Hi Dark, Oh, I've noticed this trend as well. i think everyone has that has been around this community long enough. Obviously, I've been hear a lot longer than you have, at least 10 years or so, and I've seen a lot of developers come and go. Some of them were pretty major for a while. Back when I discovered the Audyssey magazine and this list, this would have been around 1999 or 2000, game developers were just beginning to make the switch from Dos to Windows based games. The major developers at the time were PCS Games, Kitchens Inc, GMA Games, and ESP. I think BSC Games was just getting started too. At the time PCS Games had created a rather impressive catalog of Dos games like Monopoly, Kick Boxing, Panzers in North Africa, etc. Unfortunately, Kevin left PCS Games, and the market was shifting to Windows based games. Phil eventually acquired the GMA Engine and produced Packman Talks, Sarah, and Super Dog Bone Hunt. All good games, and is still an active member of our community. However, PCS isn't as active as it once was. As for ESP I think we all know the story there. James North decided to quit, turned control over to Josh, and it was renamed Adora Entertainment. Eventually Josh has some personal issues with a former girl friend, I believe it was, and he ended up renaming it Draconis Entertainment. While the software has been faithfully maintained and sold via Josh under one company name or another Draconis really hasn't yet put out anything truly new in years. All of their releases like ESP Pinball Extreme, the ESP Pinball Party Pack, Christmas Whoopass, and Ten Pin Alley, were all released quite a long time ago. I know they have something in the works for Mac, but still the fact remains when the company was still ESP James North was cranking out games left and right. Most of the Draconis product catalog is all James North's handywork. As for GMA I think David has been fairly active over the past 10 years. Considering the types of games he's produced like Tank Commander, Shades of Doom, Time of Conflict, etc I can certainly understand why there are long delays between releases. They are not the types of games a developer can slap together in a couple of weeks and sell left and right. They take considerable time and effort so I still see GMA as pretty major even if they aren't producing games left and right. As for BSC you said yourself what the problem is there. When Justin started out he and Dan were cranking out games like Pipe, Troopenum, and Hunter. Then, eventually Dan whent off to make DanZ Games and Justin got a real job, and no longer has time to devote to BSC like the old days. However, there for a couple of years or so Justin and Dan had a pretty good run. I doubt we'll see BSC make a come back any time soon unless Justin has a drastic change in employment/change in his work schedule. In fact, out of all the game developers the only one who has consistantly released games practically on a yearly basis and is the bedrock of audio gaming is Jim Kitchen. His Dos games were the first accessible games I had ever heard of, and he is still producing games on a somewhat regular basis. I have to give Jim a lot of credit for hanging in here as long as he has. I know far too many accessible game developers who have came and went over the past 10 years or so. First, there is the now infamous Bavisoft. For a couple of years they made a name for themselves when they put out Grizzly Gulch and Chillingham. That was around 2003/2004 or so. After that they basically fell off the face of the earth, and haven't done anything of note since. Second, there was LightTech Interactive. That was a company that was going very far very fast. It is true they had very simple games like Light Cars, Light Locator, The Horse Racing Game, etc but they were learning. Their games were improving, getting better, more advanced and suddenly the developer doesn't want to do it any more. End of LightTech Interactive. Third, there is Alchemy Game Studios. As many here will remember James North briefly tried to make a come back had a pretty impressive list of game projects in the works like Montezuma's Revenge, ESP Raceway, a mouse demo, and Max Shrapnal. However, after a number of personal problems, plus an angry mob of upset customers, I took his game projects off his hands, and he dropped out of site. Probibly never to be heard from again I figure. Finally, we have DanZ Games. As I said before I remember Dan got started helping Justin with BSC Games and then he split off and created DanZ Games with a few projects of his own like Super Deecout. However, recently after getting a full time job etc he hung up the game programming gig, released everything as freeware, and dropped out of sight. Not sure if he will ever return or not. And sadly those are just the major game companies I can remember that have come and gone. I don't count PB Games amung there number because obviously Philip Bennefall is still around, but PB Games has become Blastbay Studios. Not to mention of late Philip has been catching up for time lost, and is bigger and better than before. Anyway, to cut this very long post short i know exactly what you mean. The people who I thought were pretty major at times haven't turned out to be so major in the long hall. If you look to the 90's PCS and Kitchens Inc were the major developers of the time. Look to early 2000 to 2005 GMA, ESP, BSC, PB Games, and Jim Kitchen were the major developers of the period. After 2005 until present the major developers were Lighttech Interactive until they quit, Jim Kitchen, L-Works, Blind Adrenaline, 7-128 Software, and very recently Philip Bennifall has become an extremely important developer with BGT, Q9, and Kryngal Crash. Although I fit in to the 2005 to 2010 catagory myself I really haven't played a very big roll contributing to the community having had more bad luck than good. However, I have consistantly put out test builds which is something I guess.
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