Indeed, Frontier are clearly no longer the plucky little independant company trying to make good. It makes it all the more puzzling why they asked for £s in a KickStarter, effectively charitable donations, when they clearly didn't need them.
Apparently, If I remember rightly. The v1.0 version of Elite was already under production, in a prototype form, before the kickstarter. They already had the funds in place to develop the game. The kickstarter campaign was there to gauge if there was a demand for E
(especially since Chris Robert announced a 'spiritual sequel' to Wing Commander) and the extra money raised was put towards developing Horizons. I think v1.0 eventually cost £8 million.
Putting the tin foil hat on, I think we were going to get an Elite
angerous anyway but it would have been different without the community engagement that came with the Kickstarter.
BTW, there already was a spiritual successor to wing commander, it was Star Lancer, which was followed up with a Semi-Online trading game called Freelancer.
Where have I heard that before????