Trivia / SubSpace

• Abandonware: With the shuttering of Virgin Interactive Entertainment, the sale of most of its studios and IPs went to other companies, notably Electronic Arts. SubSpace was not one of them. However, an asset holding company called Ozaq2, owned by Mark Dyne and Kevin Bermeister of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, bought up the SubSpace copyright and assets. Particularly notable here because Brilliant Digital Entertainment is the current owner of Kazaa—and one of Kazaa's developers, Priit "PriitK" Kasesalu, co-developed the Continuum client.
• Executive Meddling: According to a timeline of events called "historystory.txt" that is still circulated among the playerbase, during VIE's downfall there was an opportunity to sell SubSpace to Microsoft. Had the deal succeeded, SubSpace would've been added to "The Zone" (later known as MSN Games) which would have secured it a long-term future ... but Viacom, the then-owners of VIE, meddled with the deal until it fell through. Rod and Jeff, furious at this development, attempted to take Burst Studios independent—but when such negotiations similarly ended in failure, Rod, Jeff, and Juan simply quit and joined Origin Systems instead.
• He Also Did: After leaving VIE Jeff Petersen, Rod Humble, and Juan Sanchez developed an MMO for Origin Systems called Crusader Online, but that project was terminated in alpha. A SubSpace veteran, Nick "trixter" Fisher, formed Harmless eGames LLC with the trio and developed Infantry from the Crusader Online concept. Jeff later went on to develop Cosmic Rift; Rod went to work on EverQuest; Juan joined LucasArts and worked on the first two Star Wars: Battlefront games.
  • As for Burst Studios, Electronic Arts bought it up like much of what VIE once owned. EA renamed it to Westwood Pacific, under which it developed Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2—then EA renamed it again to EA Pacific, under which name it developed Command & Conquer: Generals. After that, EA Pacific got folded into EA Los Angeles in 2003.
• Invisible Advertising: After its retail release VIE classified SubSpace as a "B-rated product" and thus received no advertising budget. VIE made only 10,000 boxed copies of SubSpace with an MSRP of $30.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: With VIE long gone, it's fallen to the playerbase to keep SubSpace alive. Fortunately, they've done very well at that, since the game's now available on Steam in addition to the open source client being available for decades.
• Outlived Its Creator: By several decades and counting!
• Post-Release Retitle: While still officially titled SubSpace, the playerbase often calls the game SubSpace Continuum or Continuum due to the open-source client made to replace the original VIE client. SubSpace Continuum is the game's title on Steam and on sites which offer the client for download.
• Reality Subtext: Scientists successfully cloned Dolly the Sheep during SubSpace's beta. This led to the Easter Egg menu command "?sheep" and the creation of Philosophy Zone 2, later known as Sheep Cloning Facility. This was the birthplace of the Trench Wars custom zone, according to "The History of Trench Wars" by SubSpace veteran Epinephrine, located here on WikiBooks, here on his own Oocities site, and here on Trench Wars' own site.
• Rereleased for Free: Essentially the case ever since the development of the Continuum client, given that it's a completely open-source creation and available free of charge on Steam and elsewhere.
• Running the Asylum: Although a relatively sane asylum, because the SubSpace Council and band of developers worked (and continue to work) to keep the game viable as the years roll on.
• What Could Have Been: Prior to VIE's bankruptcy, Rod and Jeff made plans for a sequel to SubSpace. Cosmic Rift, a game that Jeff developed for Sony Interactive Entertainment, was very similar to SubSpace in premise and gameplay and might have been based on those plans.
• Working Title: In its earliest alpha incarnations, the game went by the name Sniper.