Are Frontier content with Elite Dangerous? a few questions

[Deleted member 182079]

Indeed. Something that also struck me was the following passage from Accounting Policies (p. 73) where it reads

"Internally generated intangible assets, consisting of direct labour costs, other specific direct project costs and directly attributable project support
costs, are amortised on a straight line basis over their useful economic lives. The estimated useful lives of current development projects are between
three and five years. When a self-published game is intended for release on multiple platforms without material content change, amortisation is based
on the length of time in which that game is expected to be supported in an unchanged format. Acquired rights are assessed for their useful ‘franchise
life’. For Elite Dangerous this is prudently estimated at eight years; within the sector successful franchises normally have useful lives of over ten years."

Whatever that may mean actually, might have an accountancy background. I think that at the current stage, they won't invest anything on future extensions, as Odyssey must be a financial failure in its current state and there's no room for planning such things while the general future and the question whether the current situation can be turned around are more or less uncertain. On p. 14, their future plan timeline lists EDO to be in the portfolio beyond FY 2025 at least.

O7,

I missed it, and is somewhat interesting, but I wouldn't read too much into it. They probably recorded Odyssey as a separate IP and related intangibles are amortised over the next 8 years if I'd take a guess. There's really not that much in that report that suggests Elite's days are numbered apart from the lack of focus it's getting compared to the rest (and more recent, perhaps also more exciting) of their products.

Whether they'll let it die on the vine or not - I reckon any announcement of Elite's future on consoles will be the clearest indicator, whenever that happens.

 

[GroG79]

Fdev stated these 'new' fps drops on entering CZ (I also have them) are not related to performance as such but a result of other delays. The game is very playable after waiting for the lag to disappear.

I hope we will get a update to the cobra engine soon. We really need that to get performance up. Removing eye candy to raise FPS is not what I call a performance improvement but more of a downgrade to make framerates acceptable

 

[Rat Catcher]

don't think they'd lie, but given how .... selective they've been with the truth when it comes to the reasons for the poor reception (and it's not like it's been a major issue since the first few days after launch, and around patch day, yet reception still hasn't turned into one that's overall positive) they may have applied similar liberties here.

They are legally bound to produce information that cannot be legally challenged and proven inaccurate... Other countries may have a slightly different approach, but this is a UK document. (I'm remembering one of our USA forumites insisting that absolute lies are commonplace in company statements)

Also, calling player number projections from steam are excellent for steam launched play - but any 'per-hour' number needs to be multiplied by 24, maybe? Plus, as was menitoned there are other platforms launching ED, none of which are publishing numbers... (Also Oculus launches from a Frontier launcher)

 

[thistle]

"Despite its initial challenges, hundreds of thousands of players are enjoying the experience". Not in your wildest dreams. Steam charts show a current average number of players being ~3,600. I know that people play on other platforms than Steam, but hundreds of thousands? I don't think so.

on player numbers, you're comparing two completely different things, concurrent players, and the total number of players.

For example from a google search on concurrent steam users:

In early 2020, CS:GO hit 24 million monthly active users, and that same year, the title topped the ranking of most played games on Steam at more than 1.3 million peak concurrent players.

So it's very difficult to guess from concurrent steam users how many total active users there are. Frontier will know, so it's probably hundreds of thousands.

 

[GroG79]

amortisation is based
on the length of time in which that game is expected to be supported in an unchanged format. Acquired rights are assessed for their useful ‘franchise
life’. For Elite Dangerous this is prudently estimated at eight years; within the sector successful franchises normally have useful lives of over ten years.

Nice find. It means that the investment into this IP (EDH/EDO) is spread over 8 years. (So this actually confirms the dedication to ED)

Amortization​

Business
In business, amortization refers to spreading payments over multiple periods. The term is used for two separate processes: amortization of loans and amortization of assets. In the latter case it refers to allocating the cost of an intangible asset over a period of time (for example, over the course of a 20-year patent term, $1,000 would be recorded each year as an amortization expense if $20,000 was initially spent developing a product).

 

[Deleted member 182079]

They are legally bound to produce information that cannot be legally challenged and proven inaccurate... Other countries may have a slightly different approach, but this is a UK document. (I'm remembering one of our USA forumites insisting that absolute lies are commonplace in company statements)

I get that, but it's a vague enough statement they could explain as I already hinted at (hundreds of thousands of players bought EDO and can enjoy it if they ever boot it up) so it's difficult enough to prove they were deliberately misleading anyone.

Also, calling player number projections from steam are excellent for steam launched play - but any 'per-hour' number needs to be multiplied by 24, maybe? Plus, as was menitoned there are other platforms launching ED, none of which are publishing numbers... (Also Oculus launches from a Frontier launcher)

Yes, I agree it's silly to use Steam concurrent player stats in this case as a counter argument. A better metric would be 'players who have logged on within X days/weeks/months', though I still think that number is simply based on copies sold.

