Elite Dangerous has sold 3m copies, Horizons 1.3m (43% of basegame owners)

[Blackcompany]

Yep... Those 100+ people are no doubt costing a pretty penny each year. ie: Quite a few millions...

Servers cost money. Content costs money. There's a reason why Elite demonstrably did not have a full time, dedicated dev team last year.

At least, I believe it didn't, because for that to be all the content such a team can crank out bbn in a year really would not bode well.

 

[Cosmo]

Servers cost money. Content costs money. There's a reason why Elite demonstrably did not have a full time, dedicated dev team last year.

At least, I believe it didn't, because for that to be all the content such a team can crank out bbn in a year really would not bode well.

Part of the 100+ team works on future content and tech to be released for the next season. We got a lot of free content and features for the Beyond season. ED does not have a big server farm, because it also uses P2P. Based on the report Frontier makes enough revenue with ED and it's selling well.

 

[NeilF]

Part of the 100+ team works on future content and tech to be released for the next season.

That's what I kept telling myself...

But then each season, the content was all too often small self contained bolt on affairs. And then we keep getting indications that development is rather hand to mouth, instead of development cycles aimed at stuff year ahead.

I now really really just don't see a significant number of these (supposed) 100 staff working away on bar raising stuff years ahead of release...


Would we agree that the last truly significant technical addition could be considered to have been surface landings? One year after release back in Dec 2015? What have those 100+ people been doing for the three years since? And it was only a couple of months ago seemingly the go ahead for the next big development was given... So it's not like 30 people were beavering away on that for a year+?

Ultimately I just don't see 100+ people working on this. And I just don't get the feeling there's a significant body of people working on bar raising stuff for seasons/years ahead.

I truly hope later this year a release of something more technically impressive (akin to Horizons in Dec 2015) makes me rethink this, but given the past three or so years? I just don't see that happening

 

[redstar1]

No, it's the "game with 100 staff working on it non-stop for years on end and a glitzy PR budget churning out videos resplendent with not-in-game footage is slightly less popular than a first attempt by a Czech start-up thrown together in their spare time" gambit. There are similarities between these gambits, true, but there's a subtle difference which I believed was worth probing.

That assumes all games are created equal, when in fact they are not. I suggest that the potential market for space opera games (or however you would categorise ED) is tiny compared to the potential market for other simpler, 'short term fix' games.

 

[orfeboy]

That's what I kept telling myself...

But then each season, the content was all too often small self contained bolt on affairs. And then we keep getting indications that development is rather hand to mouth, instead of development cycles aimed at stuff year ahead.

I now really really just don't see a significant number of these (supposed) 100 staff working away on bar raising stuff years ahead of release...


Would we agree that the last truly significant technical addition could be considered to have been surface landings? One year after release back in Dec 2015? What have those 100+ people been doing for the three years since? And it was only a couple of months ago seemingly the go ahead for the next big development was given... So it's not like 30 people were beavering away on that for a year+?

Ultimately I just don't see 100+ people working on this. And I just don't get the feeling there's a significant body of people working on bar raising stuff for seasons/years ahead.

I truly hope later this year a release of something more technically impressive (akin to Horizons in Dec 2015) makes me rethink this, but given the past three or so years? I just don't see that happening

The way I see Elite (and I could be wrong here) is that the game was released complete in 2014. Sure, we all know that was far from the truth in reality in the state the game was in, but from Frontier's perspective as a saleable product that they were expecting their return on, the game was finished.

The updates that came after that are designed to keep the game in the buying public's view so that after the first noise of release has died down punters who missed purchasing the game first time around can get another chance to notice it. In this way Frontier continues to get a payback on the work the did pre-2014.

In our mids and the way the game was marketed to us, we are supposed to believe that the game has a 10 year development cycle etc., but the reality is (What I believe) is that nothing like the same intensive development is planned or ever was planned to make those developments happen like we seen pre 2014.

