Frontier Forums
Just something I was thinking about...
Firstly, I looked up a couple of (tenuous) stat's.
It seems FDev has shifted around 4 million copies of ED thus far.
Secondly, I tried to find out how many console copies of ED have been sold.
The closest I could come to establishing this was data that indicates around 80% of active ED players are on PC, with 10% on XB and 10% on PS4
If that's an indication of sales then it would suggest there's been around 800,000 console copies of ED sold.
So, what about account migration?
On the one hand, "giving away" 800,000 PC copies of EDH (rather than expecting disenfranchised console players to buy the game for themselves) would appear to mean FDev would (theoretically) lose between £8 million and £24 million in sales, depending on what value we apply to the EDH package.
OTOH, ED players seem to like spending money on cosmetics.
I don't consider myself to be a "whale" but I've spent between £50 and £100 per year on skins, kits, voice-packs and other stuff.
Even if we low-ball this amount, and assume that console players will only spend £25 per year on cosmetics, that's (again, theoretically) £20 million of revenue, per year, generated by ex-console players.
Course, that's all actually nonsense because it doesn't consider the numbers of active players.
Another statistic to consider is that ED currently enjoys around 500,000 active players per month, from what I've read.
That's roughly 10% of the total number of EDH copies sold.
If FDev were to "give away" a free copy of EDH to every console player, the reality is that'd only be interesting for the 10% of console players who're still active and, thus, might be tempted to purchase a PC copy of EDH.
So, FDev might expect to sell another 80,000 copies of the PC version of EDH to active console players who want to continue playing.
That would mean a loss of between £800,000 and £2.4 million, again depending on what value we ascibe to the EDH package.
OTOH, those 80,000 active players probably would continue to spend at least £25 per year (often more) on cosmetics, thus generating at least £2 million in revenue for FDev.
Based on that, it would seem that the "worst case" would be that FDev would lose £400,000 in potential revenue by "giving away" a free copy of EDH to all console players but, let's face it, this is a game that's often discounted to £10 and has even been given away for free at certain times, in which case FDev would actually gain at least £1.4 million from the cosmetics they'll sell to console players who migrate to PC and continue to play.
Obviously, only FDev's own financial department knows the exact sums, and profits/losses, involved but it seems like FDev have relatively little to lose by offering account migration and, potentially, a significant amount to gain going forward - not to mention the good-will and publicity such a move would likely generate.
Firstly, I looked up a couple of (tenuous) stat's.
It seems FDev has shifted around 4 million copies of ED thus far.
Secondly, I tried to find out how many console copies of ED have been sold.
The closest I could come to establishing this was data that indicates around 80% of active ED players are on PC, with 10% on XB and 10% on PS4
If that's an indication of sales then it would suggest there's been around 800,000 console copies of ED sold.
So, what about account migration?
On the one hand, "giving away" 800,000 PC copies of EDH (rather than expecting disenfranchised console players to buy the game for themselves) would appear to mean FDev would (theoretically) lose between £8 million and £24 million in sales, depending on what value we apply to the EDH package.
OTOH, ED players seem to like spending money on cosmetics.
I don't consider myself to be a "whale" but I've spent between £50 and £100 per year on skins, kits, voice-packs and other stuff.
Even if we low-ball this amount, and assume that console players will only spend £25 per year on cosmetics, that's (again, theoretically) £20 million of revenue, per year, generated by ex-console players.
Course, that's all actually nonsense because it doesn't consider the numbers of active players.
Another statistic to consider is that ED currently enjoys around 500,000 active players per month, from what I've read.
That's roughly 10% of the total number of EDH copies sold.
If FDev were to "give away" a free copy of EDH to every console player, the reality is that'd only be interesting for the 10% of console players who're still active and, thus, might be tempted to purchase a PC copy of EDH.
So, FDev might expect to sell another 80,000 copies of the PC version of EDH to active console players who want to continue playing.
That would mean a loss of between £800,000 and £2.4 million, again depending on what value we ascibe to the EDH package.
OTOH, those 80,000 active players probably would continue to spend at least £25 per year (often more) on cosmetics, thus generating at least £2 million in revenue for FDev.
Based on that, it would seem that the "worst case" would be that FDev would lose £400,000 in potential revenue by "giving away" a free copy of EDH to all console players but, let's face it, this is a game that's often discounted to £10 and has even been given away for free at certain times, in which case FDev would actually gain at least £1.4 million from the cosmetics they'll sell to console players who migrate to PC and continue to play.
Obviously, only FDev's own financial department knows the exact sums, and profits/losses, involved but it seems like FDev have relatively little to lose by offering account migration and, potentially, a significant amount to gain going forward - not to mention the good-will and publicity such a move would likely generate.