Elite Dangerous adds the option to purchase pre-built ships for money, sharply increases many store prices at the same time

[Arxxuss]

Spaceflight game Elite Dangerous has introduced two pricing updates that have caused controversy amongst many players of the game. 

 

As of May 7th, Frontier Developments (the game's developer) are introducing the ability to unlock pre-built loadouts of certain ships for ARX (the premium currency of the game): this comprises 'instant-access to a pre-fitted ship, a ship kit, and a paint job'.

 

This will also include 3-month-early access to a new ship, the game's first in six years. Previously, ships had only been buyable with in-game credits, and this is the first non-cosmetic set of items purchasable in the store. Frontier has aimed these to be a 'quicker way for newer players to get involved in the areas they have the most interest in'.

 

In addition, the prices of many cosmetic items in the store appears to have changed, in some cases more than doubling (for example weapon and engine colours going from 2240 to 5000 ARX). Frontier recently indicated that there would be "ARX pricing adjustments' that might occur recently, but provided no further details.

 

This change has sparked a thoroughly mixed reaction from the game's community. Some are outraged that access to new content is being paywalled and felt that the pricing 'adjustments' were communicated inadequately, while others are appreciative of the developers making an effort to gain additional revenue sources from an ageing game. Others are worried about the precedent this may set for the future of Elite.

 

It should be noted that players gain 400 weekly ARX for free, but this requires the player to be active within the game.

 

IGN covered the first topic:

https://www.ign.com/articles/elite-dangerous-dev-frontier-announces-plans-to-sell-ships-for-real-money-sparking-backlash

 

Pricing update mentioned and new ship store access announcement:

https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore

 

 

Edited May 3 by Arxxuss
Adding quotes and clarification.

[filpo]

4 minutes ago, Arxxuss said:

This template is a guide for the Tech News Posting Guidelines. Please read the guidelines in the pinned topic before posting, otherwise your post may be removed without warning. If you prefer, you can clear the editor to use your own layout by clicking the trash can icon above, but make sure you incorporate all of these sections and follow the Posting Guidelines.

 

Remove all of the italicised text before posting.

 

Summary

 In a couple of sentences, describe the news. This is also a good place to include a relevant image. 

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

 Give a few sentences with your thoughts on the news. For example, this might be why you think the news is interesting, what you think the broader implications of this news are for the tech industry, or how you expect the story to develop in future. 

 

Sources

 Add links to the news sites that you used to write this post 

Edited May 3 by filpo

[jaslion]

Pay to win is the new bussiness model nowadays really.

 

Cant get more fomo than literally being behind because you dont pay up enough

[porina]

I bought this game at the lifetime update tier on kickstarter although I haven't been active in it for about 6 years. Wait, how old is this game now? 10 years in December.

 

I always wondered how sustainable it would be as it was a one time payment to buy (same again for expansions) it but there was no ongoing sub. It is live service even in "single player" mode so they would need ongoing revenue to keep it going. Cosmetics were only going to go so far.

 

I have no idea what the current playerbase is like as I dropped out of the community. We might see the trend of other MMOs as they age where they try to get in new players by going f2p and rely on microtransactions.

[Stahlmann]

When I was a teenager, F2P games were my lifeblood. I didn't have any money, so these games were the only ones I could really play. Nowadays I'm disgusted and lose interest in any game at the slightest hint of pay2win or pay4convenience. Because at that point the developers are actively incentivized to make the game less convenient, more grindy, or generally worse for the people who don't pay.

[jaslion]

43 minutes ago, porina said:

We might see the trend of other MMOs as they age where they try to get in new players by going f2p and rely on microtransactions.

Basically all have done that and the only one that I know off that went f2p and lived past 2 years has been guild wars 2. Everything else died.

 

On that note guild wars 1 is able to still run with the extremely minimal purchases made on it due to having appearantly extremely efficient server side code and thus being extremely cheap to run.

 

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Arxxuss said:

Spaceflight game Elite Dangerous has introduced two pricing updates that have caused controversy amongst many players of the game. 

 

As of May 7th, Frontier Developments (the game's developer) are introducing the ability to unlock pre-built loadouts of certain ships for ARX (the premium currency of the game): this comprises 'instant-access to a pre-fitted ship, a ship kit, and a paint job'.

 

This will also include 3-month-early access to a new ship, the game's first in six years. Previously, ships had only been buyable with in-game credits, and this is the first non-cosmetic set of items purchasable in the store. Frontier has aimed these to be a 'quicker way for newer players to get involved in the areas they have the most interest in'.

 

In addition, the prices of many cosmetic items in the store appears to have changed, in some cases more than doubling (for example weapon and engine colours going from 2240 to 5000 ARX). Frontier recently indicated that there would be "ARX pricing adjustments' that might occur recently, but provided no further details.

 

This change has sparked a thoroughly mixed reaction from the game's community. Some are outraged that access to new content is being paywalled and felt that the pricing 'adjustments' were communicated inadequately, while others are appreciative of the developers making an effort to gain additional revenue sources from an ageing game. Others are worried about the precedent this may set for the future of Elite.

 

It should be noted that players gain 400 weekly ARX for free, but this requires the player to be active within the game.

 

IGN covered the first topic:

https://www.ign.com/articles/elite-dangerous-dev-frontier-announces-plans-to-sell-ships-for-real-money-sparking-backlash

 

Pricing update mentioned and new ship store access announcement:

https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/python-mk-ii-updates-gamestore

 

 

My real question is the new account to post this.  Why?

 

So the game moved to pay to Win, sucks.  Hate that, cuz I am cheap

 

[TVwazhere]

-Moved to PC gaming-

 

The formatting does not comply with Tech News Guidelines. 

 

[jubjub]

47 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Basically all have done that and the only one that I know off that went f2p and lived past 2 years has been guild wars 2. Everything else died.

 

On that note guild wars 1 is able to still run with the extremely minimal purchases made on it due to having appearantly extremely efficient server side code and thus being extremely cheap to run.

 

swtor lived and is living its best life f2p

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, jubjub said:

swtor lived and is living its best life f2p

I forgot about that one!

 

True that one lived too.

 

Else most kinda died shortly after.

 

Buy once play on mmo's have gotten rare these days and usually the buy in is their biggest monetary gain. That and the whales that dump money.

[Arxxuss]

2 hours ago, Dedayog said:

My real question is the new account to post this.  Why?

 

So the game moved to pay to Win, sucks.  Hate that, cuz I am cheap

 

New account simply because I've never needed to post anything to the forums before. Lurked LTT forums for about 4 years now with nothing I've felt strongly on that other people didn't cover well

[Dedayog]

12 minutes ago, Arxxuss said:

New account simply because I've never needed to post anything to the forums before. Lurked LTT forums for about 4 years now with nothing I've felt strongly on that other people didn't cover well

Well join us!  Shoot the shit or offer opinions on stuff, the more the merrier