Where is the paid 'content' LEP holder get for 'free'
- Thread starter DeathStroke
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If the game continues to be popular before during and after the stated date of 2021 do you not imagine its possible that Frontier might consider continuing active development and thus add more content that will be free to the LEP crowd?
Totally offtopic, but not really. Banks are very different beasts. They don't report only tax returns, they report their liabilities and deposits. At that time financial system got away with about their liabilities from house loans, as thought of that time was those loans and price of property tied to them can never collapse. Turned out it can.
In UK shareholder reports done by company have to be ironclad, otherwise management can go to prison, literary. Yes, there's bookkeeping and management lang there, but they are very reliable - unless company is in deep for criminal activities.
When they have the option of putting those resources into a completely new franchise instead that will appeal much more strongly to their shareholders, instead of one that has reached the end of its "useful economic life"? No I don't see them putting any new development resources into Elite at that point. They didn't even put the necessary resources into Elite to develop multicrew properly during Horizons and haven't expanded it in the past 15 months since it launched. To think they are going to suddenly put in the resources needed to deliver new paid expansion content beyond 2021 makes zero sense here.
Wow, it is quite clear you haven't done any business by yourself.
No business shut down games or stop producing content because of some artificial date. it seems you assume FD will just produce those expansions without expecting them to be profitable and after 7 years are up, they are free to do whatever to do.
How Solo said in that forgettable SW movie: "that's not how it works. That's not how any of that works".
Seriously, stop obsessing with future. If next paid for DLC will be success - and knowing FD most likely it will be - there will be another paid for DLC. And another paid for DLC. That's how it goes. What's most important - they can do it on their own time. Biggest worry for them was that they will have to rush Horizons because to keep income flow. With cosmetics taking off edge from that they can concentrate to actually make game better - thus Beyond. Thus anything that will come after Beyond.
I've said before .. I'm amazed LEP funds have lasted THIS long, let alone another 7 or 8 years! Any serious investor can't expect that money to last forever and (again) it doesn't rule out incomes from paid expansions which haven't been released yet. They can't be 'reported' yet. They just can't.
(a) What percentage of ED playerbase does not own LEP (and may be expected to buy expansion)? and
(b) if you're worried about that .. how many potential players in China never even heard of ED (let alone the LEP long since gone from the store) before just recently?
(Frontier is hiring Chinese Speaking Customer Support, January 2018)
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Because at that time, the franchise still had more life in it than their estimates in 2017, just like it had less life in it 2016 vs 2015?
Just like we shouldn't make wildly unrealistic assumptions that Elite: Dangerous has 20 years of life in it, we shouldn't also treat 2017's prediction of franchise lifespan as set in stone either.
If 2020 rolls around, and Elite: Dangerous starts receiving an influx of new players due to a current space game reaching the end of it's franchise life span, Frontier is not going to say in 2021, "Sorry, we're not going to continue to develop this game, because we promised to quit by the end of this year. Yes, we had a lot of cool ideas that we figured we'd never get to, but we said in 2017 that there was only four and half years left of life to this game, and even though we were clearly wrong, what can we do? It's all there in black and white."
Frontier's estimate for Elite: Dangerous' life span has changed, and it could change again in the future. The state of certain space ship games in development is very different in 2018, as compared to 2016. Times change, and successful companies change with them.
We also do not know for certain the state of Frontier's "skunk works" projects for Elite: Dangerous, only that they have said that they are working on them, and have been working on them since 2012. They could be in a pre-alpha state, or they could've passed their internal betas, and are just waiting for the team responsible for creating things to do and toys to use in those new environments to finish up their work on Beyond. We don't know, and we won't know unless Frontier becomes more expansive than they have been lately.
The only thing we should take away from Frontier's 2017 financial report is that if the current trends from 2017 continue into 2018, the 2015 LEP purchasers will likely break even at worst, and if they offered a LEP pack today for anything more than $60, I wouldn't take it, because I expect LEPs to be a bargain at the price, and not a gift card instead.
Which is why I bought mine when I bought the Alpha. I've already broken even with Horizons. Everything after that is pure gravy.
Not yet (the thread title will have a little orange logo next to it on the main page if they have) and I doubt they will/can just yet in any way that would satisfy those complaining.
They earned around several millions from LEP owners.
That's like 0.5% of money they have earned with ED so far.
Like seriously.
Because at that time, the franchise still had more life in it than their estimates in 2017, just like it had less life in it 2016 vs 2015?
Just like we shouldn't make wildly unrealistic assumptions that Elite: Dangerous has 20 years of life in it, we shouldn't also treat 2017's prediction of franchise lifespan as set in stone either.
