Projet de financement d'aide au développement d'elite dangerous // Elite Dangerous Development Assistance Funding Project

Udson

U
In order to support dangerous elite in its evolution and to allow to emancipate its potential which is no longer to be demonstrated, I think that Frontier should allow and authorize that Lovers of the title and all those who wish to participate in a game development fund.

Today, I think that anyone who wishes to participate in a call to strongly support the development of dangerous elites must be able to do so! Through the purchase of mods but also funds to the dev! This game represents the opportunity to push the limits of video games and experience extraordinary adventures in this magnificent universe.
Lots of space projects are in view of perfect realism! But frankly, until Elite, none have this size and this mass of possibilities. Moreover, should we still hope that a project of this type will bring back our player expectations; while it is at hand!?

[Google Translation]
In order to support dangerous elite in its evolution and to allow to emancipate its potential which is no longer to be demonstrated, I think that Frontier should allow and authorize that Lovers of the title and all those who wish to participate in a funding fund for the development of the game.

Today, I think that anyone who wishes to participate in a call to support with ardor the development of elite dangerous must be able to do so! Through the purchase of mods but also funds to the dev! This game represents the opportunity to push the limits of video games and experience extraordinary adventures in this magnificent universe.
Lots of space projects are in view of perfect realism! But frankly, until Elite, none have this size and this mass of possibilities. Moreover, should we still hope that a project of this type will bring back our player expectations; while it is at hand!?
[/Google Translation]
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Even the present rate of development and support for Elite Dangerous costs multiple millions of pounds each year - Odyssey-scale developments cost close to £10M a year. There's no chance of a fan fundraiser getting anywhere near that amount.

Conversely, Frontier has tens of millions of pounds of cash in the bank - they don't need advance funding to do more development on Elite Dangerous ... they perhaps do need confidence that it would sell in volume, but a few rich super-fans being generous doesn't really help with that.
 

amigacooke

amigacooke
Jack Winter said:
Yes, I'm sure that the dastardly management at Frontier is just waiting to siphon off ED revenue to finance their other get rich quick schemes.

Of course they'll also disregard the fact that ED brought in revenue!
Click to expand...
They may or they may not, there are no guarantees where the revenue is going when you buy ARX. Have Frontier ever stated that the revenue from ARX is ringfenced for ED?

Where's the money to develop Age of Sigmar come from? They must be diverting it from some other product's revenue stream.
 

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
No there is no way to know. But if the game is successful and generates revenue it's much more likely that the servers are kept on and that it gets more development. Personally I have nothing against occasionally buying another alt or more ARX. It seems logical that the reason for the slow development is simply that it's a fringe game with only tens of thousands and not millions of players. It gets funding for further development depending on how much revenue it brings in.
 

amigacooke

amigacooke
Jack Winter said:
No there is no way to know. But if the game is successful and generates revenue it's much more likely that the servers are kept on and that it gets more development. Personally I have nothing against occasionally buying another alt or more ARX. It seems logical that the reason for the slow development is simply that it's a fringe game with only tens of thousands and not millions of players. It gets funding for further development depending on how much revenue it brings in.
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I'm going old school on this. If Frontier produce something I want to buy, I'll give them money in exchange.

I won't give them money in the hope they'll produce something I want to buy. That's just not sensible.
 

Fizzatron

Fizzatron
amigacooke {macOS} said:
I'm going old school on this. If Frontier produce something I want to buy, I'll give them money in exchange.

I won't give them money in the hope they'll produce something I want to buy. That's just not sensible.
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We are all here because people did exactly that during the Kickstarter, including me. Sure, it hasn't been plain sailing - the degree of which would be a matter of individual opinion in many cases, but would you rather be here with what we have and with future developments still to come, or not at all?
 

Helmut Grokenberger

Helmut Grokenberger
amigacooke {macOS} said:
I'm going old school on this. If Frontier produce something I want to buy, I'll give them money in exchange.

I won't give them money in the hope they'll produce something I want to buy. That's just not sensible.
Click to expand...
That is generally good advice. Buy a product, not a promise.

Fizzatron said:
We are all here because people did exactly that during the Kickstarter
Click to expand...
I have not been around at the time of the game's inception, so correct me if I am wrong. But a quick skim through the web suggests that only a small portion of the game's initial budget came from the Kickstarter; Wikipedia says something like 1.7 million pounds raised through Kickstarter and donations, with a target budget of 8 million in total that had been exceeded "by a lot" by 2014. I kind of doubt the Kickstarter money was make-or-break financially, although a successful Kickstarter campaign might have helped securing other financial means.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Indeed, the kickstarter campaign was just a mean to gauge the franchise fans interest in developing Elite 4 and covered less than 25% of the initial development costs

Keep in mind that DBOBE at that time tried to get publishers onboard to fund the game, and failed.
So they decided to develop and self-publish the game using their own money and later on, during the development process they went public and attracted public funds (at the kickstarter they were still a private company)
 

Udson

U
aider à financer le jeu par l’achat d’Arx ne garantirait pas que les fonds iront au développement du jeu est vrai, bien sûr c’est précisément pourquoi la demande de création d’un fonds dédié et cela uniquement pour le jeu ! financement utilisé pour la création de contenu décidé par Frontier avec d’autres sociétés de création de jeux! L’essoufflement du jeu se fait sentir au point de se demander s’il nous fait perdre notre temps !?
Le principe et la mécanique de ce jeu sont impressionnants, ils ne peuvent pas laisser un tel jeu se perdre! Les possibilités sont visibles, mais sans financement c’est perdu, d’où l’initiative pour ce post ! Et donc s’ils pouvaient intégrer une section d’aide au développement dans le lanceur, juste pour Elite, nous ferions un grand pas en avant ! ou ceux qui veulent, peuvent!
Dans Star Citizen, les gars financent pour faire avancer leurs jeux en toute liberté.
La même liberté devrait s’appliquer à celui-ci!

