> Braben kept wanting to get another Elite project going ... Most of the staff had been promised that another Elite game was imminent when they were hired. None of us could quite understand why we were making two games about dogs when we owned the Elite franchise.
... but then you realised that anyone bright enough to work it out was unlikely to have accepted the promise or the job? :)
> I still don't understand.
Mr Braben's company Frontier did not own the Elite franchise.
You were amongst many deceived e.g. "Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game" [1]. This company ceased its false claim to own the Elite franchise some years back.
Another problem facing Mr Braben's attempts to get a publisher for a further space game under his name was his reputation in the industry. His previous attempt, "Frontier: First Encounters", was famously characterised by PC Zone magazine as a bow-wrapped turd [2]. After Mr Braben's repeated patches, a recall, a reissue and another recall, the game's long suffering publisher gave up and sued him for damages of £722,834.63 plus interest [3].
[1] Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game (ED RPG) is the subject of an intellectual property dispute
https://web.archive.org/web/20170303095150/https://www.kicks...
[2] Frontier Worst Encounters, PC Zone https://web.archive.org/web/20231007232510/http://www.eliteh...
[3] Gametek V Braben https://www.pdf-archive.com/2017/10/20/gametek-v-braben-writ...