Following on from the official dissolution of Lionhead, Microsoft have now announced they are officially shutting down Project Spark as well. Effective from yesterday, the game can no longer be downloaded, and as of the 12th of August all service will cease. The official reason is unclear, but does state that active development ceased during the Autumn of last year, with many staff moving on to other projects.

Honestly, this doesn’t come as any great surprise. In fact, I’m more surprised that it took this long. Tying the game exclusively into Windows 8 and above for the PC was an absolutely asinine decision. Despite their much touted focus on PC, Microsoft have once again shown an utter lack of understanding for the market. Unlike with the console world, the majority simply don’t make the move to upgrade system/OS/whatever for a game unless it’s a really, really big deal to begin with. And even then, it’s a fairly small percentage. Most of us tend to make do with what we have and make the shift we can do so at a, relatively, small price.

Though that kind of thing only really applies to hardware. Shifting to a new version of Windows? The latest Steam hardware survey still shows Windows 7 (64bit) holding close on a third of Steam users. Second to Windows 10, yes, but only by five percent. In short, Microsoft don’t know diddly. I’m just glad this move doesn’t seem to have come at the cost of any jobs, regardless of what I think about the company, I don’t want to see average Joe’s out of work because of a disconnect at the upper echelons.