[Kosh]

One thing I wonder is how does the number of players using FSO (in all iterations) today compare with FS2 retail back in, say 1999 or 2000?

[Marcov]

I'm pretty sure many people somehow found the game "Freespace 2/1" in some store, played it, then "okay, whatever, I'm gonna play Half Life now".

I think only the more loyal fans ever get to encounter FSO and this community.

[karajorma]

One thing I wonder is how does the number of players using FSO (in all iterations) today compare with FS2 retail back in, say 1999 or 2000?

Might be hard to tell actually. I do know that we continually get people returning who played in 1999 and then forgot the game for years. We also get lots of people who missed FS2 completely and only heard about it cause of some nostalgia piece on a website or cause of one of the TCs. I do know that BtRL alone got more downloads than FS2 had sales (IIRC FS2 had around 100,000 sales, obviously not counting GOG etc). So the number of people who have played something on FSO could easily be higher than the number who played retail FS2.

[MatthTheGeek]

I actually found FSO by looking for games native or ported to linux. I think a fair part of our players might have been attracted by that particular feature in the first place too.

[PsychoLandlord]

I was one of the ones that played it briefly at release and lost track of it, mainly due to my age. That said, I've been continually pimping the SCP to my friends since I learned of it's existence, and they do so to their friends, and so on.  Figure I've gotten at least twenty-thirty or so people into FS through that method.

Even with my love of the game, I'm honestly surprised how well Retail FS2 holds up for new players today. Factor in all the SCP enhancements and a good number of those new players are literally floored.

[G0atmaster]

I actually recruited a small handful of people who had never heard of the game before to FSO.