Do ED store proceeds go into Elite development?

[SAB380]

Devari is obviously not wrong and people are arguing semantics to say it’s not a proven fact because he doesn’t have a direct quote from Braben .... while at the same time then describing how a business should be run and essentially making the exact same point.

Elite has brought in a lot of money via Horizon sales and cosmetics and in turn, Frontier haven chosen to allocate a signficant chunk of that money elsewhere, in order to continue to build their company.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Devari is obviously not wrong and people are arguing semantics to say it’s not a proven fact because he doesn’t have a direct quote from Braben .... while at the same time then describing how a business should be run and essentially making the exact same point.

Elite has brought in a lot of money via Horizon sales and cosmetics and in turn, Frontier haven chosen to allocate a signficant chunk of that money elsewhere, in order to continue to build their company.

But what devari says is that They have taken resources away from ED. Which there is no evidence of.

 

[Sylveria]

Bit what devari says is that They have taken resources away from ED. Which there is no evidence of.

^ This.

("Oh you dare ask me for PROOF, I'm adding you to my ignore list!!!!")

 

[Martind Forlon]

... You're trying to suggest here that a game that brought in at least $60 million USD of revenue as of 2015/2016 financials, probably at least double that by now with console sales, didn't have enough resources "at its disposal" to make multicrew any better than it currently is?

Either the entire Elite dev team is literally incompetent or those resources were used on another one of FD's games. Since the devs produced good work during Elite's first year of development I'm going to go ahead and just assume that the Elite dev team is competent. That just leaves the issue of resources, which FD has literally told us were not sufficient for them to produce a better version of multicrew. That is what the devs told us. There is no way to argue with that unless you want to suggest the devs were not honest with us. I have no reason to believe that the devs are not being honest with us. So assuming the devs are both competent and honest then I take them at their word that they did not have the resources they needed.

There is absolutely no way for you to spin this with what we've already been told from the devs.

Meh, that's not how creative things works. You simply cannot expect that having two coders will make things going two times faster. All this is just an opinion without any real proof. Resource which may be needed and was lacking can be for example a TIME ... time needed for competent programmers to do things working like they want.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Either the entire Elite dev team is literally incompetent or those resources were used on another one of FD's games. Since the devs produced good work during Elite's first year of development I'm going to go ahead and just assume that the Elite dev team is competent.

Or issues with multi-crew has zero to do with dev hours and more like with incredibly complex web of code which would have to be refactored to enable what devs want.

It is quite obvious Devari that you have little understanding - or you choose to ignore it if you have some - about how complex software is developed.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Devari is obviously not wrong and people are arguing semantics to say it’s not a proven fact because he doesn’t have a direct quote from Braben .... while at the same time then describing how a business should be run and essentially making the exact same point.

Elite has brought in a lot of money via Horizon sales and cosmetics and in turn, Frontier haven chosen to allocate a signficant chunk of that money elsewhere, in order to continue to build their company.

All we know that number of people working on ED hasn't decreased.

Devari can argue that FD should have thrown more people additionally to already working devs but as many knowledgeable people will point out, that's not how such issues are getting fixed. Things get cut, delayed because some issues just can't be ironed out in short term. From all viable theories, he choose to think FD openly sabotaged multi crew because reasons.

I think major point that should be taken away that you can still be critical towards FD about executing multi crew without making up theories how they sabotage their own game. Yes, they screwed it up, they feel quite uneasy about it. Although in all fairness ED is very combat centric at the moment, so having fighter and turret control for crew members are still mostly what they wanted to achieve, so from business perspective it is not such a bombshell. It still disappoints me and others who look for non-combat things to be better in ED.

 

[Devari]

But what devari says is that They have taken resources away from ED. Which there is no evidence of.

Other than their 2015 and 2016 Annual Reports that I linked already?

Sure, other than the evidence I've provided and you've chosen to ignore there's "no evidence".

 

[Sylveria]

Other than their 2015 and 2016 Annual Reports that I linked already?

Sure, other than the evidence I've provided and you've chosen to ignore there's "no evidence".

And you've chosen to "ignore" people who've asked you for specific evidence, over and over, and over again.

 

[Devari]

Or issues with multi-crew has zero to do with dev hours and more like with incredibly complex web of code which would have to be refactored to enable what devs want.

That is not what the devs told us. They literally told us: "There's no reason other than time and resources why it couldn't be expanded."