If 2020 rolls around, and Elite: Dangerous starts receiving an influx of new players due to a current space game reaching the end of it's franchise life span, Frontier is not going to say in 2021, "Sorry, we're not going to continue to develop this game, because we promised to quit by the end of this year. Yes, we had a lot of cool ideas that we figured we'd never get to, but we said in 2017 that there was only four and half years left of life to this game, and even though we were clearly wrong, what can we do? It's all there in black and white."
Frontier's estimate for Elite: Dangerous' life span has changed, and it could change again in the future. The state of certain space ship games in development is very different in 2018, as compared to 2016. Times change, and successful companies change with them.
We also do not know for certain the state of Frontier's "skunk works" projects for Elite: Dangerous, only that they have said that they are working on them, and have been working on them since 2012. They could be in a pre-alpha state, or they could've passed their internal betas, and are just waiting for the team responsible for creating things to do and toys to use in those new environments to finish up their work on Beyond. We don't know, and we won't know unless Frontier becomes more expansive than they have been lately.
The only thing we should take away from Frontier's 2017 financial report is that if the current trends from 2017 continue into 2018, the 2015 LEP purchasers will likely break even at worst, and if they offered a LEP pack today for anything more than $60, I wouldn't take it, because I expect LEPs to be a bargain at the price, and not a gift card instead.
Which is why I bought mine when I bought the Alpha. I've already broken even with Horizons. Everything after that is pure gravy.
Well said. You're a credit to common sense and moderation in the fact of unswerving dogmatic belief
The problem here is that they will have only delivered 25% of the value of the LEP by the end of 2018. That is 25% of that value in 4 years, with only 3 years left in the useful life of the franchise to deliver the remaining 75% of that value, i.e., $135 USD. Are you suggesting we are getting three times the amount of paid content we had in Horizons and it is all going to be released in the next 3 years from 2019 to 2021? Especially when FD has a stated goal in their Annual Report of releasing a new franchise every year that is obviously going to take priority over any Elite development, just like it did with Planet Coaster and JWE?
Sorry, are you suggesting it's somehow OK to sell several million dollars worth of LEPs to customers and not deliver an appropriate amount of paid content in return?
That is the entire point of this thread.
FDev can obviously use revenues from any title, to develop any other title either future or existing because it's a publishing house with more than one title on the books.
How about some new context, that of a new market (that didn't exist when LEP's were very briefly on sale)? Frontier is hiring Chinese Speaking Customer Support (January 2018)
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If it was their only projected income for the product, then you might have a point.
But its not, so you dont.
Your understanding of deferred revenue, accountancy practice and business planning in general is weak.
That is not what the numbers are saying. They are the total years the franchise will be considered "useful" to develop. They are not referring to the remaining time in the franchise life which would otherwise decrease by one year each subsequent report year. That "time remaining" went from 5.5 years remaining in 2016 to 4.5 years remaining in 2017 but the total franchise life was consistent in each of those reports for a total of 7 years. The useful lifetime of the Elite franchise however was stated as 8 years in their 2015 report, i.e., it would take them to the end of 2022. They decreased this to 7 years in 2016 which was the same total estimate for 2017 which takes the franchise to the end of 2021. That means they shortened the "expiration date" of the franchise by one full year between 2015 and 2016.
It is literally the opposite of what you are suggesting.
Well first off it wont be sudden it will just be continuing to develop the game and provide the funds for that.
Unless you are now suggesting that development will stop before 2021.
Yet they plan to extend multi crew considerably for Q4 release.
Wow I see things are still going strong in here.
To be honest Devari it's pretty clear you've set your mind on how you see things and no-one is going to change your viewpoint any time soon.
Fair enough and more power to you, I would consider the fact that you're pretty much the only one on your side of the fence which I hope might give you an indication that you maybe possibly incorrect?
Final comments from me.
To be honest Devari it's pretty clear you've set your mind on how you see things and no-one is going to change your viewpoint any time soon.
Fair enough and more power to you, I would consider the fact that you're pretty much the only one on your side of the fence which I hope might give you an indication that you maybe possibly incorrect?
Final comments from me.
- Expected is vastly different from Intended..
- The timescale of the Lifetime Pass can only be confirmed when development finishes and as this game franchise has been David's baby for over 30 years I strongly suspect that it will be around for quite a few more years yet.
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So the statement of the "estimated useful economic life of the franchise" means nothing to you here?
I would suggest here that it is your understanding of what FD is saying in their Annual Reports that is "weak".
I am however getting tired of correcting people in this thread so I'll go with a meme instead to illustrate my point:
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