Ah, on 1) we definitely disagree. On 2) I can neither agree or disagree, We simply do not know. What you personally did is valid, and I have bought cosmetics for the new ships too after they they became available for credits. But there's no telling if that's the norm or the exception in the playerbase.
BOYCOTT the Panther Clipper to avoid future "Updates"
- Thread starter Armaant27
- Start date
Disable signatures. They never contain anything useful anyway.
oh no, signatures tell you SO MUCH about a poster. But it's a good tip, thanks
I don't even see the signature in question, but my adblocker says it has blocked one element on the page
When it comes to paint jobs, FD are not monetising them effectively. Many paint jobs are not as good as the default ones the ships come with (e.g. my T9 never changed colour). And the CG before this one gave us a really nice gold-stripes paint for the Panther.
It's a facebook link, which is whyI don't even see the signature in question, but my adblocker says it has blocked one element on the page
I couldn't agree more, whoever is in the art department creating these paint jobs should go back to the accounts delartment.
Another way they could market them more effectively is... (deep breath cos I'm gonna shout)...
PUT SOME OF THE NEW SHIPS IN SPACE BEING FLOWN BY NPCS AND USE THESE AS A CANVAS TO ADVERTISE PAINT JOBS!
I think I'm right in saying that NPC Mambas are a fairly recent thing and are still super rare. Never a single NPC cobra 5, Mandalay, Type 8, Corsair, py2.
Probably more than you want to know.oh no, signatures tell you SO MUCH about a poster. But it's a good tip, thanks
Mine too. It's google analytics stuff, in my case.I don't even see the signature in question, but my adblocker says it has blocked one element on the page
Malwarebytes is great, but indeed a little over zealous on this page. What it's trying to tell me is that someone maybe trying to use this page to inject a script. It doesn't care if it's facebook or the FBI, it just sees a critical vulnerability.I don't even see the signature in question, but my adblocker says it has blocked one element on the page
Offtopic: Removed the offending image link, it should be fine now
Sure did.That's pretty funny
I already bought more ships for ARX than I did individual paint jobs and bodykits. The revenue from this is simply not comparable. Do you not see that thread saying how many Plippers passed through the CG?
If the game fell over because those sales weren't met, FD run a terrible business.
There isn't anything else to it. If a single marketing move failing was the single reason for the game falling over, your business is fragile and market position tentative and weak.
Here's FD's financial stats. It's proverbial in the river.
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I'm not saying it saved them or something like that, they were obviously ticking over or the game would already have been shut down, I'm simply saying more revenue is good for us, it encourages them to do further development, and more ships, hopefully a FAS mk2.
What was funny is ever thinking that FD was a good business in the traditional sense, it's obviously been chaotic over the years.I think more attention to ED is only a good thing, even if it means giving early access ships and creating shameless in-game cash grabs, this is the world we live in, and it's better than the alternative (one where ED still just chugs along rather than gets active development). I do see your opinion, if they give the ships away for free, they shoud still get more players if done right, more sales of the game. It's possible you're right, I just don't think the paid early access is so offensive as to be considered pay to win, I just don't.
Compared to actual pay to win games, this is lame as hell. Imagine paying a premium currency for fuel. There's a balance, and FD's approach is definitely on the player friendly end, and very far from the exploitative end of this business model. Lets see how things develop, but I for one will probably continue to buy early access combat ships, I think it's exciting for me, good for the game, gives me a way to give back that doesn't involve buying colours and kits I don't like.
Yes you are. You said:
So, you were just being hyperbolic, and your comments shouldn't be taken seriously?
As you can tell, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt before... because once again, that's just plain wrong.
I think if no more early access ships are made, it affects revenue negatively from where we are today. More impactfully than if they had never started that ball rolling in the first place. I was being hyperbolic when I said the death of the game, which doesn't invalidate my point. I don't think the game would last another 10 years on the cosmetics sales alone, while I'm sure it could go back to just ticking over like we were before, for a while. Moreover, I think this model is generating enough revenue that the game will get more love and considering the player friendly implementation of it, it's a net benefit. Please refer to my previous post explaining in detail why I think it's a good thing.
Nope, not even close. Frontier have published the numbers, sort of. Their interim results presentation at https://frontier-drupal.s3-eu-west-...rontier-fy25-interim-results-presentation.pdf has the necessary information, though it takes some interpreting.
- Page 5 has the revenue by franchise graph. It's marked in "years since initial release" so for Elite Dangerous the vertical bars fall at the start of November. Because of when it was published, the last data is for December 2024. Note that it's basically a constant slope between the 2023 and 2024 bars, and then upticks significantly just after that.
- Page 13 has an interesting - but unscaled - graph showing "extras" revenue for Elite Dangerous. You can see big spikes in income for this at the Python 2 and Type-8 releases, and then a larger boost around the Mandalay/Cobra V/also Powerplay stuff release.
- So that graph shows a 3-6x change in ARX income from the ship releases.
- But the graph on page 5 shows no discernible change in overall income from those first two ship releases.
- Conclusion: the ARX store must form a tiny fraction of the overall franchise income, or the 3-6x change in ARX income would be noticeable on the overall income graph
- Note also that the lead item on page 13 is that base game sales and player numbers have increased due to "ongoing narrative, new features" (which coincides with the big change in slope on the main income graph being the Trailblazers release / Thargoid attack on Sol, rather than with the start of their introduction of new ships)
The game has technically been barely breaking even since about mid-2018, but in part that's because Frontier has very wide flexibility on how much they spend on development (could be a lot, as in the run-up to Odyssey ... could be less than that if it doesn't have as much income, as in 2023). That suggests that on a purely operational basis it makes plenty of money, which Frontier then generally reinvest into more Elite Dangerous. Equally it suggests that Elite Dangerous will probably never again make a "profit" because it's unlikely to ever get to the point of making so much revenue that they can't reasonably parallelise all the development it could theoretically pay for.
(This is not in any way a sensible business decision to keep piling ED's income back into itself - their Management franchises all have much higher ROI expectations and performance - but they really like niche space sims or they wouldn't have built one in the first place)
OK
Good for shareholders. Zero guarantees for us.
Does nothing of the sort IMO., it encourages them to do further development, and more ships, hopefully a FAS mk2.
Hard disagree. Bad attention is bad.
Hard disagree. Many game studios have proven otherwise that these models are "just what we need to accept".
I don't consider it pay to win. I do find it offensive for other reasons, supported by my local consumer affairs referral, but that gets OT.
True, and yet it's still exploitative. That's just facts. If the word 'exploitative' hurts anyones feelings, that's their read, not mine.
The trajectory is pretty easy to tell.
- The inane Materials update was
- PP2 was a glorified rewards layer, so of course people were ecstatic about that
- Colonisation was, as far as can be determined, the result of an abandoned BGS mechanic for colonisation.
- Vanguards by all accounts seems to be PP2, but for squadrons, and appears to be another quasi rewards layer.
Their updates are appealing to popular trends, not quality, and instead of fixing core game loops and things that would have impact, they're putting a lick of paint on and a "new!" sticket. They're dipping their toes in these business models, and it may stay that way, but the overall strategy will stay aligned with that. I don't see that taking the game to a good place at all.
Sadly NPCs haven’t bought Odyssey or ARX, they only have access to credits
Player numbers ( using the dreaded steam ) hit peak in may 2021 and have halved since .
I'm more than happy to give them money as I have done in the past but only if I think it's worth it .
Even the Paintjobs from my console days are nowhere near as good on PC.
Many people have said they have stopped arx for cosmetics and are using on EA so the total Arx spent may be the same but less people are buying them.
Its not I don't want to pay for the game but it comes down do I or you think it's worth it ?
And unfortunately our opinions differ slightly .
This is an obviously over the top take as well as my 'death of the game' take. Just in the opposite direction. I hope you don't seriously believe all that, no wonder you're upset if you do.
If what is worth it?