So, will we see big jumps in development? Maybe, it all depends on how Frontier believes significant future sales are possible with the game going forward. A release like Horizons is almost like releasing Elite 2. It is not in actuality, but as a marketing ploy, it is supposed to be. I don't belive Horizons generated what Frontier had hoped and that the decision was made to milk more money from it and see how it panned out before more significant monies were ivested in a similar sized project. I don't think Beyond included as much material/work as Horizons did (I am not a developer and could be talking nonsense here).

We might see something on the size of Horizons, but I do not believe we will see all the pipedreams that were hinted at back during the kickstarter. Personally I do not really care if they ever came. If they just added a bit more to the BGS and ways for players to interact with it where we could see assets appear and disappear depending on star system performance I would be happy. I just feel Elite should be about more than just buying ships. For me time spent on this would make a far better game than space legs or atmospheric landings ever could. That would actually encourage me to start playing the game again. I stopped 2 years ago and have not had the interest to come back. For me, I just need more 'purpose' added to the game to keep my interest.

 

[BinakAlgo]

It is true that it discouraged many people certainly.

I think ED is a niche game, a very niche game. From my observations, I think that space sims were popular back in the '90s and first years of the 2000s, with games like X-Wing Alliance and Freespace 2 being (arguably) the pinnacle around those times, but just then the genre went to a decline, in 1998 was launched the last of the official Wing Commander games. From 2012 to now there has been a small revival, with games like Everspace and No man's sky but it remains a niche genre that due to its complexity is mostly enclosed in the PC platform, the most expensive, and therefore, the least used of the gaming platforms. (I know that there are several PS4 and X-Box players, but by looking in the DW2 rooster they are in the minority if I can consider that a representative sample).

So, we have lot's of functions to ships comparable to "realistic" real flight simulators like DCS World or IL-2 BoS, but we add something more than combat and tactical strikes to include exploration, trading, mining, passenger transport, piracy, and others. Then we add a layer of reputation, influence, and factions around it which are not easy to gasp and finally we add the whole Power Play mechanic all in a ever existing background simulation.

For players who just want to buy ships and destroy others, it is a jump that I can compare to a Strategy game player that goes from Age of Empires 2 to Gary Grigsby's War in the West smashed with Paradox's Victoria 2. That's a big dry pill to swallow and most players just won't feel like doing it.

That being said, Elite Dangerous is still inside the top 100 games with most concurrent players at all times in Steam with an average peak of 9,000+ players.

 

[lysan]

The way I see Elite (and I could be wrong here) is that the game was released complete in 2014. Sure, we all know that was far from the truth in reality in the state the game was in, but from Frontier's perspective as a saleable product that they were expecting their return on, the game was finished.

The updates that came after that are designed to keep the game in the buying public's view so that after the first noise of release has died down punters who missed purchasing the game first time around can get another chance to notice it. In this way Frontier continues to get a payback on the work the did pre-2014.

In our mids and the way the game was marketed to us, we are supposed to believe that the game has a 10 year development cycle etc., but the reality is (What I believe) is that nothing like the same intensive development is planned or ever was planned to make those developments happen like we seen pre 2014.

So, will we see big jumps in development? Maybe, it all depends on how Frontier believes significant future sales are possible with the game going forward. A release like Horizons is almost like releasing Elite 2. It is not in actuality, but as a marketing ploy, it is supposed to be. I don't belive Horizons generated what Frontier had hoped and that the decision was made to milk more money from it and see how it panned out before more significant monies were ivested in a similar sized project. I don't think Beyond included as much material/work as Horizons did (I am not a developer and could be talking nonsense here).

We might see something on the size of Horizons, but I do not believe we will see all the pipedreams that were hinted at back during the kickstarter. Personally I do not really care if they ever came. If they just added a bit more to the BGS and ways for players to interact with it where we could see assets appear and disappear depending on star system performance I would be happy. I just feel Elite should be about more than just buying ships. For me time spent on this would make a far better game than space legs or atmospheric landings ever could. That would actually encourage me to start playing the game again. I stopped 2 years ago and have not had the interest to come back. For me, I just need more 'purpose' added to the game to keep my interest.

