If you’re a fan of Mucky Foot’s quirky space station sandbox simulator, that’s great! You can buy the game now. And you’d better, because it’s all you’re going to get.
The question of a Startopia successor was put to Mike Diskett, who’s currently working on Satellite Reign with the Brisbane-based Five Lives Studios. Satellite Reign, which leaves Early Access on Friday, is a spiritual successor to Syndicate.
Diskett was a lead programmer at Bullfrog in the early 1990’s and became one of the founding directors of Mucky Foot, something of a Bullfrog alumni household. One of the few projects Mucky Foot released was Startopia, so it was inevitable that someone would draw a line between the two.
Unfortunately any chance of a StarTopia sequel is nigh impossible, according to Diskett. “It has been talked about but I think the original still holds up very well,” he posted on the Satellite Reign Steam forums.
“There’s been a few sequel ideas pitched round by [ex-Mucky Foot developers] but nothing concrete. I think a Kickstarter would probably flop just due to lack of original players of the game as it never sold very well,” Diskett added.
Diskett told The Escapist several years ago that StarTopia was “just beyond being a flop” and “unimaginably bad” commercially, selling only 110,000 copies. “We thought it was the bees knees and we thought the whole company was just weeks away from being millionaires. And then no bugger bought it.”
StarTopia, which was called Spacestation when it was in working development, was published by Eidos in 2001 and has been available on Steam and Good Old Games for the last few years. It runs on just about every system imaginable and actually holds up visually today, like many games that relied on that space-age art style.
Comments
13 responses to “Like StarTopia? Then Buy It, Because You’re Not Getting A Sequel”
I guess that makes me part of an elite group of 110,000 people.
I’m special, just like the teachers told my parents
There were 6.2 billion people on earth in 2001, which makes you one in 56,363.
I looked this up because I thought I might be able to make a “one in a million” joke, but obviously even by today’s standards, being one in a million means there’s still 7,120 other people like you, not 110,000.
I felt like my efforts should still be shared.
You’re unique. Just like everyone else.
But markets change 🙁 I would back a sequel having never played the original but hearing such good things.
i bought this on the steam summer sale last year cause i had a couple of dollars to spare and had played the demo. it can be frustrating here and there, but its a damn good RTS.
I know strictly in terms of money, 110,000 isn’t that great if it didn’t offset the production costs but it’s still a very impressive number of sales. Not every game is going to be destined to sell millions of copies.
I’ll check it out, see if I enjoy it.
I really enjoyed it when I finally managed to get my hands on a copy. Unfortunately it was years later and in a bargain bin in Myers when it still had a gaming section.
There is almost nothing remotely similar to the old bullfrog type games anymore. Most of the “strategy games” has gone the “pay or you wait” route, no thinking required.
*Insert customary get off my lawn comment*
I really liked it as well; one of the first games I bought on GOG when the site launched.
That was a cruel cruel headline…Just the right words to get your hopes up when skim reading past it that maybe someone is making a sequel/spiritual successor and then nope :'(
Startopia was so much fun, I really miss the management sim genre (which has to win a prize for worst genre name), it’s a pity they’re so niche that we’re lucky to get a decent one every couple of years at this point.
Hmm…If we aren’t getting a kickstarter for this, how about one for Evil Genius 2? 😛
*edit* which I just looked up and apparently is in the process of being made O_o *dances*
I loved this game, I first played Startopia in one of those demo discs you find in PC game magazines
It would be interesting to know how many copies have sold in the intervening years, and how many of those were to new players rather than fans of the original picking up a second copy. I guess a Kickstarter might be a good way to test the waters to see if a sequel (spiritual or otherwise) is viable. The game can’t be that obscure – articles seemingly pop up bemoaning the lack of a successor every year or so…
I freaking loved this game. I tried playing it a few months back, but it’s no the same – I’d love an upgrade :/