I’m just really sad about this whole thing. My gut tells me R/F are going to lose Star Control to Stardock, just when they were finally going to go back and continue the tale after Star Control 2. And I’m a big enough fan of the whole franchise that I don’t mind other studios taking a crack at it either. Legend Entertainment did a decent job with Star Control 3. They really got the feel of the arcade combat right, even if ships were unbalanced. Their story wasn’t as good as Starcon 2, and their colony systems weren’t even medium baked, but they had a decent crack at bat.
Again, going only by the ongoing beta and previews, I don’t think Stardock’s attempt will be as good as Legend’s attempt. I still bought it, and will play it. But I was really looking forward to seeing what Reiche and Ford could do when they came back. I hope we still get to see that, but I’ve got a sinking feeling that at the end of all this, Star Control is going to be in the hands of Stardock, and Reiche and Ford will have to admit that they didn’t create Star Control. That it was a conglomerate of Atari personnel who now work at Stardock somehow.