They did that. That's how they were able to afford to build E: D. The kickstarter money paid for, perhaps, 20% max of the development costs of the game. Having the kickstarter show real demand for the game probably helped them with their IPO, so it may be fair to say that without the kickstarter it would not have happened. But it was funded by the IPO.
Frontier Needs Money (new Dev Update from Michael).
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They aren't financially close to EA but they do behave in a similar fashion it seems, I think that was the overall point (which I would have thought was pretty obvious)
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Exactly. You don't have to be as large as EA to act just like them.
I wonder when Mr B will drop the bombshell that they have changed their minds about pay2win?
Mmmm pay to win, one of those difficult things to define.
If you are able to buy items, such as ships, that cannot be purchased in game then that's bad and is definitely pay to win in the worst sense.
If however, its to enable the purchasing of in game credits for real so money then that's not all together such a terrible idea, although the initial knee jerk action is often otherwise. Time = Money, Money = Time etc so it enables those with to little/much of one of those attributes to balance the game a bit.
However my preferred route if we had to go down it would be a flat subscription model, with the ability to buy this in game if you make enough credits through playing (I'm not going to mention the game that does this successfully).
Would FD mind loosing a chunk of CMDRs if this was introduced, probably not if it meant a steady revenue stream.
Unnerfing yaw would not make turrets in space. It would increase, not decrease, the effect of skillful piloting. Actually being able to fly your craft would allow for much more maneuvering in dogfights, allowing more ability to concentrate on turning your thin side to your enemy, and maneuvering to his belly or back where turrets may be blind. Also, it's not like turrets can't be modded by the devs if they became OP. That is a poor excuse to reduce dogfighting to the bare minimum of variety.
I can only urge people to take a quick look at freeallegiance.org and check out the dogfighting. You will suck, against pilots with much more experience, because there is a lot to learn about dogfighting well. The best pilots in that game, against very experienced pilots, can routinely take on 2-3 enemies with equivalent ships and win, because skill counts. Hell, they can do it with weaker ships. There is enough maneuverability to allow for very creative play. Instead of grinding your way to a better ship, you pay your dues and acrue skill at piloting.
That's somewhat missing here. Allegiance has no need for gimbals or turrets, for that very reason. Hell, most of your shots travel slowly, to boot, you have to really fly to land your shots. That is captivating dogfighting. Everyone should try it, just once. And we could have it here...
I'm saying this because I see the missed potential, not because I take pleasure out of ting on the game. Add *quality* dogfighting and this game could really shine.
I can only urge people to take a quick look at freeallegiance.org and check out the dogfighting. You will suck, against pilots with much more experience, because there is a lot to learn about dogfighting well. The best pilots in that game, against very experienced pilots, can routinely take on 2-3 enemies with equivalent ships and win, because skill counts. Hell, they can do it with weaker ships. There is enough maneuverability to allow for very creative play. Instead of grinding your way to a better ship, you pay your dues and acrue skill at piloting.
That's somewhat missing here. Allegiance has no need for gimbals or turrets, for that very reason. Hell, most of your shots travel slowly, to boot, you have to really fly to land your shots. That is captivating dogfighting. Everyone should try it, just once. And we could have it here...
I'm saying this because I see the missed potential, not because I take pleasure out of ting on the game. Add *quality* dogfighting and this game could really shine.
I think releasing ONE item exclusive the XBOX is hardly acting like EA. And they're still a small company. The amount they've sunk into development has hardly been recouped by sales. Is my point. It's hardly 'Big Company Makes Lots of Money Off Product Then Sticks It To Their Customers'.
