Well that fake MMO project and Dagobert really put on the handbrake for the 3DGS development (we don't even seem to get a recent AUM thumbnail anymore ). To my mind this sort of was the finishing blow to a somewhat sub-par engine as it badly needed quite an overhaul back then and today even more as the other engines leaped ahead...

It's hard to blame anyone for this though. There sure were some bad decisions concerning the course of development (both outright wrong or just turning out wrong in the long term) but even with all decisions made just right 3DGS probably would have fallen short by now due to the lack of manpower. 3DGS never succeeded in growing or maybe the need for this never was realised. Today there exist engines like Unity with a huge team behind it. With maybe just JCL really working on the engine itself nowadays (I don't know too much about the number of people working on the engine itself since Marco left) there's no way 3DGS can compete...

I still think the only option 3DGS has is to stick to a niche and be good at that. The recent messages concerning Android support and so on don't really show that though - there's next to no appeal in using 3DGS for a mobile game. It's true that Indies really have a chance on that market and Indies are what 3DGS aims for but they need an easy to handle engine and a good art pipeline. Not mentioning some advanced culling or well optimized shaders etc. for some limited eyecandy. All of these are aspects where 3DGS falls flat though and that's why I see little success in the development of Android games with Acknex which also slows down the development of the highly needed improvements on the engine itself and its editors...

So when being asked about the future of 3DGS I see it falling into oblivion / vanishing into thin air as it won't be a competitive product anymore (and actually even right now hardly is)...