Star Control Could Get a Sequel... tell Toys for Bob how bad you want it!

[Chad]

Toys for Bob's website has an update from Alex (Producer).   Oh My Mandibles Clack Against One Another And Snicker With Such Amusement... They are interested in making a Star Control sequel and need to convince Activision that this would be the most brilliant idea ever.  It of course is, so Alex is asking for you to e-mail him and let him know!

E-mail Alex

The Ur-Quan Masters Project also has a fancy dancy petition page that sends an e-mail to Alex so that you never have to leave the safety of your browser.  But if you ever do leave, don't forget your basket of perfect mauve stones, just the right size for throwing at monsters!

I don't get out as much as I used too but, I've noticed this picked up on Slashdot as " Hope for Another Star Control Sequel?" and in GameSpot's Rumor Control as "Star Control sequel in the works?"

Relevant excerpt from their site's news...

"So it's taken me my usual 3 paragraphs to get to the real meat of this news article. And here it comes: A Star Control Sequel. We (I) want us to do a Star Control sequel. Back in the early 90s, Paul and Fred and some other people made Star Control 2.  Personally, I thought it was pretty amazing. It was like a drug to me. Not quite as much like a drug as the drugs were but very, very close. I know there are other people that loved this game too. Sometimes you email me and ask if we'll ever do a sequel. And I always tell you that I wish we could do a sequel but it's very hard to convince large publishing companies that a new Star Control would sell very well in the current video game market. But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send me emails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.

Will you do that for me? Your old pal, Alex? If you were working at a video game development company who had 2 founders that had worked on a classic, epic space role-playing and combat game years ago for which you had recently re-acquired rights to and were hoping to convince your new parent company to let you make a sequel by asking for the public to send in requests for said sequel, I'd email you. There's actually even a petition online. I have no idea how to sign it but here it is:  http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/petition/petition_signed.shtml

  - Alex"

[HDS]

Oh sweet!!!! Oh please, say it is so!!!!! I'd kill for for a true sequel....please say you'll let me kill...

[Sedodes]

Anyone stop to consider this as a severe "April's Fools" joke?  Much the same way that Adult Swim is hopefully April Fooling everyone about playing "Saved by the Bell" reruns...

[GeomanNL]

Nah, this is for realĀ 
Anyway, I sent my mail days ago. Everybody should do the same !!

[isolationism]

Anyone stop to consider this as a severe "April's Fools" joke?

Well, Alex was a week and a half late if it was indeed a joke -- and I think it would be in rather poor taste to taunt their own paying customers in such a way only to cruelly dash their hopes over one of their -- if not their most -- beloved and reknown game. That's not to say I know for certain that this isn't a joke, but it just doesn't seem to fit to post something like that on the corporate news page and not issue a retraction or a "haha gotcha!" within a half day or something.

A more likely case is that this is a bit of wishful thinking on Alex's behalf -- and I cannot fault him one bit for wanting this to happen. The Star Control franchise has already released a third game in the series (whether or not it is good/designed by TFB is irrelevant to the publisher) and I believe even another Star Control was conceived -- if never completed, I can't recall seeing much beyond a few screens and maybe a video or two some years back -- for the Playstation at some point, too (but I can't remember for the life of me if TFB had anything to do with that one).

Regardless of the details of the more recent project, it goes without saying that StarCon3 was not a good performer on the charts, which is what the publisher cares about -- not what the fans think, or -- to put it bluntly -- want, because even what would seem like a 'whopping' 10,000 signatures/emails may only equate to 10,000 sales, which is a total flop for a game and could be a very big deal for a small shop like TFB (and not the good kind).

Activision may also have effectively frozen the Star Control franchise as this point, very similar to what was done by EA to Looking Glass and the System Shock franchise because of contention regarding the legal ownership of the franchise and game content. Thankfully TFB was clever about how they licenced out the content for StarCon2 (allowing them to retain ownership of effectively everything but the name), but their open-source move may not have endeared them to Activision, either, despite how grateful we fans are for their magnanimous decision to do so (and we are indeed grateful, TFB).

In any event, I was one of the (presumably many) people that submitted links to Chad regarding the blog post on the ToysForBob website, and am one of the devout fans who would love to see a new, proper sequel to Star Control II designed and built by the talent behind that game. It may be a long shot indeed at this point, but I submitted my email to Alex anyway without hesitation. After all, what do I have to lose but 10 minutes of my time if this never sees the light of day? On the other hand, if this actually gets the ball rolling on a new Star Control project by TFB ... It will have been more than worth the very little trouble of letting them know how much I appreciate their hard work and innovation and would love to see them do it all over again, elevating their name, status, and thickening their wallets a bit for their efforts.

My two cents.

[Scott_Irving]

just cause i feel like it, isolationism the sequeal that was never made was Called Starcon and it was a very diffrent attempt at an roughly SC based game. It was cancelled and probably with good reason. But anyway PNF has a page about it with videos and such. From what ive observed Chad has a copy of the beta??, wonder if it's true.

[isolationism]

just cause i feel like it, isolationism the sequeal that was never made was Called Starcon and it was a very diffrent attempt at an roughly SC based game. It was cancelled and probably with good reason. But anyway PNF has a page about it with videos and such. From what ive observed Chad has a copy of the beta??, wonder if it's true.