I think most of us can agree that FDEV is financially in a good place, and ED is not dying. However if we look at what was sold back in 2014 and where we are now a lot has changed, some to the better other parts not so much.

If we look at it from only a financial POW they did ok, however they also missed a lot of opportunities to make even more profit, and that is linked to the game itself.

This is probably not true, but to me, watching from the outside, the overall project management was missing or not present at all. Now I’m not talking about PM to develop the game, I’m talking about how all the chunks of game mechanics interact with each other.

Power play didn’t work as a intergrated part of the game, and CQC was also extremely detached from the main game. A lot of work thus resources was used to created something very few players liked. It was not the ideal situation and if the management team had spend a bit more time evaluating how to do it, the outcome would have been different.

Too many mechanics was made where the player got the feeling it was just a bolt on mechanic and not an intergrated part of the game. Now you think, but Lysan whT do you know of game development? I would say nothing! However I do know product development, and a game is certainly a product. To say that gamedevelopment is something special or completely different from making a car, building a house or any other complex products is simply fake news ��

DB always explained that they had a plan and was building the game with further expansion in mind, if that was 100% true, I don’t understand why some of the later added mechanics felt so detached from the main game.

To round this one up, I like the new stuff, it’s in the right direction let’s hope they can keep the boat on course.

 

[StuartGT]

And it was only a couple of months ago seemingly the go ahead for the next big development was given...

Ultimately I just don't see 100+ people working on this.

From the Important Community Update thread posted on 31st August (4½ months ago):

The Beyond season was always something that we wanted to do in order to bring even more enhancements to the core experience of Elite and being able to dedicate a full development team (over 100 people!) for a full year of free content was specifically to gear ourselves up to support our long term vision for the game.

...

A while ago, our development went from pre-production into full production on our next major milestone of Elite development.

What that means in the simplest terms is that the team are actively working on the next major landmark which takes us into our next era for Elite.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Would we agree that the last truly significant technical addition could be considered to have been surface landings? One year after release back in Dec 2015? What have those 100+ people been doing for the three years since? And it was only a couple of months ago seemingly the go ahead for the next big development was given... So it's not like 30 people were beavering away on that for a year+?

Ultimately I just don't see 100+ people working on this. And I just don't get the feeling there's a significant body of people working on bar raising stuff for seasons/years ahead.

I truly hope later this year a release of something more technically impressive (akin to Horizons in Dec 2015) makes me rethink this, but given the past three or so years? I just don't see that happening

Actually I can certainly see 100 + people working on a project this big but they certainly won't be all developing the new content. I'm only speculating here, but you have the QA/Support Staff, the backend/server staff and the Community Management staff, that's at least a fifth of the head count. Of the reminder, you'll need a Debug Team, who's job it is to Bug Smash, you'll need an enhance team, who will work on Quality of Life improvements for existing content. I would reckon that's another 20 to 30 people for those two teams alone. You probably have two separate development teams, one working on the next update and one working on the update after that, probably another 20 to 30 people and then the art, animation and sound (who will probably be the most interchangeable with other projects), say another 20, and then the design and management team on top of that.

I mean, with my experience with software development, I can look at the whole of the Beyond Season's content and come to the conclusion that Yes it probably would have taken a team that size to deliver it in a year.

 

[StuartGT]

Actually I can certainly see 100 + people working on a project this big but they certainly won't be all developing the new content. I'm only speculating here, but you have the QA/Support Staff, the backend/server staff and the Community Management staff, that's at least a fifth of the head count. Of the reminder, you'll need a Debug Team, who's job it is to Bug Smash, you'll need an enhance team, who will work on Quality of Life improvements for existing content. I would reckon that's another 20 to 30 people for those two teams alone. You probably have two separate development teams, one working on the next update and one working on the update after that, probably another 20 to 30 people and then the art, animation and sound (who will probably be the most interchangeable with other projects), say another 20, and then the design and management team on top of that.

I mean, with my experience with software development, I can look at the whole of the Beyond Season's content and come to the conclusion that Yes it probably would have taken a team that size to deliver it in a year.

