The thing is, ED already is that game, sort of. Among the variety of player types it manages to accommodate simultaneously, there already is a subset who by their own admission only drop in for an hour or so every once in a while, whether for time commitment reasons or because the game isn't engaging them fully. And that's not including the army of self-confessed Netflix explorers who spend much of their time in-game doing something on a second screen, interacting with the game in a way that's so limited as to be almost meaningless to a hardcore BGS lever-puller or PVP combatant.
That it works for so many player types is an impressive achievement in itself to be fair. A cynic might say it's only achieving this because there's no real competition, and that's a valid argument, but there's more to it than that. For whatever reason, be it the nostalgia or the graphics or the VR or the scale or even the potential of what might come next, something keeps a lot of people coming back to ED.
I wonder whether this diversity of player types is part of what discourages FD from making too many changes to the status quo, but if so it's a mistake IMO. There are plenty of opportunities to make the game more dynamic without disrupting any one group or groups. But as I've said elsewhere, there is always the risk of bringing a sledgehammer to a nut-cracking party and FD do have some form in that department. Perhaps that makes them risk averse.
ED not being a subscription game also gives FD more freedom to not chase player engagement as closely as other MMOs and MMO-likes, and even with a wide range of player types and frequencies the cosmetic store seems to be a solid revenue source from what they've reported. From a pure profitability standpoint, maybe the simplest answer as to why FD haven't made any significant changes to how the game reacts to player activities is that they don't feel that they have to.
Probably my biggest concern, the one that's always nagging at the back of my mind, is that ED isn't yet the deep and convincing simulation of humanity's galactic future that David Braben spent so long waxing lyrical about in the early days. To be fair it is unlikely to reach some of the lofty heights envisioned for it back in 2012-2014 due to limitations in the design, but there is certainly room for it to have shown some movement in that direction. Instead it's felt largely stagnant for some time now. Yes there are new ways to interact with new things, and developer-curated storylines in which to partake, but no sense yet of everything coming together to form the convincing proverbial "living, breathing" galaxy.
Maybe we'll see some movement in the right direction in the lead-up to 2020, or maybe the 2020 update(s) themselves will blow our collective socks off. But it's been a long time coming.