Star Control 4, or later StarCon, was Accolade's final attempt at profiting from the franchise. Few details are known, as Accolade reshaped and eventually cancelled it during the development stages; however, the Harika had been confirmed as a returning alien race. While originally touted as another space adventure, the idea quickly changed into an action-oriented combat title, to be viewed largely from behind the ship, with gameplay similar to Psygnosis' Colony Wars series, somewhat like a shooting-oriented X-Wing.

Source: Wikipedia. Just sayin'.

[Eth]

just cause i feel like it, isolationism the sequeal that was never made was Called Starcon and it was a very diffrent attempt at an roughly SC based game. It was cancelled and probably with good reason. But anyway PNF has a page about it with videos and such. From what ive observed Chad has a copy of the beta??, wonder if it's true.

  He's got it all right.  I remember seeing the eBay auction, won by "Atarex." 

[Scott_Irving]

Colony wars that was the name of it.. the game that Starcon was similar to... I was trying to remember when I wrote that but couldn't think of it, I was at work and so very bored.. thus my meaning behind just cause i feel like it.

[Inner Seoul]

If you were working at a video game development company who had 2 founders that had worked on a classic, epic space role-playing and combat game years ago for which you had recently re-acquired rights to and were hoping to convince your new parent company to let you make a sequel by asking for the public to send in requests for said sequel, I'd email you.

anyone know the details behind how that came about?

[isolationism]

Hey guys. TFB has posted a couple updates since the first one about the fan response ... So far it sounds like they've received about 2,300 emails, and slowing down significantly -- and unfortunately it's nowhere near enough -- according to them -- to make a case to Activision. Keep spreading the word to whoever you can.

http://www.toysforbob.com/database/tfb_news.html

[Stealth Donut]

Rather than sending emails, which will be a very time consuming thing, someone should send this news up to the folks at PC Gamer. I know there's a couple of Star Control fans on the writing staff, since they've mentioned the series numerous times before. Imagine the free publicity if they made a post about it on their website, or better yet, in their next edition.

[Sedodes]

Alex should just take a look at the "petition" -- far more names than they'd ever get via email.

That is, of course, unless someone created a spambot specifically to send them emails.

I haven't even mailed them, and I don't intend to as badly as I want a sequal done.  Why?  Because they're counting the number of emails they get to determine if it's a viable endeavor.  Weak, and very likely to waste the 10 minutes of my life it'd take to send them an email.

FF and PRIII know that they could use the same level of technology as SC2 and create a hit game at very little cost (with a HUGE profit margin) so long as the story was good and the gameplay/mechanics were solid.  It makes me shudder to think that they may need all these emails to show they can garner the funds to support an expansive graphics team for what may be yet another of the already market bogging "valley girl" games -- pretty to look at and play with a few times, but nothing you'd really fall in love with or be too terribly interested in.

If TFB want to make SC3(2) they will regardless of fan support.  I'd rather see it done as a labour of love with a touch of risk accepted by the creators than created solely based on market demand.  SC3 was so underwhelming because it was made solely to satisfy the Star Control demand.  Just my $0.02

[Lukipela]

FF and PRIII know that they could use the same level of technology as SC2 and create a hit game at very little cost (with a HUGE profit margin) so long as the story was good and the gameplay/mechanics were solid.  It makes me shudder to think that they may need all these emails to show they can garner the funds to support an expansive graphics team for what may be yet another of the already market bogging "valley girl" games -- pretty to look at and play with a few times, but nothing you'd really fall in love with or be too terribly interested in.

I thought that they need the emails to show their bosses that there would be support for a game, ANY game about the SC universe. Wouldn't it be easier for them to pitch "There's loads of people who'd buy this and we can make it real cheap!" than trying to make some high-res fancy pants game (or as you so fittingly put it, "valley girl")? 

Or maybe I misunderstood it, I always just assumed that they'd try and make a good game, not a technical masterpiece, but that they needed enough support to get a "go ahead" from their bosses.

[Solo4114]

They ARE businessmen, though, and they do want to make money off the thing.  Their time is worth money, so whatever they do, it's got to be worth the time expenditure.  Even coding a new game on the SC2 engine would take a LOT of work (especially the artwork), and a lot of time, which means time LOST doing other more productive things that can make you more money.

What's more, doing it on the old engine might even be harder as they'd have to "retool" their systems to be able to produce stuff for the game.  If all your artwork software is Maya or other 3D programs, firing up a copy of MSPaint won't exactly get the job done for a worthy sequel -- you'll have to invest in other 2D art software (which doesnt' necessarily mean they don't have it -- I'm just using this as an example).

A labor of love is great and all, but if you've got kids and -- more importantly -- employees to feed, the survival of your business has to come first.  You can't waste a month's worth of man-hours making a game that'll only earn you $50K at best when you could be making a game that'd earn you $500K even as a small-scale game.


So yes, it does come down to numbers, and being able to sell to people who don't know squat about the brand.  Sure, the game reviewers would all love the return of the franchise, but (a) there's big shoes to fill (no one wants a repeat of SC3), and (b) you've got to convince newer gamers to buy into the thing.

Personally, I'd expect a game that's designed to be cross-marketed to consoles as well as PCs because you can hit a broader market by doing so -- so any control scheme will necessarily be simplified due to console controls.