QA/Support are a separate team to the 100+ working directly on Elite Dangerous development.

 

[Old Duck]

Part of the 100+ team works on future content and tech to be released for the next season.

About this 100+ team, has it ever been said that this is 100+ dedicated personnel assigned to ED and ED only? A company can easily have 100+ people working on 4 different projects in rotation. There is a huge difference between 100+ people working on a project 100% of their time and 100+ people working on multiple projects, each one for say 25% of their overall time.

It's easy to check - just compare the "Credits" of ED to JWE and PC.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Would we agree that the last truly significant technical addition could be considered to have been surface landings? One year after release back in Dec 2015?(

Define 'significant technical addition' to mean what you want it to mean and the answer is 'yes'.

And it was only a couple of months ago seemingly the go ahead for the next big development was given... So it's not like 30 people were beavering away on that for a year+?

The 'go ahead' was to leave pre-production and move to full production. It didn't mean they just decided to start 4.0.

 

[StuartGT]

About this 100+ team, has it ever been said that this is 100+ dedicated personnel assigned to ED and ED only? A company can easily have 100+ people working on 4 different projects in rotation. There is a huge difference between 100+ people working on a project 100% of their time and 100+ people working on multiple projects, each one for say 25% of their overall time.

It's easy to check - just compare the "Credits" of ED to JWE and PC.

Yes. There are 100+ dedicated staff assigned to Elite Dangerous (and not any other game project). FDev stated it a number of times last year following much "are 100 *really* working on it" anxiety amongst the community. And we lucky 17 who visited FDev last year saw the huge development office

 

[Old Duck]

Yes. There are 100+ dedicated staff assigned to Elite Dangerous (and not any other game project). FDev stated it a number of times last year following much "are 100 *really* working on it" anxiety amongst the community. And we lucky 17 who visited FDev last year saw the huge development office

Ooooooooooh, very good

I don't follow a lot of the minutia regarding this topic, so this next question may also have been "stated a number of times", forgive me if that's the case. This team of 100+, that's relatively recent, correct? In other words, didn't Frontier hire on a bunch of new personnel just this last year to reach that 100+ number?

 

[VR Golgot]

Ooooooooooh, very good

I don't follow a lot of the minutia regarding this topic, so this next question may also have been "stated a number of times", forgive me if that's the case. This team of 100+, that's relatively recent, correct? In other words, didn't Frontier hire on a bunch of new personnel just this last year to reach that 100+ number?

It was 100+ back in May 2017

The Elite Dangerous team is over a hundred people strong,

They've mentioned increased staffing in recent months tho yep. And prior quotes were more in the 100 range.

Can dig out some more historical quotes in a bit.

---

(EDIT: Posted downstream)

 

[StuartGT]

Ooooooooooh, very good

I don't follow a lot of the minutia regarding this topic, so this next question may also have been "stated a number of times", forgive me if that's the case. This team of 100+, that's relatively recent, correct? In other words, didn't Frontier hire on a bunch of new personnel just this last year to reach that 100+ number?

IIRC the first time FDev mentioned 100+ dedicated to Elite was sometime in 2017. I'm thinking during one of Braben's Reddit AMA's

Edit: what Golgot said

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Yes but that still actually makes it P2W doesn't it

Well no, if it doesn't give you any tangible advantage then it's not.

The brass tacks of this are: Providing tactical advantage by, in part, tweaking existing numbers and systems, is easier to do than creating perfectly balanced and novel additions, extensive narrative scenarios, and unique locations. They also make uptake of expansions more likely.

You're essentially insisting that dev houses should go to greater artistic lengths to receive less cash. It's a lovely sentiment, but I think you're in a 'wish in one hand...' scenario here

ED is clearly up against it in terms of lavishing scenarios on us content locusts in this proc gen environment, so on those grounds I don't blame them for using the simple hook of OP gear, alongside other additions. (At least they mixed it up and created a somewhat flexible and interesting system regarding the actual mods themselves. And did provide a variety of other experiential additions that weren't P2W, as you mention.)

