Copy pasta of all paragraphs with Elite Dangerous mentions
All four games, Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution and Planet Zoo, benefitted from Frontier's 'launch and nurture' strategy in FY20, with each providing significant revenue contributions through both base game sales and paid-downloadable content ("PDLC").
Elite Dangerous continues to grow, with the success of the recent Fleet Carriers update helping to achieve its highest ever player numbers. Elite Dangerous: Odyssey, our major new paid-for update to launch in calendar Q1 2021 (in FY21), was revealed in June 2020 to positive reception
Nearly 60% of revenue in FY20 was generated by Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution, illustrating the ongoing popularity of the Company's games, and the success of Frontier's launch and nurture strategy in generating strong returns over many years
Over 10 million base game units sold across our four titles as of 31 May 2020 (Elite Dangerous 3.5 million, Planet Coaster 2.5 million, Jurassic World Evolution 3.0 million and Planet Zoo 1.0 million)
A new era for Elite Dangerous in FY21 with Elite Dangerous: Odyssey coming in calendar Q1 2021
In addition to new game developments and PDLC packs, our teams have been working hard to deliver three major new releases for our existing game portfolio during FY21. Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition will be launching on the Nintendo Switch, Planet Coaster: Console Edition is coming to PlayStation and Xbox, and players will soon be able to get out of their ships and SRVs (Surface Reconnaissance Vehicles) with Elite Dangerous: Odyssey. These major achievements are made possible by the talent, experience and hard work of our teams, combined with our technology leadership through the continued investment in our own COBRA game engine.
These deals, together with the unrevealed major global IP licence announced in March 2019, mean we now have two major new multi-platform game releases for each of FY22 and FY23 which will each benefit from world-class IP licences. We anticipate achieving two major new releases per year on average thereafter from internal developments, which is a significant step up from the cadence of one release every two years from our first two releases in December 2014 (Elite Dangerous) and November 2016 (Planet Coaster).
Elite Dangerous has continued to be very successful since its first early access launch in December 2013 and full release in December 2014. It has hit its highest player numbers this year, in its seventh year, helped by the launch of Fleet Carriers and the announcement of the major forthcoming update Elite Dangerous: Odyssey due later in FY21 (in calendar Q1 2021), in which players will be able to explore and fight on foot.
We use this proven, rigorous and repeatable model to invest our resources with the intention of creating world-class games with strong franchise potential and plans for strong post-launch product support to help realise this potential. With Elite Dangerous we knew there had been significant success in the past, not least because of our own games in that area in previous decades, and also that there were no games like it at the time, and we believed that we possessed the differentiated technical capability to digitally replicate our own Milky Way Galaxy. We verified that there was a significant appetite for such a game with Kickstarter crowdfunding at the end of 2012 and early 2013, and the game itself has now vindicated that decision with continued success in its sixth year of full release (its seventh year since early access). For comparison, other high-profile space exploration games that entered Kickstarter in the early 2010s have still not released at all, speaking to the challenges of the genre and to our teams expertise and ability to deliver compelling product in a timely fashion.
Our future franchise portfolio is likely to continue to contain a blend of Frontier-owned IP, like Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo, and some with third-party licensed IP, like Jurassic World Evolution and our future plans for the Formula 1® and Warhammer Age of Sigmar games. Games based on owned IP provide Frontier with the benefit of having complete creative freedom and higher margins, while games based on licensed IP have the potential to more easily reach large new audiences and leverage existing lore and characters, such as with Jurassic World Evolution. We review the value of licensing proven third-party major global IP versus developing our own IP for each potential future franchise on a case-by-case basis. We also consider the long-term benefits of relationships with these IP partners and how they can help with future opportunities as the wider entertainment sector continues to change, presenting ever more opportunities for new types of entertainment.
Our Communities - We create and nurture large player communities for our games, providing free and paid content, news, video streaming, and competitions to achieve long-term positive engagement. We support and encourage player connectivity through forums and regular community events which allow the various personalities of each title to come together. This year we pivoted the annual 'Lavecon' event, which celebrates Elite Dangerous, onto a digital platform to engage the community through virtual panels, interviews and hosting gameplay streams whilst in lockdown.
That strategy of supporting and nurturing both our game, and the community of players of our game, has been learned and refined through our experiences on our first three titles, Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution. That strategy continues to pay dividends across all three of those games, with each title providing material financial contributions in FY20 through both base game sales and PDLC.
Capitalisation of costs for game development related intangible assets, together with continued investment in our leading game technology, accounted for £19.8 million in the period (FY19: £13.4 million). Costs related to new chargeable products, or the development of technology to support new chargeable products, are typically capitalised, subject to the usual criteria set out under accounting standard IAS 38. Development costs associated with the development or support of existing products are generally expensed as incurred. Costs capitalised in FY20 represented 80% of gross R&D expenditure compared with 66% in FY19 and 85% in FY18. The lower capitalisation percentage rate in FY19 reflected a greater allocation of development time spent on free content during that period, particularly related to the launch of the Beyond series of free updates for Elite Dangerous. The capitalisation rates in FY20 and FY18 are more typical of the Company's usual approach to the mix of development effort between free and paid content. Frontier believes that investment in free updates is an important part of its strategy in supporting and nurturing games after launch.
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