Let us burn Bill Gates in Effigy... or better yet, burn the B****** himself!

"Peace through Superior Firepower"

Oh oh.

Seriously, though. Are there additional implications to this? For us I mean?

I would doubt it, as DA didn't get Freelancer on out, MS did. Fred, no MS bashing please. If it wern't for them, we wouldn't have freelancer.

There is lways a possibility, up and until they say no.

Well, it has only confirmed what many people already knew though... we knew DA was "dead", the employees merged into MS direction (not producing their own games) - but it sounds that they are now "closing" the office that they originated in instead, totally eradicating what little remained of "DA" and offering a relocation to the employees.

Do I think it has reduced the chances of FL2? Nope, I think they remain the same as they ever did - next to zero... but I always hope, albeit very infrequently these days.
Whether those employees wish to relocate is up to them, but if they don't - then effectively all MS did was buy them out, release a few games, sell a few others, and then dissolve them completely.

MS bought Rare (makers of GoldenEye and DonkeyKong Country), located around 3 miles from where I live the other year as well. I just hope that the same doesn't happtn to them (although they are alot more successful and bigger than DA of course).

Sounds a bit like what EA did to Origin.

We know how ya feel, guys.

what did everyone expect M$ to do? If i was an M$ exec I'd have closed DA down ages ago. Left to CR, FL would never even have got out of the door, M$ got fed up of bankrolling DA and took over, and thats the only reason we ever got FL at all.

Truly an end of an Era in the space sim genre.

Rob "Stinger" Lordier
You like poems? --> Voicesnet.com
Creator of the original Privateer FAQ
old Favorite saying - No good deed goes unpunished

Call me a hethan if ya want, but I don't see what all of the fuss is about really. Companies start-up and die every single day. The space-sim genre will only die when it no longer becomes profitable...the death of one company doesn't rock the boat at all...its up to us to keep the genre alive by buying space sim games. When we stop, they'll stop producing them, simple as that really. Basic business sense.

Chips, etc - It may be true that we were expecting it, but seeing the official announcement is still disheartening.

Grom - I know what you mean, but for me I think that it is a shame that DA vanished with a whimper. They deserved better.

Great. now I lost all hope for anything new related to Freelancer. I just hope they will release the source code, they've done that before with another game called Allegiance.

BTW does anyone know an email-adress to someone at Microsoft?
I want to send them a very angry email.

Digital Anvil dead...
does it surprise us?
no

it was close to death all the time... not doing anything... that it is dead officially doesnt change anything
we are still here and we will continue like before... we dont need a Digital Anvil for doing nothing (what is exactly what they did, mainly because of microsoft)

for sure i will not run around and cry... "oh my god DA is dead we all are doomed now"
Its time to concentrate on the important things... this community and the mods which will keep this place alive

lets face the reality... Digital Anvil was never going to create a StarLancer 2 or a FreeLancer 2... those were just dreams of a few fans... not more... not less
its time to face the reality and do our best to keep FL running as long as possible and develop our own visions of FreeLancer by creating those incredible mods

*sad organ music*

May its soul R.I.P.

Well the news of course saddens me as well as a devoted fan of DA from the beginning. It doesn't necessarily surprise me but it does still depress slightly. I guess I was expecting it when after Freelancer we didnt' hear a thing from DA...what were they working on throughout that time? DA gave us 4 great games that will always have a piece of my gaming heart...I wish the very best to all the employees of DA in their next endeavours.



Merc for hire...but only if you can afford it.

This is a very sad day. Now I wonder? Why dont we start our own freelancer or something alike? You never know what may happen