
Microsoft kills project Spark - fenesiistvan
http://forums.projectspark.com/yaf_postst214854.aspx
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nailer
For anyone else: it was a game creation toolkit
[http://welcome.projectspark.com](http://welcome.projectspark.com)

Go watch the first video - imagine UE4 or Unity but way easier. Everything
from world building to AI. Would have been really cool for teenagers to make
stuff with, as you can get good results really quickly. You don't even need a
PC or a keyboard.

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g00gler
Looks really cool, I wish Unity's UI builder was as intuitive.

Is there anything that comes close to this in scope/quality for any other
platform?

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tudorw
should re-use the domain as Projects Park , a graveyard for some nice ideas,
they could put their wi-fi mesh research in there too :(

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tamana
And it's not open sourced, because they don't want to cannibalize their next
idea.

But it's not open sourced, so no one wants to take a risk on getting frozen
out of their next failed idea.

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fixermark
They were demo'ing this at E3 in 2013. Launched 2014.

Total project public life: about 2 years.

Oof. I feel bad for anyone whom invested heavily in that one.

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touristtam
Not the first time MSFT is taking the difficult decision to kill a project.

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CM30
I'm more disappointed that by killing it, they've fully killed the one chance
Conker had of getting a decent new game after Conker's Bad Fur Day on the
Nintendo 64. Okay, they technically killed that late last year when Conker's
Big Reunion was cancelled, but still. No more Project Spark = not even a
chance of development resuming on it. It also means the fan project to
recreate Pocket Tales in 3D in Project Spark looks to be dead too.

No, Young Conker is not a good alternative. As the thousands of dislikes and
hugely negative coverage proves.

But yeah, it's a shame. Looked like a good engine for making games and game
worlds, and possibly a good way for companies to bring back retro characters
and franchises as part of episodic campaigns.

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nikolay
My kids tried really hard to play it - it was super complicated and worst of
all - way too slow! Otherwise, they kinda liked it.

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michaelbuddy
Too bad. Maybe these types of projects need to contain a full great game along
with the builder portion so more copies will get out there.

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mcphage
Damn, I was hoping to try it at some point.

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cwyers
I was wondering about this ever since MS bought Mojang, really.

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turnip1979
Yet another case that makes me wish consoles had no Internet connectivity.

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userbinator
Perhaps you mean "wish consoles did not require connectivity to a central
server"? Because peer-to-peer would mean things like this could continue
working despite discontinued support.

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turnip1979
Good point.. in the old days, Internet connectivity was expensive so a lot of
games supported LAN-based multiplayer. Those were awesome days. You could
certainly achieve the same with the Internet today if you didn't have a
central server.

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nthcolumn
Shame. Maybe they will open source it so it can be ported to a less obscure
platform.

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g051051
What would you consider a "less obscure platform" than Windows and XBox One?

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mSparks
Android, iOS, Blackberry OS10... Pretty much everything? Each has orders of
magnitude more users than XBox.

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EpicEng
You're comparing mobile devices to an Xbox? Not really the same use case... at
all.

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mSparks
Well, yeah, if the Xbox was usable I'm sure it wouldn't be so obscure. Which
doesn't change the guys premise that if they opened sourced it, it could be
ported to a less obscure platform.

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g051051
Are you using "obscure" in the sense of "closed" and "proprietary"? Or are you
using it as "relatively unknown"?

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mSparks
Im using it in the sense of "Relatively small userbase.", whereby a "less
obscure platform" is any potential gaming platform with a larger userbase.

