Black Day for Blackstar (August 6, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

There's more bad news for SpaceTime Studios. The Austin-based developer has been unable to find financing for their Blackstar space combat game and are being forced to cut their development team in half:

Our company has been entirely self-funded the for the last six months while we tried to find a publishing deal for 'Blackstar.' Throughout this period we have held onto our pre-production development team because, honestly, we think they are the best of the best. We have been shopping Blackstar around but - right now, at least – the concept of a SciFi space/ground IP has proven to be a challenge. Our studio cannot survive at its current burn rate without a publishing deal, so we face a necessary (though very difficult and painful) decision. We are scaling down from thirty-two down to sixteen folks in the hopes of developing a pitch, a prototype and another publishing deal.

We will be letting some very good folks go. They will receive extended benefits and we will be doing everything we can to help them land on their feet again. We consider these people to be the cream of the crop, so if you are looking to staff up your team please drop us a line at jobs@spacetimestudios.com.

This is a huge shame - the SpaceTime team included a group of former Wing Commander developers more impressive than any other in the last decade. The Blackstar team included people like Chris Douglas and Anthony Sommers who have always represented the creative soul of Wing Commander's development. We hope for the best for all involved.

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Original update published on August 6, 2008

 

[Capn Johnny]

Yeah.. I heard this last friday night from my buddy Reece who was with those guys.. sad news.. truly a great bunch of DEVs..

I hope things work out for all those guys!!

-Capn

 

[Vinman]

That's awful, do we know who is staying aboard and who is going?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Yeah, for a rough idea you can compare the Archive.org version of their Team page to the current one. Looks like they lost about half of the people I immediately recognize as WC vets (including Chris Douglas). It's a damn shame that a group of really great, talented people championing space sims would have to suffer like they have for this project. I hope it works out somehow.