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Actually, you started with:
So you appeared to be implying that 'treating all platforms equally' (i.e. no exclusive deals) is very important to you (I agree about fairness, BTW). Si I asked the simple question:
At which point you clarified that you were not talking about a deal like the XBox one (though it sure looked like it) by saying:
So I called out this as a straw man with:
And you introduced what looked like another straw man with a claim that FD had said something that I cannot recall them saying:
So I asked you to back up that statement that looked like a straw man with a source. :
At which point you seem to think that I have misunderstood you. I think I have understood you, but it is a little difficult to say. You want to talk about not a timed exclusive, but an exclusive that is functionality that only appears on one platform, and is never ported to another. Despite the fact that FD have never suggested such a thing, and everyone else is talking about timed exclusives, which we do have. If that was what you wanted to discuss all along, the time to stop digging your hole was when you said
Feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood further.
Honestly the accusations being flung at FD at this point on this topic aren't worthy of the people throwing them.
NOBODY is happy about everything (least of all me) but it hardly makes FD Evil Arts.
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I suspect it would be a huge chunk they would lose, plus a huge amount of nasty PR. They sold 'buy once, play forever'. Changing their mind and asking those that have already paid in good faith would be an incredibly bad thing to do, PR wise. Introducing a subscription for new players from now forward, is much more reasonable. Offering a choice for new players between buy up front and subscription, is more reasonable still.
Actually I think your sentence is pretty spot-on except for the Big Company part, its more like "Indie Developer Makes Lots of Money Off Product Then Sticks It To Their Customers", like currently I can't see how the kickstarters (of which I wasn't one) benefit, I can however very easily see how the shareholders benefit. A resource has been leveraged in the pursuit of profit, unfortunately that resource is their initial loyal fanbase.
That is EA 101 lol, i'd say its all they do but they do genuinely release something honest from time to time, but by and large its squeeze every last share value you can out of something then burn it down.
Incidentally I really think them having an Xbone release is good, but the exclusives is a sign of things to come there will be a paid expansion on an unfinished game next, when the time is judged right.
Of course the game might be finished by then, but at their current rate I doubt it
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There are lots of threads that disagree with you. But, by all means, send that as a PM to Mike Evans, and see what he says.
It's hardly one exclusive item. From dropped offline, misleading trailers, barebone features to timed exclusive content, there's been a pattern of doing what every gaming community, on any platform, hates the most. All in the name of increased profits.
For me personally, it's basically a "let's say one thing, then do another because it's more profitable." or, if you like, "We took two eggs from the cake mix to, to make more cakes. We'll add them back in later, if we sell enough cakes." Of course, if that had been known, most would have ordered pie.
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Could be a significant number of commanders, but that would still leave a significant income stream.
- I wasn't happy about offline either.
- There's only been ONE misleading trailer (and it was clearly marked that it wasn't actual gameplay).
- We all agree the game should have been in a prolonged gamma as they expanded on the DDA features.
All that said, I think we're still too soon in the development cycle to throw the book at them yet. I want them to make money from this game and then continue development. They need more money than they've made.
Unlike other games, the game is released and must be judged accordingly.
IIRC development costs were about £8m. I'm sure they'd rather have waited longer before release, but they couldn't carry on spending money without making some back, indefinitely.
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This is getting like a UK politics discussion full of idealism and unrealistic dreams . FD are a company that needs to make money or the game does not get any more development. People work there and have families that need a roof over their heads and the bills paid . Unfortunately all companies will put necessity before idealism . They will do what is needed to achieve a goal and rightly so. They make games and they have to make money to make games and develop games. Thinking otherwise is just winding yourself up for little reason or indeed point.
Nothing in that dev update either declares or implies any current funding issues. To interpret it as such is akin to reading tea leaves.
Besides, who is realistically going to be simultaneously smart enough to work at FDEV, yet dumb enough to potentially violate both their employee contract, which almost certainly has a confidentiality clause, as well as insider trading regulations, which forbid the disclosure of private information that might affect the value of a publically-traded company except through official channels (does a dev blog count as official?)
Besides, who is realistically going to be simultaneously smart enough to work at FDEV, yet dumb enough to potentially violate both their employee contract, which almost certainly has a confidentiality clause, as well as insider trading regulations, which forbid the disclosure of private information that might affect the value of a publically-traded company except through official channels (does a dev blog count as official?)
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