I really start to wonder what the point is of posting direct references and dev quotes if no one actually reads them. I think I need that meme again:

With the use I'm getting out of this meme today I should probably just put it in my sig.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

That is not what the devs told us. They literally told us: "There's no reason other than time and resources why it couldn't be expanded."

I really start to wonder what the point is of posting direct references and dev quotes if no one actually reads them. I think I need that meme again:

https://i.imgur.com/PIsORAs.jpg

With the use I'm getting out of this meme today I should probably just put it in my sig.

And there is nothing there that say resources were taken away from ED though.

 

[Sylveria]

And there is nothing there that say resources were taken away from ED though.

Exactly. I'm starting to wonder if there's a new Hotel California needed for such threads, because it's getting as old as the Pleiades itself.

 

[Devari]

And there is nothing there that say resources were taken away from ED though.

Yes they do. The reports tell you sources of revenue and proportion of development time spent on their different IPs. All you need to understand where the money went is basic math. They told us exactly where the money went.

 

[Sylveria]

Yes they do. The reports tell you sources of revenue and proportion of development time spent on their different IPs. All you need to understand where the money went is basic math. They told us exactly where the money went.

"I'm making a leap as to where the money MUST have gone, therefore it's TRUE!"

You'd make a terrible lawyer. Seriously.

 

[Flatkat]

I spent 40 pounds in the store over Xmas, in part as this years fee for the game... beyond.

I wonder if more Cmdrs would do this if there were guarantees that this money would go directly towards the speedier development of the game…?

Anyone?

In regards to the OP. I've spent a fair bit (way too much ) in the store lately. I don't really care where they spend it, as they've provided me with a great game and i love the items I've purchased. The fact that FD is constantly improving the game is a bonus.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Yes they do. The reports tell you sources of revenue and proportion of development time spent on their different IPs. All you need to understand where the money went is basic math. They told us exactly where the money went.

Sweet Jesus. The money does not belong to Elite Dangerous. So that money was not allocated to ED in the first place so there are no resources taken away from ED. The Devs got paid from the money ED made (Devs for ED where not reduced), and the rest went into developing another IP and the day to day running of the company. That is FDev allocation their resources in a good way instead of leaving that money in the bank doing nothing with it. You have no idea what you are talking about, which is plainly obvious, so please stop.

 

[babelfisch]

Here is what was said in the financial report 2016, it's what Devari was referring to in the first half od the thread:

Following a full year of Planet Coaster development, the increased amount of development effort related to future self-published releases resulted in 51% of all development man months contributing to releases outside the period (2015: 30%).

Page 23:
http://ar2016.frontier.co.uk/assets/pdf/frontier-developments-2016-annual-report-and-accounts.pdf
Nowhere does it say that these 51% aren't used for Elite Dangerous development, they just refer to releases outside of 2015. It could be that they workd on Beyond, PC, JW, 3.0, etc.

I already pointed this out in the last thread, the one Devari is referring to and always asks us to read it. I suggest that he should read it himself.

 

[kofeyh]

I spent 40 pounds in the store over Xmas, in part as this years fee for the game... beyond.

I wonder if more Cmdrs would do this if there were guarantees that this money would go directly towards the speedier development of the game…?

Anyone?

This isn’t how businesses work. Income is typically part of sales targets (which can be many and varied) and feeds the profit line. Investment back into the business comes from that income. How that is done, where, when and by whom is neither a relevant concern for us, or really a valid topic of discussion.

Presenting an assumption of a cause-effect loop and then considering how this could be better if Frontier just spent more, is an oversimplification to the point of being a bit farcical. Virtually no business works in the regard that you propose, nor could it. This is ostensibly suggesting that an income stream should be directly held to ransom against a specific IP, which would improve progress.

Money comes in. Money goes out. The where, when, who and why can be incredibly varied and complex.

 

[KING5TON]

IMO spending more on the store just means FD will just spend more time on creating store content tat than developing the game.
Just look at 2.3 update. Multicrew, the tentpole feature was delivered as a bare bones shadow of what was originally pitched while commander creator was obviously given a lot of love and just happens to feed into more store purchases.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

IMO spending more on the store just means FD will just spend more time on creating store content tat than developing the game.
Just look at 2.3 update. Multicrew, the tentpole feature was delivered as a bare bones shadow of what was originally pitched while commander creator was obviously given a lot of love and just happens to feed into more store purchases.

Commander Creator is going to be vital for Space Legs.

 

[KING5TON]

Commander Creator is going to be vital for Space Legs.

Then why deliver it now and not when space legs releases?