 

[babelfisch]

Indeed. Something that also struck me was the following passage from Accounting Policies (p. 73) where it reads

"Internally generated intangible assets, consisting of direct labour costs, other specific direct project costs and directly attributable project support
costs, are amortised on a straight line basis over their useful economic lives. The estimated useful lives of current development projects are between
three and five years. When a self-published game is intended for release on multiple platforms without material content change, amortisation is based
on the length of time in which that game is expected to be supported in an unchanged format. Acquired rights are assessed for their useful ‘franchise
life’. For Elite Dangerous this is prudently estimated at eight years; within the sector successful franchises normally have useful lives of over ten years."

Whatever that may mean actually, might have an accountancy background. I think that at the current stage, they won't invest anything on future extensions, as Odyssey must be a financial failure in its current state and there's no room for planning such things while the general future and the question whether the current situation can be turned around are more or less uncertain. On p. 14, their future plan timeline lists EDO to be in the portfolio beyond FY 2025 at least.

O7,

You are a few years late. That statement isn't new

 

[babelfisch]

PS
If anyone is interested, you can read my uneducated guess about the statement back in 2019 here:

Elite Franchise Life Ends In December 2021?

Can it be Edward Lewis will become community manager for the new Bethesda game Starfield It's not a bad guess :)

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Factabulous]

So, 10 years ... 1 to go truly these are the end times

 

[LeoBartlet]

Steam stats mentioned ✓

Doom confirmed also BINGO!

 

[WeComeInPeace]

I guess y'all don't know about the teapot. There is a large discrepancy between the numbers, and the quote was "hundreds of thousands of players are enjoying the experience" as in present tense. I'm not in any way claiming that Frontier are using numbers like that to attract investors, even though that would be a first in modern human history.

@GroG79

Keep it civilized

 

[Rat Catcher]

I get that, but it's a vague enough statement they could explain as I already hinted at (hundreds of thousands of players bought EDO and can enjoy it if they ever boot it up) so it's difficult enough to prove they were deliberately misleading anyone.

It just says that the sales numbers were...

As a technicality, one might assume that, on spending whatever the DLC cost locally (if you were fortunate to live in Argentina at launch it was around €5 equivalent), one would be playing, so the comment is logical enough in its assumption. (even if many of those who have purchased are having a less-than-ideal experience due to performance issues!)

 

[Rat Catcher]

I guess y'all don't know about the teapot. There is a large discrepancy between the numbers, and the quote was "hundreds of thousands of players are enjoying the experience" as in present tense. I'm not in any way claiming that Frontier are using numbers like that to attract investors, even though that would be a first in modern human history.

@GroG79

Keep it civilized

Keep it up... Suggestions of criminal activity make so much sense

 

[zombieapocalypse]

I'm going to start a campaign to have emotes removed.

I'm going to start a campaign to have stuphz removed

 

[zombieapocalypse]

Waterworlds next please!

I'm not sure if FDev could afford Costner's appearance fee.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I'm going to start a campaign to have stuphz removed

Oh-oh!

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Keep it up... Suggestions of criminal activity make so much sense

I think that if enough people found it worth the trouble (I don't), that a lawsuit against Frontier, for releasing a game that they knew wasn't finished, and taking peoples money is, let's call it, (EDIT: would turn out) "borderline fraud". At least where I live, but hey now we live in the great big World of the internet, and here it's a little bit more Wild West.

 

[zombieapocalypse]

I think if FDev can get Odyssey up to scratch in terms of performance and bug fixing, they can use it as a solid base to add a wide variety of new content. At least, that's what I'm desperately hoping. But I imagine that it will take a concerted effort to win back the confidence of much of the player base, especially those who had lost faith long before Odyssey dropped.

And FDev really does need to learn from EDO and not repeat the same mistakes again, which may be a big ask.

 

[avow555]

Wrong, people were asking for them.

Even more people asked for the following;
Landing on ELW
Scooping gas giants
Ship interiors
Better poweplay
Proper crafting
Player run markets
Panther Clipper

Need I go on?

 

[CMDR Fnool]

What storm was that exactly? They said long before the release that there would not be ship interiors coming with Odyssey, so if there was a storm then it was purely of artificially generated outrage. I personally saw no storm!

Well not storm then, but a gusty breeze was certainly around for a while, mostly i suspect due to people trying Star Citizen out and seeing how fun and immersive it feels. SC can afford to do expensive things like that, but even with its colossal resources it still has an abysmal frame-rate, and more importantly for me, no large galaxy to explore. (Sorry Obsidian Ant, pottering around on a few hand-crafted planets just isn't the same, there's no sensation there of the truly new and undiscovered). Instead of just sticking to SC though, many people dream of interiors in ED, which proves i feel, that ED still has features even now, 'post-odyssey-catastrophe', that aren't done as well or even exist at all, in Star Citizen.