If Ubi drops the ball... who takes up the baton? or SCS ve SES vs...

[Sonarman]

Silent Hunter 1-4: 1.5 million units ....SH5 sales probably not good!
HAWX 1 : 1 million units

Yes, it's easy to see the way the wind is blowing. Even Neal is depressed...

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Silent Hunter 6... not going to happen.

The question is if Ubi drops the ball... who takes up the baton?

here are some possiblities...

Ilan Papini:
Developer of the Virtual Sailor series which has evolved for many years, Ilan has now branched into professional simulators for the maritime & naval industry. As Ilan probably has little experience in game AI we could approach him to use the VS engine for a purely multiplayer game with surface vessels & subs, the focus would then be primarily on adding the technology, sonar, aa guns, guns directors, hedgehogs etc rather than the complex AI involved in formations/hunting etc.

VStep:
Developer of the Ship Sim series & professional maritime software. A much improved ocean system is promised for the new Ship Sim Extremes game coming soon could VSTep be enticed to use their maritime engine for a Subsim?

ESim games
Devs of Steel Beasts, this would be a dream come true, but highly unlikely as SBPro PE is largely military funded and the modern military don't have much use for a U-Boat simulator!

Sonalysts Combat Simulations... hardcore- please more
It would be very interesting to see Sonalysts take on a WWII game, not really their forte and perhaps a bit lacking graphically but their in depth simulation of real world hardware would be welcomed. But like SBPro 688/SC/DW were largely military funded and the modern military don't have much use for a U-Boat simulator!

Storm Eagle Studios ...beautiful AI/ugly UI
SES are the Devs of the excellent Jutland & Distant Guns, unlikely though as they view SH as an arcade game and their engine is not really geared up for it. I would love to see what they could do for a modern take on a Solomons style TF1942 though.

Artech Digital...."Mega Das Boot Assault II"
Artech are the guys who are bringing the first subsim to the consoles "Naval Assault" could they be persuaded to use their maritime engine for a full on PC subsim, who knows, they are no stranger to PC sim games having developed the fairly hardcore and very good "Megafortress" game in the early days of the PC and even the arcade/subsim "Das Boot".

The irrepressible Mr EAST
Our old friends EAST & Pioneer they certainly have the tenacity and determination to come up with something for us.

Danger from the Deep
DFTD is a great piece of work so far but still along way from being SH could our talented modders get on board to offer help to accellerate the development of this fledgling subsim?

Thriller Publishing
This company put together by ex Microprose CEO "Wild Bill" and staffers is a definite possibility now that they are looking to resurrect their back catalog tank sims. Could they do the same for Silent Service & Task Force 1942 & Red Storm Rising?

1C Maddox
Not as far fetched as you would think. Oleg has stated on several occasions that ground & naval units will be playable in multiplayer and highly moddable in Storm of war although flight sim fans are to busy frothing at the mouth at the aerial action to notice.

The Russians
Graviteam, Akella, IDDK the simulation market is large in Russia and we are seeing more and more PC games coming from there. Most of the games have been good in design but fallen a bit short on scenario & campaign length (Steel Fury/ T-34 vs Tiger etc ) and some suffer the curse of lets make it more casual/RTS like (PT-Boats). But more recent products like the stunning "Achtung Panzer 1943" have shown that truly deep and great games are possible and can be made available at a reasonable price.

Indie devs (the lone wolves)
Most likely perhaps is Thait an indie dev will take up the baton. we can already see this happening over on the iphone with the very promising Wolves of the Atlantic by Mark Hessberg, perhaps Mark could "do the decent thing" and release a PC port instead of pandering to the "worm infested fruit machines" (I'm with you Adobe! ).

Old Friends (Take it home to daddy)
Maybe another contender would be companies that have branched off into serious games such as Ballyhoo studios who have a very interesting back catalog! quote... "Silent Hunter, acclaimed by many as one of the best submarine combat simulations ever developed, was created by Ballyhoo partners Bill Becker and Kim Biscoe. The game recorded sales of over 400,000 units worldwide, and the Silent Hunter series continues to be popular."

Subsim.com (Yes... that means you!)
Could we go it alone and develop a game ourselves using an engine like Torque 3D etc? Or alternatively could we pledge funds and approach a developer to deliver us something that we design?

Approach Ubi for the source
Yet another alternative could be to approach Ubi to buy out the source code for SH 3 4 or 5 from to work on ourselves and release on a non-commercial basis.

The main problems I would for-see in licensing SH as open source (apart from the probably huge expense) from Ubi are...

1. They may wish to keep their options open for the future

2. The source code may have trade secrets they do not want exposed

3. Silent Hunter has always sold well as a series in budget Ubi licenses the title out to companies such as sold Out, Steam, D2D etc how are they going to feel if we suddenly come up with a better project based on the SH3/4/5 engine that is freely available?

While this idea may seem "far fetched" there is a precedent here in the case of SH2 when Neal employed an independent contractor who with Ubi's approval altered the original source to change the multiplayer engine in DC & SH2 from RTime to Direct Play.

Indie Competition
We produce a game requirements speification and offer a prize of say $5000 (from community donations) and post on every 3D indie game forum out there on the understanding that the winning project whilst credited to it creators would be copyright free open source at the end of the competition that could be used as a springboard for anyone who wished to take it further.


Out of the Blue... rinse & please repeat ?
Perhaps another never heard of developer like H2f who formerly designed hairdressing software and suddenly released the quite well thought of WWI subsim "Shells of Fury" will emerge to surprise us all.

Ubisoft... Splinter Cell
Would it be possible for some of our friends in Romania to jump ship and start their own series?... possibly but they may be under contractual obligations not to and it's probably big risk for the guys to do so.