MUGEN: The Return of Elecbyte

Wow, so the people who created Mugen aren't dead yet. That great. It seems that the Elecbyte team has returned with a new version of the popular Fighting game creation engine, Mugen. With this welcomed return comes a few questions as well.

Hey Elecbyte, why the disappearance?
rumor is, Elecbyte went missing after a beta of WinMugen was leaked to the public. Did the developers take their proverbial ball and go home due to a breach of trust? My theory is a lot more interesting than that. I think the people responsible for Mugen are the same guys from that Poker show, 2 Months 2 Million. They may have used money earned from donations to help finance their online Poker games.

At this point, I'm just talking out the side of my face. I'm as oblivious as to why they went missing as everybody else it. It could have been because there was no real money in releasing freeware software, and slapping a PayPal button on your web page.Winmugen's leak could have been nothing more than a happy coincidence. Or, that's what they want everyone to think...

Yo Elecbyte, why continue?
If this is a case of betrayal, then why come back at all? That 10 Anniversary post on Elecbyte's blog indicates flattery was one of the main reasons for the groups reformation. Mugen's popularity is somewhat miss leading. Yeah, there are a ton of match videos on Youtube, but there are a lot of people who would rather just watch footage from the game than play it.

Also, lackluster offerings from certain members of the community has given Mugen a bad name amongst most gamers. Fighting games are serious business. Some people only judge games/characters on the likelihood of them being used in tournaments. Mugen known more as that broken thing with all those overpowered DBZ characters, than a potential DIY haven for people who really enjoy fighting games.

Oi Elecbyte, what's next?
One can assume this new incarnation of Mugen will have vast improvements over previous builds. That's a fairly simply assumption. As it stands, Mugen is more popular than Enterbrain's Fighter Maker 2002. That seems to have more features(or at least a few that Mugen doesn't currently have) and is arguably easier to work with. What better way to keep your fan base than to provide what the competition already provides, plus expand upon their ideas.

I'm more interested in what other projects Elecbyte has coming down the pipeline. Will it be another specialized game engine? will it also focus more of using sprites than polygons? Will shareware will a possible option seeing as Elecbyte is now working full time? If so, what will it cost people to play the final build of Mugen?

Elecbyte