Space simulators can be big business. The two biggest of recent times, Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, have made their respective publishers a lot of money, in Star Citizen’s case an incredible amount of money for a game that hasn’t even been released yet. We’ve also been following Starship Simulator’s early progress and have high hopes for it completing its successful Kickstarter campaign.
There is a lot of love for Elite Dangerous here at Readwrite Gaming. There are some of us who would rank it among our most played games. However, life takes over and now we just don’t play anymore.
Coincidentally, I loaded it last night for the first time in six years, not to play yet, so for another day, but to check that everything worked and I could still access it. Spoiler, I could.
Then this morning we get some new news on Elite Dangerous as Frontier Developments, who have taken a lot of heat from the community over the years for allegedly failing to develop the game into the groundbreaking title it was when it came out of beta .
In a new move, Frontier will now begin selling ships through its Elite Dangerous shop for real money (via the game’s real-world currency, ARX), fully equipped as simple entry-level ships, rather than having to fight your way through the game to earn them enough space money to purchase them the traditional in-game way.
That’s quite an afterthought after 10 years on the market that has literally made Star Citizen millions. While it’s unlikely that Frontier will offer a package in the tens of thousands like Roberts Space Industries does, it’s still a move that could divide the player base even further.
A statement from the developers said: “We envision these pre-built ships as a faster way for new players to get involved in the areas they are most interested in, or for our existing players looking for a new one Considering a career path.” game, but don’t have the time to devote to a new build from scratch.
A “pre-built” ship pack includes immediate access to a pre-built ship, ship kit, and paint job – and is typically themed to an in-game activity. For example, if you want to jump into the current AX conflict against the Titans, the AX Combat Jumpstart Pack gives you instant access to an Alliance Chieftain with all the modules you need to jump right into the action in the vortex.”
Pay to win?
The move was met with Reddit comments like:
“Hey, you gotta give it to Star Citizen. They may not be great at meeting release dates, setting realistic expectations, or making a working game, but they are great at engaging their Starship Pixel player base.”
“So they basically gave up on the game only to come back and add this? I really hope no one is stupid enough to get involved in this nonsense. Unfortunately… I know some will.”
“Every time they screw up another franchise deal, they crawl back to Elite to gripe the loyal fanbase with shady practices and lackluster updates. And then they start looking for a new franchise deal.”
Frontier has recently struggled to meet the goals of its expensive franchises like the F1 Manager series.
It’s hard not to see this as “pay to win” for long-time Elite Dangerous players, but the barrier to entry for new players to get to the big ships is high these days. It will be interesting to see if this move turns out to be a good one.