A few months ago, I wrote about how uneasy I felt about David Braben’s Kickstarter. As someone who still plays Elite II, I didn’t like how he had seemingly followed Chris Roberts there, and was asking for money when he literally had nothing to show except a few concept art images. Braben got his funding, and towards the end of the Kickstarter he showed some more footage.

I feel quite confident now, and have actually pledged a lot more than I originally did via the portal on their Web site. But, all is not sitting well with me right now. I’m really disturbed that the people who have really kept the genre alive while both Braben and Roberts ‘wandered in the desert’ have been abandoned.

Right now, there is another Kickstarter effort going on for Rogue System, and it’s looking like it’s going to fail without a significant change in contributions. I’m shocked by that. It has all the elements that I’ve seen countless Space Gaming Nerds like myself asking for, it has way more game footage and images than Braben provided during his, and the author has personally answered every single question he has received.

It is an incredible piece of software, and it is software like this that really kept us going, kept us hoping, during the years where neither Roberts or Braben were paying attention. Games like Pioneer (which has been in development forever, always showing promise, never getting there) that we kept playing, hoping and dreaming would eventually replace games like Elite II.

Now we have one of those games asking us to support it, and what do we do? Nothing. We do nothing. Why is this? Because the author isn’t called Braben or Roberts? Because he had the misfortune to do his Kickstarter after they did?

The simple fact is, the fans are at fault here. They’ve abandoned those truly giving them what they want. This isn’t new, it happens in every genre where a game is instantly considered better because it looks more flashy, has a big name attached, or was released more recently. But with this particular genre, it irks me greatly…

As I said above, this Kickstarter doesn’t have the Braben or Roberts name on it. You know whose name it does have? Michael Juliano. His name is as well-known as the name Braben and Roberts were before they released their first Space game. Think about that.

This Kickstarter did start after both the Roberts and Braben campaigns, but has still shown more game footage than Braben has to-date. How this can truly be counting against him, I really don’t know.

I’ve always felt that competition (in any genre) is a good thing, and to have a choice of Space games is ideal. That’s why I backed both Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous, because even though I didn’t like the way Braben jumped on the bandwagon, I love the genre too much to not support it. It’s a shame I am so alone in that.