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

Ian Doncaster · Jan 18, 2019

Mugur said:
Yes, it's absurd at this point to just play the base game. Horizons IS THE GAME now. And I'm sure there is (almost?) no one still playing the base game in 2019.

I think the one reason to just play the base game is to see if you like the basic concept of Elite-like games, if you've not played one before.

If you don't like the base game then Horizons won't change any of that and you've saved half the purchase price. If you do, then buy Horizons to get a lot more of it.

Ian Skippy · Jan 18, 2019

When you look at the console achievement I believe something like 25% never even leave the sidey, and the vast majority never gets to 50 missions. 41% Horizons is rather high, and it clearly includes a lot of people who bought the package but didnt play much.

Old Duck · Jan 18, 2019

TheLawful said:
Elephant Butt Leather. Where has it gone? Sold out?

I got rid of the E and kept the L and B. Fun game!

NeilF · Jan 18, 2019

So... If we're discussing how well ED is doing and what's happing this coming year.... What does Ed Lewis know, or what's he seen?

*play Dragnet opening music stab*
[video=youtube;hDVVplAweZw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDVVplAweZw[/video]

Lightspeed · Jan 18, 2019

NeilF said:
So... If we're discussing how well ED is doing and what's happing this coming year.... What does Ed Lewis know, or what's he seen?

*play Dragnet opening music stab*

Much more likely he was head hunted, and given a deal he couldn't refuse, otherwise he'd still be there. Looks like he was enjoying life with Frontier.

NeilF · Jan 18, 2019

Lightspeed said:
Much more likely he was head hunted, and given a deal he couldn't refuse, otherwise he'd still be there. Looks like he was enjoying life with Frontier.

Now that scenario doesn't go with the Dragnet music very well at all does it!

Lightspeed · Jan 18, 2019

NeilF said:
Now that scenario doesn't go with the Dragnet music very well at all does it!

Or, you could say he decided to leg it ..... which may confirm, or not, something else this year

StuartGT · Jan 18, 2019

Lightspeed said:
Much more likely he was head hunted, and given a deal he couldn't refuse, otherwise he'd still be there. Looks like he was enjoying life with Frontier.

Maybe he's becoming the Community Manager for a large biscuit manufacturer, which could very well be the dream job for him if includes R&D taste-testing! [big grin]

NeilF · Jan 18, 2019

Lightspeed said:
Or, you could say he decided to leg it ..... which may confirm, or not, something else this year

That's more like it!

[video=youtube;hDVVplAweZw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDVVplAweZw[/video]

Stewart_ · Jan 18, 2019

You should well know then, having worked in software for over 30 years that what the user sees in the software product doesn’t always reflect the amount of effort that was required to build it, because that effort is invisible to the end user.

Some of those 100 are also working on tools to support the development of the game also. Not just the elite client and the server side software.

Having worked for a long time in software industry, I could believe those developers were working on elite full time. Partially because i could see that ED required a lot of re-engineering in order to build new features into the game. Also some change logs have mentioned having to re-work some components such as audio to implement new feature and to support future development.

NeilF said:
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...

NeilF · Jan 18, 2019

Stewart_ said:
You should well know then, having worked in software for over 30 years that what the user sees in the software product doesn’t always reflect the amount of effort that was required to build it, because that effort is invisible to the end user.

Some of those 100 are also working on tools to support the development of the game also. Not just the elite client and the server side software.

Having worked for a long time in software industry, I could believe those developers were working on elite full time. Partially because i could see that ED required a lot of re-engineering in order to build new features into the game. Also some change logs have mentioned having to re-work some components such as audio to implement new feature and to support future development.

Fine... We disagree... You believe you can see ED (since release) being the work of 100 or so people, over four plus years. I don't.

Backelaer · Jan 18, 2019

Ian Doncaster said:
I think the one reason to just play the base game is to see if you like the basic concept of Elite-like games, if you've not played one before.

If you don't like the base game then Horizons won't change any of that and you've saved half the purchase price. If you do, then buy Horizons to get a lot more of it.

This.

Ian Skippy said:
When you look at the console achievement I believe something like 25% never even leave the sidey, and the vast majority never gets to 50 missions. 41% Horizons is rather high, and it clearly includes a lot of people who bought the package but didnt play much.

And this. Someone who knows how to interpret data correctly. A rarity indeed.