The 2004 comment... is this relating to the diversity of development options these day or development rights?
Pardon my igonrance, who has the right to make a Wing Commander game these days? Chris Roberts has movie rights but not game rights, is that correct?
Diversity of development options. A decade ago, our mantra was: boy, when EA finally gets around to making another Wing Commander, they're going to go big and it'll be huge! (because that's what they do!) A lot's changed since then, and I don't just mean Wing Commander Arena, although that's certainly one example of how new Wing Commander games could materialize in the form of quirky "side projects."
For one, yes, Star Citizen has changed the landscape somewhat. It shows there's still some space sim market out there, and there's more than just Chris Roberts out there successfully crowd funding games (even other space sim games, like the new Elite). But Chris Roberts' 2012 space sim project was Wing Commander's chance at the crowd funding game, and they missed out on that - that ship has sailed under the Star Citizen name.
Tablets and mobile are still full of potential, although perhaps slightly less so than a couple years ago. This is the frontier where you can try to do creative things with a relatively small budget. Ultima Forever is a good example of this. Similar to Mass Effect, "Dragon Age" is their hot RPG franchise which would be the logical title for an iOS game, but Ultima got green lighted through a special blend of luck, nostalgia and personality. UF's cancellation slightly dims this, but a similar scenario with Wing Commander is totally feasible.
There's also a niche PC counterpart to the tablet space I mentioned above. It comes in the form of app-store/Facebook/free to play type games. This was previously the realm of crap shovel ware, but some of the indie games and small time developers using platforms like Steam and GOG have done some very impressive things lately. Yes, EA nominally has the rights to do a game, but we've seen them loosen their grip lately - see Broadsword managing Ultima Online now. Also see Activision using the new Sierra label to coordinate with third party developers to relaunch classic franchises. I think there's some big potential somewhere here.
However, call me an optimist but based on the success of Star Citizen I'd like to think Wing Commander is a more compelling franchise than Mass Effect for a space combat title. Obviously the crowdfunding campaign for Star Citizen was a success due to a multitude of factors; but surely the fond memories associated with Wing Commander, Freelancer and other titles are a factor.
I know EA has tried branching out franchises into different genres many times before, but I can't off the top of my head think of a success story. Often it's a different fanbase, and whilst going with Mass Effects brand may pull in fans not exposed to the space combat genre it strikes me that as the success of Star Citizen is down to fond memories of titles like Wing Commander that it could actually be a more sensible bet.
From our perspective right here at the intersection of the Wing Commander and Star Citizen communities on the internet, this might sound really crazy, but from the buzz we've gathered over time, it seems like Electronic Arts isn't much impressed with Star Citizen - both as a space sim and of the following it's gathered. With a snazzy playable alpha released and as RSI approaches a $50 million haul, I understand how insane that sounds, but that's just the sense I've gotten consistently over the last couple years. But that's not meant to diminish the opportunities (plus other possibilities I might not have considered) mentioned earlier in this post - I think there are some creative options out there waiting for the right people to implement into the next Wing Commander game.
