Short answers, pulled from the story.
A space flight simulation game is a genre of video game that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Common mechanics include space exploration, space trade, and space combat. Some titles use accurate orbital mechanics and Newtonian physics, while others prioritize entertainment over physical accuracy.
Elite is widely considered the breakthrough game of the space flight simulation genre. It merged space trading and flight simulation into one open-ended game and fits entirely within 22 kilobytes of memory on a single floppy disk. It was ranked the third most influential video game ever by the Times Online in 2007.
FlightGear and Orbiter are among the most realistic space flight simulators. FlightGear's flight dynamics engine, JSBSim, was used in a 2015 NASA benchmark to evaluate simulation code against aerospace industry standards. Its Space Shuttle simulation is backed by NASA windtunnel data and is considered the most detailed outside of NASA's own tools.
The decline of space flight simulation games in the late 1990s coincided with the rise of real-time strategy, first-person shooter, and role-playing genres, represented by titles like Warcraft, Doom, and Diablo. The complex control systems and attention to detail that defined space sims were cited as barriers to mainstream growth. Publishers concluded no major new series could succeed while the genre relied on keyboards and joysticks.
Crowdfunding drove the genre's revival in the early 2010s. Elite: Dangerous was successfully funded on Kickstarter in late 2012 and released in 2014. Star Citizen raised more than $114 million as of May 2016 after launching its campaign in November 2012. Strike Suit Zero raised nearly $180,000 and released in January 2013.
Wing Commander, released in 1990 by Origin Systems, Inc., cost five times more to produce than most contemporary games and forced other publishers to raise their production values to compete. Game designer Chris Crawford said in an interview that it raised the bar for the whole industry. This pushed the broader games industry toward conservatism, since expensive productions required guaranteed commercial success.