There are far, far more insiduous forms of monetisation out there, which completely mess up game design and balance, such as the ability to buy top end gear straight off the bat etc.

They can improve the proc-gen itself and they have introduced hand made places like the Guardian Ruins and some thargoid bases. BTW, there are even less insidous bussiness models like subscriptions and in this particular case, the sale of both Horizons and ED as a single entity.

Just spend the fiver to get back on the level playing field, if you haven't already. It's a lot easier than demanding that something deeply unlikely should suddenly become the norm

I have Horizons since I have ED and for the record, I never expect to be listened by FD, I honestly doubt they do so with 99.9% of complains and suggestions, the only time I've seen FD implement a suggested feature/change was the names of the new sectors in 3.3

 

[Blackcompany]

The way I see Elite (and I could be wrong here) is that the game was released complete in 2014. Sure, we all know that was far from the truth in reality in the state the game was in, but from Frontier's perspective as a saleable product that they were expecting their return on, the game was finished.

The updates that came after that are designed to keep the game in the buying public's view so that after the first noise of release has died down punters who missed purchasing the game first time around can get another chance to notice it. In this way Frontier continues to get a payback on the work the did pre-2014.

In our mids and the way the game was marketed to us, we are supposed to believe that the game has a 10 year development cycle etc., but the reality is (What I believe) is that nothing like the same intensive development is planned or ever was planned to make those developments happen like we seen pre 2014.

So, will we see big jumps in development? Maybe, it all depends on how Frontier believes significant future sales are possible with the game going forward. A release like Horizons is almost like releasing Elite 2. It is not in actuality, but as a marketing ploy, it is supposed to be. I don't belive Horizons generated what Frontier had hoped and that the decision was made to milk more money from it and see how it panned out before more significant monies were ivested in a similar sized project. I don't think Beyond included as much material/work as Horizons did (I am not a developer and could be talking nonsense here).

We might see something on the size of Horizons, but I do not believe we will see all the pipedreams that were hinted at back during the kickstarter. Personally I do not really care if they ever came. If they just added a bit more to the BGS and ways for players to interact with it where we could see assets appear and disappear depending on star system performance I would be happy. I just feel Elite should be about more than just buying ships. For me time spent on this would make a far better game than space legs or atmospheric landings ever could. That would actually encourage me to start playing the game again. I stopped 2 years ago and have not had the interest to come back. For me, I just need more 'purpose' added to the game to keep my interest.

That this game was wholly complete in 2014 is ludicrously dishonest.

None of what Braben sold us was present then. (And most of it still is not).

If it was complete, why sell a lifetime pass (that they have since failed to deliver on) for upcoming content?

This game has never been completed. Not based on what was sold. Not based on what was promised.

 

[Blackcompany]

It's easy to show 100 dedicated staff to a scheduled tour. But the pace and amount of content does not match the claim of 100 dedicated people working for three years.

Unless they really are working mostly on ship skins and laser colors.

 

[NeilF]

Actually I can certainly see 100 + people working on a project this big but they certainly won't be all developing the new content. I'm only speculating here, but you have the QA/Support Staff, the backend/server staff and the Community Management staff, that's at least a fifth of the head count. Of the reminder, you'll need a Debug Team, who's job it is to Bug Smash, you'll need an enhance team, who will work on Quality of Life improvements for existing content. I would reckon that's another 20 to 30 people for those two teams alone. You probably have two separate development teams, one working on the next update and one working on the update after that, probably another 20 to 30 people and then the art, animation and sound (who will probably be the most interchangeable with other projects), say another 20, and then the design and management team on top of that.

I mean, with my experience with software development, I can look at the whole of the Beyond Season's content and come to the conclusion that Yes it probably would have taken a team that size to deliver it in a year.

Well it's all guess work. But with 30yrs in the software industry with large enterprise scale developments my guess is if there's anything like 100 people those figures are heavily skewed to included shared resources.

I really really don't see 100+ people producing what we've seen over the past couple of years.

Again I might be totally wrong. I don't pretend to be an expert.

I'm still hoping this year will change my view. But those hopes are low...