We don't need to run dirty beermat sums either. That same source explicitly states the revenue.
And the revenue for this period (April 1 to May 11) is approx. £0.2m. Less than a tenth of your beermat figure.
From the backers app, sales yesterday were about 500 copies. Compare that with Tinman's
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=133500&page=201&p=2074537&viewfull=1#post2074537
Whist I am not saying the figures are necessarily accurate, I am saying the best available figures show Elite Dangerous sales by both revenue and units are extremely poor.
Also note that my main comment was about losses. LOSSES equals SALES minus COSTS. And you seem to have totally forgotten about costs. From Frontier's last accounts, allowing for the staff layoffs that they recently made, their costs are about £1m a month. Even assuming all yesterday's sales were through the Frontier store, not Steam, so earning about £33 per unit, that's revenue of about £0.5m a month.
This means Elite Dangerous sales are earning only about half what is needed to keep the company alive. So unless Frontier has got some hit game that is selling tons, which we have never heard of, or some other source of income that it has not declared, the company is currently making massive losses.
Its all very sad for the gamers who really do genuinely love this game, but I'm sure those fanboys of Elite realise this as well, they tend to play their cards pretty close to their chest through and move onto something a little better secretly
Either way though FD have made a lot of pennies just like any good business should do, and you never know, they too might play their cards close to their chest, and instead of telling everyone far to early and the game just surprise us all and bring out something fantastic within the game to keep even more people happy. I'm sure if they did this as well as providing a whole new market in console ports etc then you'd think more money would be even better gameplay and better for us. unfortunately though personally I don't think this is going to happen
I mean if we are serious the majority of people don't really give a damn if the game comes under the title of Elite at all really, they just want something awesome to pass their time. Personally I think Elite is really quite boring now I really do, even for real simulator fans, doesn't really give them enough and doesn't really give enough to the average space sim fan who wants to shoot other people, maybe join clans corps whatever you want to call them, pass money around to help your friends buy bits and bobs here and their, own a little part of your own space not just a part of a NPC faction space, which to me just adds to the bordem.
I wrote a post here before regarding the endgame so to speak, something you want to achieve for putting in lots of grinding hours which the majority of people do regardless of whether they choose to admit this or not. A lot of the feedback I revived before was that there was no end game, well I understand what they say there, but I don't mean a end game that kind of completes the game per say and that's it, I mean a end game in something we want to personally achieve within the game. I don't think working for a NPC faction is going to stimulate the majority for very long, maybe some just don't want to admit it, but personally I would find that just so so boring. Now this is only speaking for myself and a few others I've spoken with, their end game so to speak was buying a super dooper ship maybe more depending on the role within a team or whatever task they wished to perform during the game ,and kit the thing out to the max, maybe even purchase a skin or two from FD's website (I even did that by the in the hope of better things to come) then go out there and just kick some ass. I wanted to work towards a benefit of my own little group of friends, working with them similar to how we do in EVE, proving people with better ships better weapons. Do you see where I'm coming from guys ? Now my end game so to speak is to get as many pennies it takes to be comfortable within the game so I don't care about insurance, maybe losing the odd cargo here and there, testing some new ships, hunting down NPC's, but now FD have given me the benefit of another goal/endgame, to help a NPC take over space, that's not my idea of fun anymore, I wanted a little more than that, sounds like a few other guys on here did too. Now I know many of you say it's a time thing, but I would of thought they would of had everything planned out a little better, maybe realease the game a little later and have people working on add-ons at the same time. It's not a case of time guys, they have to give more than what they are, otherwise no one new will buy into the game when other similar games are just around the corner, they simply have to, no choice or they will fail to make the game any better for everyone not just a few fanboys.
I think they are going to end up being a sinking ship in the next 6 months to a year, but that's what I think guys, what do you all think about what I'm saying in here. Try not to just say or comment on my grammar, for heavens sake I bloody Russian and I'm trying my best
