I believe that is an unfair translation of what I've been saying.
In an attempt to be fully transparent in outlining my personal opinion...
I've given well over the odds in money for a computer game for Elite Dangerous. Nowhere near as much as some, more than others. However I consider £200 to be very expensive, when compared to the £30 I paid for Gran Tourismo 5, a game I got 2000 hours of play from before GT6 was released. Unfortunately for them, I no longer have a playstation, so I went over to Grid and Project Cars on Steam, another £40 quids worth, all in all representing another 1000 hours of game time totally around the last 6-7 years of driving games.
But ED is not a "pay for a game" scenario like those examples. I paid £200 up front, on the promise of the scope of a game which has yet to materialise.
So I'm looking for Return on Engagement, I'm looking for reassurances that the money I invested has been used (or is being used), not to return to me a financial profit, but to offer me the value that I was sold on and was assigned a fiscal value at the point of me making that purchase.
You're right, the Board of Directors, the Stakeholders and ultimately the Shareholders have, and will continue to profit financially from me having made that decision along with many others. I'm not arguing with that, I know how organisations work.
What I am absolutely entitled to (in the actual meaning of the word, not some half baked desultory label used to undermine what I truly believe is an actual point), is the game that was outlined to me in return for my money.
Kickstarters backers, LEP holders and those that continue to pay for additional content through the Frontier Store are not just some light headed fame chasers who want to be a part of the next incarnation of Elite. Most consider themselves to have a vested interest in how this game turns out. In fact I'd go one further, it's not beyond the realms of considered opinion that whilst it is only right for FD to retain full control of developing Elite Dangerous, they are doing so on behalf of those customers that have committed to the process of a long term development plan.
FD are not your average, run of the mill software development house, such as EA or Sega, that year after year arguably mug customers off on the law of diminishing returns for game such as Fifa and Football Manager. For those games, you pay your money every year with no say over what "improvements" are made. Although I'm sure fans of FM17 will try to for FM19. lol
FD, whilst owners of the IP for "Elite" are also "custodians" of Elite Dangerous. Elite is an institution, it is "our" game for them to develop. You may or may not disagree with that, but FD certainly agreed with it back in 2012/13. The business decision to go through the Kickstarter process both capitalised and exploited that emotional investiture, which is undeniable.
The disappointment that this premise seems to have been conveniently forgotten. Moreover, that the premise is being so badly "managed" by the developers (often to be dismissed as unimportant), is what is getting people bought into that process riled up. And let's not forget or devalue the bold fact, that premise was shaped, marketed and sold by FD, in order to get this ball rolling in the first place.
For that "management" is taking place based on hope that is no longer justifiable. The line "no promises, no timescale" is no longer acceptable.
Let's put it another way. Take that institutionalised love of Elite away, and I'll bet my bottom dollar that all those players that refuse to drop the game, given the Grind, and play Elite....just because it's Elite and they've been waiting to play it for yonks...will disappear. In fact, looking at the return and peak usage figures, they've kind of started to, which probably explains more about the current "drive" than anything else.
Don't get me wrong, if FD had been pro-active the last three years, regular iterations at least on a quarterly basis (however small), which were perceived to have efficacy and value to the game, I'm sure we wouldn't be having this conversation.
We haven't even be offered those basics. A remit you would expect from any software house with regards to what they claim is their flagship game. We've had features that no one wanted, we've had arbitrary changes to mechanics to keep the game functional because no one could be bothered to think about it or do it properly.
Furthermore, with the current "push" on community engagement, there is no one voice saying "whoops, yes, we've been remiss, we'll make our best endeavours to put it right". The best we've had is an admittance of getting it wrong, and then all the qualifiers allowed within parameterised language as to alleviating corporate responsibility, by those essentially responsible for getting it wrong thus far, as to when and if they intend putting it right. It's not really a recipe for confidence is it.
So yeah, whilst they may not be obliged to tell us who's been working on what. An explaination as to why they haven't been working on what I've been paying them to work on, would go a long way for me.
Moreover, more information on why I should still care about what's coming would be grand.
If Sandro's interview on Lave Radio on Tuesday is anything to go by, they still don't have a clue what that looks like and are going through the token process of redeveloping certain aspects of the game one by one, starting with Crime and Punishment. If the isolated thinking approach is going to be applied to Engineers, to Powerplay, to the economy, to ship balance....come back to this post when it lands and read it again.
What you'll find is vindication that features like Engineers, PvP mechanics and the wider Living Economy should have been redeveloped holistically from the ground up, altogether as a well understood programme of work which engaged the community and differentiated systemically between Solo and Open. The latter in my humble opinion, being the crux of all the trouble.
Rather than just seemingly continue to make it up as they go along.
If they are doing anything further than that, it would be a cool thing for everybody to pass that information on about now.
If I thought they deserved it, I might buy some more stuff to help out.
All that said, if at the start of 2019 we have an iteration of Elite Dangerous that isn't full of bugs and mindboggling design decisions, then I'll pick it up financially again.
Last edited:
