Does David Braben care about Elite Dangerous?

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Old Duck

Old Duck
If I can keep my New Year's Resolution (starting in February because I failed miserably in January), this will be my last salty post, so I might as well make it a good one. Seriously though, does Braben care about ED anymore? I'm talking about the man himself. He seemed so excited about the game back in the kickerstarter days and even during the earlier years, based on all the videos I've seen of him. The last couple of years, however, he seems to be more of a myth than an actual man with a vision. Is he just a busy CEO with no time to get in the trenches with his team, or has he "moved on" to other passions, leaving ED to less-"enthusiastic" management?

They say everything rises and falls on leadership. I just wonder, where is Mr. Braben?
 

Kzak

Kzak
I believe Braben does very much care about Elite: Dangerous. But he is likely to be busy with the many things that occupy a CEO with a company that size. That said, it would be nice to get a statement or short video from him with the launch of Fleet Carriers or the Big Huge Massive New Era patch for Q4.
 

Brian of Ardagh

B
Old Duck said:
If I can keep my New Year's Resolution (starting in February because I failed miserably in January), this will be my last salty post, so I might as well make it a good one. Seriously though, does Braben care about ED anymore? I'm talking about the man himself. He seemed so excited about the game back in the kickerstarter days and even during the earlier years, based on all the videos I've seen of him. The last couple of years, however, he seems to be more of a myth than an actual man with a vision. Is he just a busy CEO with no time to get in the trenches with his team, or has he "moved on" to other passions, leaving ED to less-"enthusiastic" management?

They say everything rises and falls on leadership. I just wonder, where is Mr. Braben?
Click to expand...

Have a look at the ED Dev Tracker and search for Braben, you can then decide.
 

B.Roberts

B.Roberts
Old Duck said:
If I can keep my New Year's Resolution (starting in February because I failed miserably in January), this will be my last salty post, so I might as well make it a good one. Seriously though, does Braben care about ED anymore? I'm talking about the man himself. He seemed so excited about the game back in the kickerstarter days and even during the earlier years, based on all the videos I've seen of him. The last couple of years, however, he seems to be more of a myth than an actual man with a vision. Is he just a busy CEO with no time to get in the trenches with his team, or has he "moved on" to other passions, leaving ED to less-"enthusiastic" management?

They say everything rises and falls on leadership. I just wonder, where is Mr. Braben?
Click to expand...
Does Bill Gates cares about Windows 7? Does Dave Calhoun cares about 767? I'm not saying David Braben shouldn't care about Elite Dangerous just because this is the product that was released by his company over 5 years ago, which BTW, by modern software standards almost a century ago. What I'm trying to say is that D. Braben as a CEO of the company most likely concentrated on the new products, future releases and sales. As much as I love ED myself and as much as I wish it to stay around forever I'm surprised D. Braben cares enough to spent his resources on this "New Era" major update. I've seen many really nice games being discontinued because developers didn't wanted to waste their resources on all these updates while working on completely new game.
 

thistle

T
Elite Dangerous wouldn't exist today if it weren't for David Braben, so he can do what he likes in my book.

But I also imagine as the top man in the company he has slightly more to worry about and be responsible for today. Frontier was a smaller company, talking a significant risk on Elite, and only doing it because of David Braben. Today the company has multiple IPs deals with global movie franchises ... he's probably quite busy.

And what B.Roberts said, it's almost a surprise fdev are spending resources on such an old game in relative terms. I imagine that's at least in part down to him that it's even happening.

Also - what does it matter?
 

Good Whiskey

Good Whiskey
Old Duck said:
If I can keep my New Year's Resolution (starting in February because I failed miserably in January), this will be my last salty post, so I might as well make it a good one. Seriously though, does Braben care about ED anymore? I'm talking about the man himself. He seemed so excited about the game back in the kickerstarter days and even during the earlier years, based on all the videos I've seen of him. The last couple of years, however, he seems to be more of a myth than an actual man with a vision. Is he just a busy CEO with no time to get in the trenches with his team, or has he "moved on" to other passions, leaving ED to less-"enthusiastic" management?

They say everything rises and falls on leadership. I just wonder, where is Mr. Braben?
Click to expand...
You know why no one knows where he is, Duck? Honestly? Because nobody looks.

Source: https://youtu.be/GulOXtQ1VmI


Just listen to what he's talking about and come to your own conclusions. Mine are that he is a conceptual developer that has a lot of different ideas, and that in all likelihood, Elite isn't his precious child. It is a project of his that he and Frontier continue to advance, albeit slowly.
 

thistle

T
Havvk & Old Duck - what is the evidence either way? The only difference between today and Horizons releases, even early Beyond releases, is David hasn't personally appeared on release streams with Ed as he used to. (the last one I remember was a Beyond release)

Is that it? Is that all the evidence that's required to suggest David Braben "doesn't care"?

I think that's unfair.

Seriously. What is the barometer of his interest? Being on a stream? Please. If David Braben is having regular discussions with the senior devs and designers, why would we know, and if we did, would that be you placated?

Quite presumptuous to even suggest his levels of interest, actually.
 

CMDR Karrde Sun

CMDR Karrde Sun
I can’t shake the impression that elite only communicates to management via financial statements. There are a bunch of factors peaking at if elite was a passion project, even commanded for personal use, the quality would be better without as having to ask.

They’re producing food not eating it.

Frontier mix max doing the bare minimum for all their games to a queer standard... 65% complete with a bit of extra polish to trick customers into hopefully not noticing. As a smaller studio you could grandparent them out of love and take the hit, but they’ve done it three times in a row as a larger studio now it’s become part of their development DNA.

I think David Braben is having too much fun mbaing is company to care about games.
 
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