BBC – Elite classic video games remake seeking backers

The game that changed everything in the 8bit world and certainly had a huge influence on me. If at least for wasting so much time playing it. You could even argue that all the ARM chips in all our phones may not have existed had Elite not existed. Well maybe not quite that far, but how popular would the BBC have been without it and would they have still gone on to make the Archimedes which required development of the ARM chip and thus spun off ARM?

Anyway, not convinced by Braben’s attempt here. He’s tried to bring it back for years. Wasn’t impressed by the Frontier sequels. Ian Bell is still not involved. Kickstarter funding? Not sure.

He’s saying here, “give me all your money and we’ll make it” without anything to show up front. Publishers have obviously been asked if they’ll fund it and have said no.

Fair enough publishers and traditional investors may not see the vision, are looking just at quick commercial success, and it’s a nice idea to bypass them, going direct to the customer and ask them to fund it. I do feel this could lead to major disappointment especially where people have stumped up the money. Anyone donating needs to act like any other investor and should want to see progress and results, and a return for their investment. Not see the money wasted.

I’d love a decent new version, although it needs to be way more than just Elite with nice graphics. There are already versions that do that, like Oolite, and that’s free and open source.