Player Retention

[Deleted member 182079]

Personally I thought the Gnosis misjump was one of the more memorable episodes - flower ships in the same instance as megaships? Yes please! I sometimes wonder if that was a bug simply because they never brought those back again, such a pity. Sucked to be sitting below deck in a min-maxed explorer build obviously... and honestly ... whichever system it would've jumped into would've been as generic as any other I'm sure, I very much FDev would've come up with any custom assets that would've made that destination worthwhile visiting, other than bragging rights perhaps.

I have to say, before Christmas (maybe November or so) I culled my friendlist by about 2/3 removing players who hadn't logged in for several months (often the timing would've been within 4 weeks of EDO's release date).

But I also have to say that in recent weeks the game feels a bit more busy again, and I've come across old acquaintances who I hadn't seen around for a while, plus plenty of newer players also. Though I often wonder how village like (as in compact in size) the player base really is... I do recognise players from the forums, or come across the same players repeatedly in different locations (though that could just be the instancing algorithms). Suppose I won't see those who play in PG/Solo beyond those who spam syschat with their inane ramblings though so there's that also.

 

[nemolomen]

The most debatable thing was releasing a first person shooter expansion. It's really a different genre that many elite players aren't really interested in. Having so many bugs that they are still trying to fix it one year and 10 patches later didn't help either ..

I've always found it strange that Elite had so many things spot on in the beginning, and many features coming later didn't really make it (powerplay, cqc, wings, guilds, even thargoids). You don't see that very often in other games. Probably it takes someone close to the company to figure out why this happened.

Out of curiosity, when did you start playing Elite: Dangerous?

 

[Chaparral]

The Odyssey DLC, taken on its own, appeals to a different player type than the spaceship game alone. I like both aspects and so do the two other players I brought into the game less than 18 months ago.

So you are advocating a business model that tries not to appeal to its current customers?

 

[Riverside]

Try as a might, I just can't find how many copies of EDO have sold. If a significant fraction of those non-retained EDH players decline to buy EDO, that probably isn't a good business model.

A customer that no longer plays and doesn't buy more stuff is a lost opportunity but not a cost to the company (ignoring intangibles like bad PR).

The FDev interim report for shareholders might have some unit sales numbers in them, I don't think we have any numbers for Odyssey sales but @Ian Doncaster might have some educated insight.

 

[gorankar]

OP, haven't we been getting new content over the last 8 months?

Not OP, but a lot of players don't consider the EDO content worthwhile. It's new but largely ignored by more than a few. I get out of my ship to walk around it. Or just to look at the station interiors now and again. That's it. The sum total of value I find in Odyssey so far. This is not meant to be a dig. EDO was just not my cup of tea. Not all games are for everyone. Then there is the console players that don't even have it yet. I hope it's "yet" anyway.
I think a lot of older players are slowly gravitating away. But if the Steam charts are any indication, they are replacing players around as fast as they are losing them. I get the OP's problem though. I only log on once or twice a week now, used to be almost daily, and my friends list is also full of people that have not played in months, some over a year now.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

They still wanted to go even when FD introduced (for the time) the most deadly NPC in the game and told people "its there people".

The only failure of that situation was the bugs and back to front Galnet.

I remember I couldn't log on when it all kicked off as it was 8am and I had to start work Saved me a rebuy due to getting destroyed while sitting on the landing pad so... bullet quite literally dodged... our first encounter in Open with a Hydra was excellent... until a CODE wing joined our desperate attempt to fight it, and we had to scramble.

Ahhh. Good times.

 

[nemolomen]

So you are advocating a business model that tries not to appeal to its current customers?

I'm not advocating anything. Merely relating my experience to your statements and expressing my opinion regarding who the game appeals to.

Personally, and for the players whom I share gameplay sessions with, we like it, and we like pretty much all of it.

I'm not normally an FPS player, but I find the FPS gameplay added by Odyssey to be good and enjoyable.

And, on another take, I think worrying about the longevity/sustainability of the game is best left to FDev as they are in the driver's seat. They will work on it until business-wise it makes no sense for them to continue. In the meantime I'm going to get as much of it as I can before it disappears, which it will one day anyway. All things come to pass...

 

[Dillon Fallon]

After weeks of build up for the trip and so much anticipation Fdev realized their mistake tried to down play the event with these Galnet articles but Commanders still wanted to go. They loaded up anti Thargoid built ships and were ready for action. The problem was it never made it to the Cone Sector that's what upset many.

My point is 15,000 commanders were onboard and excited about Elite and let down by Poor planning.

I agree that the game has many technical problems but that shouldn't keep us from enjoying the game, and well planned events will help.

Well let us suppose they did get there. Since there's nothing actually there, what would have happened is a couple of hours of activity while everyone tags everything with 'first discovered' then fly back to the megaship to wait to depart, with maybe a bit of messing around with SRVs if they got bored.

What actually happened seems far better.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Then I was reading a post that mentioned over 12 million copies have been sold and it got me thinking.