[Google Translate}
helping to fund the game through the purchase of Arx would not guarantee that the funds will go to the development of the game is true, of course this is precisely why the request to create a dedicated fund and that only for the game! funding used for content creation decided by Frontier along with other game creation companies! The breathlessness of the game is felt to the point of wondering if it is wasting our time!? The premise and mechanics of this game are awesome, they can't let such a game go to waste! The possibilities are visible, but without funding it is lost, hence the initiative for this post! And so if they could integrate a development support section into the launcher, just for Elite, we would be a big step forward! or those who want, can! In Star Citizen, the guys are funding to push their games forward with complete freedom. The same freedom should apply to this one!
 
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Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ozric
Udson said:
aider à financer le jeu par l’achat d’Arx ne garantirait pas que les fonds iront au développement du jeu est vrai, bien sûr c’est précisément pourquoi la demande de création d’un fonds dédié et cela uniquement pour le jeu ! financement utilisé pour la création de contenu décidé par Frontier avec d’autres sociétés de création de jeux! L’essoufflement du jeu se fait sentir au point de se demander s’il nous fait perdre notre temps !?
Le principe et la mécanique de ce jeu sont impressionnants, ils ne peuvent pas laisser un tel jeu se perdre! Les possibilités sont visibles, mais sans financement c’est perdu, d’où l’initiative pour ce post ! Et donc s’ils pouvaient intégrer une section d’aide au développement dans le lanceur, juste pour Elite, nous ferions un grand pas en avant ! ou ceux qui veulent, peuvent!
Dans Star Citizen, les gars financent pour faire avancer leurs jeux en toute liberté.
La même liberté devrait s’appliquer à celui-ci!
Click to expand...
Please post in English on the main forums.
 

Udson

U
helping to finance the game through the purchase of Arx would not ensure that the funds would go to the development of the game is true, of course that's precisely why the request for the creation of a dedicated fund and that only for the game! funding used for content creation decided by Frontier with other game creator companies! the breathlessness of the game is felt to the point of asking is it wasting our time!?
the principle and mechanics of this game are impressive, they can't let such a game go to waste! the possibilities are visible, but without funding it's lost, hence the initiative for this post! and so if they could integrate a dev help section into the launcher, just for elite, we'd be taking a big step forward! or those who want, can!
In Star Citizen, the guys finance to advance their games in total freedom.
the same freedom should apply to this one!

we should see this without criticism because the initiative could bring results that could benefit everyone, even the most negative among us! progress has always advanced in this direction!
 

Udson

U
En parlant de Star Citizen, je faisais référence au côté positif du principe!

speaking of star citizen, I was referring to the positive side of the principle!
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Udson said:
of course this is precisely why the request to create a dedicated fund and that only for the game
Click to expand...
That still doesn't guarantee - especially on the likely scale of such a fund - that it would actually increase the money available for the game.

Currently (2022 figures)
- ED costs £4M a year to develop and operate (no breakdown of how much is development and how much is operations)
- ED brings in £6M a year in sales (game/Odyssey purchases and ARX)

So that's £2M profit which can either be saved up for later or reinvested into other projects. (It is equally possible that profits from other titles get reinvested into Elite Dangerous, as happened during the development of Odyssey, of course)

If you raise £50k for a "Elite Dangerous Development Fund" then that £50k has to be spent on Elite Dangerous - which is really straightforward, since they're already spending £4M, no problem doing that. You can even get a photo of your "sponsored junior developer" to go on your fridge. But that means that £50k of game sales / ARX purchases aren't needed to make up that £4M, and that £50k isn't ringfenced, so it can go anywhere. (I expect Frontier would actually be honest about this and increase ED's budget by £50k ... but that still wouldn't make a significant difference to the development pace because that is just one junior developer's salary plus overheads)

Now, if you could raise £5M a year for an "Elite Dangerous Development Fund", that would make a significant difference - likely enough to fund new Odyssey-scale developments. Do you believe it is remotely plausible that you could get ED players to contribute £5M/year (somewhere around £20 each over and above what they're already spending - if people do this instead of buying ARX it doesn't help) on a "no guarantees, some vague promise of 'more Elite Dangerous'" basis? The majority of people you'd need to get to contribute that extra £20 a year are people who play an hour a week, or log in a couple of times a month for some spaceship flying, not dedicated superfans. If you more sensibly restrict consideration to the people who log in and play every day ... that's under 10% of the active players. So then you're asking each of those to contribute over £200/year to this.

...so over the three-year development cycle for an Odyssey-sized expansion, these "everyday" players would have paid £600+ for an expansion with a retail price of about £50. Not every everyday player is the sort of super-fan who'll pay over 10 times retail price for an expansion, on a vague hope that it might be something they want.

The numbers just don't add up for this. Not even close.



If you want "more Elite Dangerous" - and who doesn't? ;) - then you're not going to do it by directly giving cash to Frontier, the numbers just don't add up. You have to do it by doing the things super-fans are actually good at doing: encouraging new players. Make videos, do streams, run in-game events, help out beginners, etc. - show people that the game is good and give them something to do when they get here. Sure, some of us veterans have run out of things to do and are just waiting for the next update ... but a new player can easily get several hundred hours of gameplay before they reach that point doing all the varied things which are already there. Get people interested, get those game sale figures going upwards, get those ARX sales going upwards, and that'll give Frontier the confidence they need to start developing another Odyssey-scale project.

(I'm not saying this is easy. But it'll be way easier to convince 30 new players to give the game a try than convincing me to pay £600 upfront for the next DLC, for example)
 
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