I-War vs Egosofts X games

I admit that my number one gaming passion is Space Combat/Trading games. It all started with Elite on my C64 and now, years later, I kind of time share between I-War2, X2 and a little of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion to SWG.

I’ve read here and back on the original I-War forums that Space Combat games are a niche game and not profitable enough for publishers to buy into. So I have to wonder how Egosoft manages to do it. X2 is a pretty good game, the combat is a little weak but they nailed down the trading part of the genre.

Is it possible that there are more X game fans than I-War fans? If so, why? Is it that I-War was too difficult? Maybe it was too much of a simulation and not enough arcade-ish?

If Stephen is still around, I’d like to hear what he thinks.