8 million of those (ish) were free in the Epic giveaway, so "sold" is stretching it a bit. Probably well over half of those have never been logged into and no-one's expecting them to.

Where are you getting 0.1% from?

As far as actual daily players go ... Frontier have never released this information, but a reasonable estimate from what they have said (one way or another) of "number of different accounts who play in any one day" would probably be about 100,000, which would be more like ~1% of total accounts, or ~4-5% of total paid for accounts.

It's a higher number than a lot of people think, which gives rise to the DW2 paradox - the DW2 event was absolutely huge in scale for a player-run event, all credit to the organisers - but if they'd hypothetically (somehow!) done it in secret and just had 4000 people wander off on an expedition without telling anyone else ... it would have taken months for anyone else to notice they'd gone, because the proportion of the player base it represented would have been tiny.

Which is of course where the "in the good old days we had Proper Events" comes from - it's not much to do with the participant numbers, and everything to do with the marketing. Frontier, by and large, don't bother to hype up their in-game events very much - despite the ones they've run in the last year being both more sophisticated and more open to player involvement than many of the "Good Old Days" ones and addressing (on paper, anyway) what people think they're asking for.

So the ones which are most remembered long-term are the ones where some player or player group did that work for them. (Which of course comes with its own risks, and there are very good reasons that Frontier don't try to recruit player groups to that upfront, rather than holding the events and hoping someone adopts it)

I don't think we have any numbers for Odyssey sales but @Ian Doncaster might have some educated insight.

Other than "their 2020-2021 financial year results were really profitable", it's tough to say for certain.

They made £90.7 million in revenue FY20/21, so let's say that's split roughly evenly between the four franchises. That'd be ~£20 million for Elite Dangerous, which would be 500,000 Odyssey sales if it entirely consisted of that. Clearly it wasn't - base game sales, ARX, even some Horizons sales in the first half of that FY, but equally I'd be very surprised if it was below 100,000. Let's say "low six figures sales" as about all we can be confident about, I think.

 

[Codger]

I've been here since 2015 and haven't lost interest so far.

I really like Odyssey and I think it adds a lot to the game. I'm quite happy with the progress they've made on it. The launch was done badly, but the actual content is quite excellent.

These are my opinions as a long-time player.

Anyway, I'm not going anywhere.

 

[Bottom Hat]

I imagine Taxidermy Fox is feeling quite stuffed about things.

I like what you did there!

 

[Zieman]

I imagine Taxidermy Fox is feeling quite stuffed about things.

Say what?

 

[Mark Zero]

So the original post in summary:

"Here are a bunch of examples of things that players independently organized. Why isn't FDev creating content?"

"Here is a delicious apple I am praising. Why isn't the farmer harvesting oranges?"

Also what is this nebulous "content" that people keep screeching isn't there? The closest I can figure out to it is that people really really want Elite to behave like a single-player game that puts them on a unique railroaded story. Elite Dangerous is not Mass Effect. It's a sandbox. The idea is to build your own sandcastles. The galaxy's storyline is bigger than us and requires Commanders en-masse to move it.

See also; our collective actions pretty much dismantled AEGIS because the majority of us supported Salvation.

 

[Red Rocket]

I feel that the Elite Community has always been and still is ready for a Fdev or Player Group led event to participate in big numbers.

DW2 was the best 5 month long gaming event i have experienced ever.

Cone Sector trip with the idea of thousands commanders locked in a small group of systems for a month that you couldn't leave without suiciding out of was exciting and scary.

15,000 commanders in CG to get free FSD with 5 more ly's

This game has so much potential

 

[Bigmaec]

Ah, the Gnosis "debacle"

How I loved that.

Also I'd love a DW3 and a corresponding DG3 expedition, just for the rage threads/reddits this wil generate.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I feel that the Elite Community has always been and still is ready for a Fdev or Player Group led event to participate in big numbers.

With regards to the "player group led" option ... why not organise one, then?

 

[Bigmaec]

With regards to the "player group led" option ... why not organise one, then?

SPEAR is in desperate need of a leader, or so I heard

 

[Red Rocket]

It's a sandbox, hence player groups making their own content. I was going to ask if this is a doom thread, but the jury is still out.

I know its a sandbox but what's wrong with Frontier creating a Event other then the standard CG that would bring in many commanders.

 

[Bigmaec]

I know its a sandbox but what's wrong with Frontier creating a Event other then the standard CG that would bring in many commanders.

If I had to guess, people calling their events debacles afterwards.

 

[Jack Winter]

New players provide income for FDev, and if they play for a while they may buy some cosmetics and/or pDLCs.

However existing players that have already bought what they are going to buy are a cost to FDev, in terms of server rental.

So the ideal ED player buys the game, plays for a while (hopefully buying some ARX) then moves on to other games, or if they continue to play they draw in more players or act as content (training, allies or enemies for other players).

I don't think long term en masse player retention is what FDev's business model is aiming for.

Except that existing player might be more interested in buying a dlc than people that don't play or own it..