. Without that, you end up with Tom’s Cyberpunk review.
Boy, this game really goes a long time between updates. Aging and fine wine and whatnot, but still, we’re heading on 2 years since the last update. Sheesh.
My prediction I did some time ago , of the updates needing exponentially more time, is gaining evidence. See you at the end of the universe, when I will finally be able to play 1.0 !!
