Starwraith Games is the brainchild of Shawn Bower and he has generously offered his time to reflect and comment on his experience developing a niche market:

Hi Shawn, thank you for taking the time for this interview.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

It almost goes without saying the names "Shawn B." and "Starwraith Games" are forever linked to the first-person space sim genera. Was there ever a time when you developed other games?

Yes, on a few occasions. I’ve worked on several projects that could be considered casual games, a couple of racing games, and a few shooters. My interest always seemed to soon shift back to space games, so those endeavors were generally temporary.

Space Sims are far and few between these days when compared to the overall vast number of games available to players. There are those that would say that the day of the Space Simulation game genre has past. What say you?

Maybe it has passed, perhaps mostly just for the mainstream. But it certainly hasn’t passed for me and there still seems to be plenty of gamers looking for the diverse control, game play, and setting provided by the space-sim genre. For those of us who enjoy challenge beyond a typical shooter or match-3, space-sims provide the full freedom of movement, exploration, varied objectives, and environment immersion found in the genre.

On developing the space-sim niche: Is this about love or money?

I guess you could say a childhood fascinating with space that I’ve carried with me into adulthood. Even while I'm making a game, I'm constantly developing design ideas to present a realistic space environment that helps achieve that sense of wonder for me when I play the game myself. That's probably the primary motivating factor for me to create a space-sim and to create one using the design elements/decisions I use.