Time frames on pulling the plug?
- Thread starter jojje
- Start date
Same mostly applies as did 6-7 years ago: it'll keep running as long as it remains profitable to do so; it'll keep being developed as long as they believe it will be profitable to do so. It'll keep running for some time after it stops being developed, because keeping it running is cheaper than developing it further and keeping it running.
At the moment they're still developing it, so we're not even at the first stage of that close-down. (They're not developing it as fast as many people would like or with the features many people would want, but that's not directly relevant here)
There remains very little competition in the "spaceship flying" area, and what there is, isn't doing very well: the last major space game released was Dual Universe a couple of months back, with base building, ship interiors, space legs, player-driven economy, Open only, client-server architecture, and a whole bunch of other features Elite Dangerous has been repeatedly criticised for not having over the last 6-7 years. You might think that was a problem for Frontier but actually I think this is the first post-release mention it's got on the forum. So long as "not much competition" continues - and there's no sign that it won't in, say, the next 6-7 years - Elite Dangerous just has to remain mostly playable.
As far as their current plans go, their decisions in 2022 around Odyssey, console transfer and Horizons 4.0 have been stated to be to make it easier to develop in future. That only makes sense if they're intending to develop it in future. For how much longer? I don't expect they know that yet either ... financial statements suggest "at least until 2024" but that's more to do with the financial statements not covering a longer window than that: rolling one-year announcements that the next year will continue development is what they do.
The really big unknown at this stage - compared with 6-7 years ago - is that we don't know if Frontier intends to develop another Horizons/Odyssey-scale paid expansion, or just continue with smaller incremental free developments, and they've not really given any hints either way. That doesn't necessarily make a difference to how long the game itself stays running for.
In summary: no-one knows and on a 6-7 year timescale that includes Frontier themselves.
Good point - checking the Kickstarter dates, ten years was 6 November 2022.
I wonder how many more years we have to go before people realise that "10 years" was not a commitment to shut it down after exactly that time, then.
I refer you to this cast iron post:
Elite Dangerous: In Case You Missed It | Update 14 Release Date and More!
Greetings Commanders & ED crew. I've been in the mix for just over a year now. I've tried most aspects of the game, stick to open play, got ganked and reprimanded two days ago for participating in the Kingfisher supply CG, and then managed to get through with two loads of goodies for the...
plus:
Yeah, who would have thought it'll last. They keep it on as long it generates a profit. 10 year was the lifetime plan, it doesn't go suddenly bad. I mean it actually already went bad with 2.1 but there is enough players who like it that way.
We get it: you don't like this game. But why are you perpetually surprised that there are people who do like it?
As already said, ED will continue running and being developed exactly as long as it's still making a profit. Every development will be attempting to extend this time by appealing to more people and increasing the profit.
I'm no longer surprised. There is a market for it. The surprise was when ED changed its shape into a bland loot grind. Today the magic is long gone for me.
We know that Elite: Dangerous Odyssey is being supported on PC until after Q1 in 2023. It got worrying when it there was the comms blackout earlier this year but once the roadmap was issued we knew there was new content coming. They're investing in raising the profile of the game at the moment, now that the performance has improved to acceptable levels. So that does look positive, but they won't give us a what's next update until after the end of the Q1 update.
The fact Frontier continues to support Horizons 3.8 on the server-side, despite it being truly "maintenance mode" software, is encouraging IMO, especially on consoles where the game truly has no future.
I suspect we'll see the "plug pulled" on 3.8 long before it's pulled on the entire franchise.
I suspect we'll see the "plug pulled" on 3.8 long before it's pulled on the entire franchise.
Why not checking the release date?
Because the "ten year plan" (such as it was) included the time taken for the initial development up to the 1.0 release, and "start of Kickstarter" is as good an estimate as we're going to get of when that began.
The "eight year" amortisation period for LEPs didn't, so that would end on either 16 December 2022 or 31 May 2023 depending on whether you treat it as a literal eight calendar years or to the end of the relevant financial year.
The "ten year plan" isn't a "best before" date. Does it bother so much that it runs longer than expected? It's not like there is going to be a new, better Elite after ED for quite a while. If there ever will be another Elite is in the stars.
