@ Ralph Vargr,
I'm not here to defend Frontier and how they are running the development of ED. In fact i've been that dissapointed by the game 'so far' that i have not even started playing. As a long time fan of the Elite games i need more in my Elite game these days (say compared to 1986 when i first played Elite), and there is more to it than that. So just to have that clear before the next bit.
I have no problem with Kickstarter as a method to fund a game, really it is a liberating and unrestrictive method of game dev. The general game dev system, especially in the AAA space has become so restrictive and controlled by the publishing arm of the industry that for people like myself we have become less interested in buying new games from that production system. It is, in part, why there has been a huge boom in the 'indie' game scene.
So when kickstarter came along it gave another avenue that a game dev could look at to get a game made.
Elite came out in 1984. Frontier (elite II) came out in 1993. FFE (elite III) came out in 1995. ED came out in 2014, nearly 20 years after the last game because the publishing arm that now controls AAA games did not want to fund a new Elite game (they prefer FPS games).
Looking at how much 'silly' money people have thrown at Star Citizen (another crowd-sourced space game), there is obviously a demand for these games again, even where AAA publishers do not think so.
So crowd-funding (the type of method of funding that Kickstarter is) is a great new option to get a game made, that would not otherwise be made due to the conservative and established publishing method in AAA games. This is a good thing, as it allows more games of different genre's to get funded and made.
Yes it can go wrong, yes you can 'lose' your money if you get a broken game (or none at all!). This is why when you support a crowdfunded game you have to understand this is a gamble, plain a simple, like an investment in the stock market or being an invester in any other market, you may not get what you were hoping for.
The hardest part of using crowdfunding for your game is, these days, the very high cost of game development in general. People expect very high quality graphics and those 'cost' a lot of money/production effort, so only on a few rare examples has the crowdfunding method provided enough money to cover a AAA like game. For ED it did not, but it made enough to get the ball rolling and we are where we are today.
Is David and Frontier out to simply scam us all for our money and provide nothing in return? Well no, not at all as is evident in what they have produced upto this point.
Could David and Frontier maybe delivered things in a way that would have caused less outcry amongst their crowdfunding backers (thinking on the dropped SP game, the hit and miss nature of Power Play etc)? Sure, but hindsight is what it is and at the time it is very hard to see an exact future, in any business. So yeah there have been dissapointments on the way, but the game is still being worked on and seems set to carry on, and the more fans of the game keep supporting it the more complete, feature rich an experience it will become.
They are not snakeskin salesmen or whatever other phrase fits that, they have delievered one of the current best modern space games of recent years, and yes it is not perfect, but has the potential to be.
I personally fund more crowd-funded projects than i buy games from traditional publishers as there is just so much more potential to create something unique and different from the slew of 'face-shooters' that AAA games dev seems to have devolved into, and i hope crowdfunding is here to stay.
In terms of the current anger over the new expansion i would say i do agree that people that already have bought the game have been a little shortchanged. If Frontier released a stand alone expansion pack for Horizons at a reflective price ALL that angst would go away, so that would be my advice to them, don't annoy your backers as much as you have appeared to because the cost in terms of reputation of the game around the internet is not worth the potential loss it will cost overall.
I Guess I'm Just Too Old To Understand Modern Business. Especially Games.
