by Jerle » July 21st, 2012, 11:59 pm
I got a few by email on that already. I actually toss around the idea of open-sourcing the game now and then, but realistically I think the nostalgia > any staying power TDZK would really have. That, and I'd have to get Aelanna's buy-in and we haven't really discussed that much.
So, Fleets. ColdWizard posted this in another thread, but with Fleets we tried to bridge the gap between a strategy game and a social game - and ended up with something that didn't strongly appeal to either crowd. We were trying our best to make it work and learned a ton of lessons along the way, but a fundamental flaw like that is really hard to correct after launch and with the limited time and resources we had. We spent months trying to get it right and had some modest success, but the Horizon game line was so much more successful that we needed to focus most of our efforts there even though in our hearts we enjoy strategy games more.
In the end, even Horizon wasn't enough to save us. The games were profitable...but only just and certainly not to the point of sustaining the team full-time. We had to take other employment, and while we've still been working on the games part-time (mostly Horizon), the time has come to officially wind things down. Metaspace Studios is dissolving - and as part of that wind-down process we decided to close Fleets. Given a few IP concerns involving parties besides me and Aelanna, I doubt it will ever see the light of day again. RIP.