And that particular star will be permit locked.
Ugh, you truly know how to hit the weak spots.And that particular star will be permit locked.
Precisely and, maybe surprisingly, according to the steam charts, ED is still their most played game (slightly above Planet Zoo and even above F1 Manager 2022) and their most iconic franchise
I really do not think they will easily take the decision to shut it down.
So, to shut it down, it consistently will have to incur them losses
So my estimation is it will run well in 2024.
There is a chance they'll shut it down in December 2024, on it's 10th anniversary - if they want to make a statement, but hopefully it gets to run way more than that.
But then again, as @Ian Doncaster said it, i'm pretty sure not even FDev knows how long they'll run the game.
You got the feeling that they were hoping for a yearly Horizon like update pack when the game was released, but it was obvious that they needed double the time to develop the new features which took 2 years instead of one and there were still features in that season pass that original Elite Owners could play. So lets assume they were planning 10 years worth of season passes. I do quite like the idea of season passes as it's like paying for a years MMO in advance. However, the problem is players looked at the initial outlay (which with Horizons was as much as a full price game), it didn't seem worth it. Horizons only began to feel worth it when 2.2 was released almost six months later.
Now that the game is not restricted by the older consoles, there are a whole load of possibilities ;-
1. Ship interiors and all the stuff that comes with that.
2. Landing of different planet types.
3. Full VR.
4. Player Planetary Bases.
Each of those can be an update and as long as the game is still profitable and the item is technically possible. I don't see it ending any time soon.
Now that the game is not restricted by the older consoles, there are a whole load of possibilities ;-
1. Ship interiors and all the stuff that comes with that.
2. Landing of different planet types.
3. Full VR.
4. Player Planetary Bases.
Each of those can be an update and as long as the game is still profitable and the item is technically possible. I don't see it ending any time soon.
I thought Frontier doesn't make commitments, they only provide 'guidance' that can be subject to change (apart from Cobra IV availability obviously).
Or, indeed, newer consoles.
There's little indication that Frontier are embarked on large scale development for ED and I really wouldn't count on it. If anything turns up I'll be delighted, as long as it doesn't require a further year of fixes.
That won't be an easy decision to make. They'd be taking away the game from customers who paid for it. There's no other option than 3.8 for consoles.
Certainly. But even insofar as the Frontier of 2012 was rather more willing to publicly commit to things before determining if they were possible, desirable, or practical ... even then the ten years was always in the context of "we have ideas which we think will let us keep adding more features for ten years".
Given as Phoenix_Dfire points out how badly their schedule slipped after the first three, there's no risk of them running out of ideas before 2040. That won't be what ends the game...
The bug tracker is a pretty good indicator as well ... if not in a way that Frontier might like!
If you don't filter by game and simply sort the open confirmed bugs by top voted, Elite Dangerous bugs make up 26 of the top 30 voted (2 Planet Zoo, 2 F1 Manager) ... and the "5 bar" Zoo bugs are alongside mere "2 bar" Elite Dangerous bugs.
You have to get in to the 81-90 page before a fourth game shows up - JWE2, where its best 5-bar bug accompanies some fairly obscure 1-bar ED bugs and some 2- or 3- bar Zoo bugs.
(And remember that Zoo and JWE require only 3 confirmations, so actually reporting bugs on those is much easier too: not only does ED have more players in general it has so many more players that they've overwhelmed the bug tracker despite the major extra steps being put in their way)
Commitments and promises are also subject to change as new information comes to light, force majeure (like Covid for example) if nothing else.
The stuff that has been implemented so far has generally taken longer than [I think they] expected, if anything that would extend that 'at least 10 years' plan, provided the development continues to be considered worthwhile. Arguably Odyssey's poor roi may have changed that view, but Horizons wasn't super-successful either & we still got Odyssey eventually so maybe we'll get another pDLC, hopefully a successful one that can build on all the foundations that have been laid down.
I'm looking forward to seeing more landable planet types & maybe terrain generation that's more than 'just a height map'. IMO the problem isn't actually doing it, it's justifying the work involved.