Elite Dangerous has passed the 50% funding mark with 35 days of the KickStarter to go.

A development diary video has been released on 'The Galaxy and How it Evolves over Time'.

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Time to give up now I think

Third developer diary shows an attack on a convoy.

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Time to give up now I think

Finally got around to pledge.

Few games I anticipate as much as this one.

Ive played them all, and enjoyed them.

The only other game I would love to see in a updated version is "Deuteros".

That went close.

I just Pledged the last one from 10 000 of digital copy for 20£ pledges.

@Bugala

Well done!

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Time to give up now I think

Elite: Dangerous developers cut staff, insist prospects “remain healthy”

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Elite: Dangerous developer Frontier has made a number of staff redundant, Eurogamer can reveal. Last week 14 of the 233 staff at the Cambridge-based studio were let go across a number of disciplines, including art, animation and audio. Confirming the layoffs to Eurogamer today, Frontier managing director David Walsh said they were the result of “the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects”, which, he insisted, "remain healthy". Eurogamer understands the affected staff were told they were being let go at 6pm on Friday 14th December - 11 days before Christmas. Frontier is the developer of space trading simulation Elite: Dangerous, currently sat on £779,627 of its £1,250,000 Kickstarter crowd-funding goal with 18 days to go. If Elite: Dangerous is funded it will be released early 2014. Walsh told Eurogamer: "Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) notice that their roles are redundant, across art (9), animation (3) and audio (2) disciplines. This is due to the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects - it is not a reflection on the company's prospects, which remain healthy. “Once we took the decision to make the roles redundant, we felt it was better that the affected people knew ASAP so they can plan any further expenditure over the Christmas period accordingly and focus on their search for new roles as soon as possible. We have provided redundancy arrangements in excess of the minimum. “We are actively recruiting to shift the balance of skills we have within the company to enable us to deliver the set of projects currently in development." A number of tweets reference the layoffs. “Just in case you're thinking of backing the Elite Kickstarter, I'm hearing pretty solid rumours of serious layoffs at Frontier,” wrote Chris Whitworth, a software engineer based in Cambridge. “Right before Christmas, and on a Friday too. Classy, guys. Real classy.” “Very sorry to hear about the round of layoffs at Frontier today,” said Andrew Chappell, a former software engineer at Frontier. “It's a horrid time, just before Xmas. Hope everyone lands on their feet “ Elite co-creator David Braben founded Frontier in 1994. It's made a raft of games, including platformer Lost Winds, Kinect exclusives Kinectimals, Disneyland Adventures and Kinect Star Wars. Prior to the layoffs it was said to employ around 200 staff. Source

David Braben showing what a nice guy he is to work for.

Last edited by SpaceDruid on 18-Dec-2012 at 05:34 PM.

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"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

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@SpaceDruid

mmmh...that sucks...it really does. If it's all true then I am disappointed.

Being made redundant before Christmas is awful. How the feck are they going to enjoy it?

I am also thinking that there will never be an Amiga version of this game which is a shame and it doesn't make me want to buy it.

Besides why do they need all that money? It's starting to look to me like more and more people are using crowdfunding to make more profit. Surely established companies don't need to go crowdfunding.

I've always thought that crowdfunding was for the little guys...like me and I have been struggling for seven years on my own.

What next? Coca Cola on kickstarter? For a new sugary drink that makes you fat faster? BP and Shell crowdfunding to drill deeper in the North Pole?

Maybe part of that £1.25 million equals to saving salaries of a few employees over the next few years?

Last edited by TheDaddy on 18-Dec-2012 at 06:46 PM.

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www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

If Elite D becomes anything like the previous Elite versions, even with only upgraded graphics and some
practical userfriendliness I will be happy enough with my "investment/pre-buying" of the game.

Yes, I do realise there are versions out there where you can play Elite and "spinoffs" without having to pledge to a kickstarter.
AND there are games like EVE-Online that takes you to "space" with a dynamic economy ingame.
But as far as spacegames comes, Elite is one of those few ones I would want to play over and over.
If I was allowed only a hanful of games from now on into eternety it would be content with Elite, Eve online, Homeworld and Nexus The jupiter Incident.

Layoffs are never a happy thing, and I hope the company gets in a position where they can rehire said people.
Its not the best of times in todays economy to get laid off, xmas or not.

Chris Roberts to the rescue -->

http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/project-godus-and-elite-dangerous/#comment-16238

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/posts

What a spirit!

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@Caveman

Nice! I hope it will give Elite the boost it needs.

Already backing elite and star citizen.

@SpaceDruid

Quote:

SpaceDruid wrote: David Braben showing what a nice guy he is to work for.

Wow 233 people just to write a game... (well 219 now)....

Maybe it's just me but surely with that amount of people all working on creating a game, they could do it a lot quicker and from what I've seen of modern day games a lot better (especially when it comes to the most important part of any game... actually having some decent gameplay in them)...

It's no wonder it cost's so much to write a game these days if that's the kind of numbers of staff involved, send em all back to their bedrooms to write games on their own and in their spare time, maybe that way once again we will see decent games with proper gameplay once again...

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@Franko

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Wow 233 people just to write a game... (well 219 now)....

That's not quite how it works. You have people working on different games at the same time, a very bad example would be.

Game A is designed, the basic game design is finalised and is sent to the build team

The design team begins work on game B. Game A is worked on by the build team until it is basically finished and then sent to the bug testers

Game B is now sent to the game designers and design team begin working on game C at about the time game A is released.


Game production these days is now a conveyor belt. Your in-house game developers can make a complete game, but only part of the game is being worked on at any time. For instance, the guy who makes the 3d models is only going to be needed for a certain period of time. If your company was only working on one game at a time, you would either have to sack his ass during most of the development time when he was not needed, or pay him for doing nothing.

In the early days of game development, you'd hire a freelancer for a set time or contract for the specialised roles and only have a small core staff that would work on a game in it's entirety. Now companies have a full compliment of staff, but have the specialists working full time on a range of games being developed in-house instead of one. That way he's always on-hand when he's needed, but also isn't sitting idle or spilling secrets to another developer.

For a game developer to fire or cut back a section of staff creates a hole in the team dynamic which isn't something you do lightly. It either means you are changing the whole dynamic of a company, or are not expecting to need the full services of that team for a considerable time. When you consider the additional cost of paying off staff, that's a pretty long term commitment you have that you wont need art, animation and audio staff assets.

Given Frontier Development has traditionally gone the route of pumping out cheap and cheerful casual games where these staff would be in high demand, this sudden change means things are not as rosy as they would like you to believe.

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"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

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Latest update on ED.

Elite Dangerous -Scavenger Hunt

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Time to give up now I think

@all

We could need some help to get Elite Dangerous funded.

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Elite Dangerous reached £1,000,000 now,and Mac set as stretchgoal at £1,4 mil.

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@SpaceDruid

Well,if you check their webpage,they are hiring new people,and if you check out closer,what type of skills those people need. You should understand that they needed people with another skillset than those that was layed-off.

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Frontier Developments seem to have the game (development) planned well, even if their Kickstarter felt a bit rushed at the start. Sad (but understandable) that planetary landings will be left until the first(?) game expansion.

The pledging deadline's gonna be close though:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/

Last edited by ChrisH on 27-Dec-2012 at 11:11 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 27-Dec-2012 at 11:11 PM.

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Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

almost related...

Someone should do a PPC version of this OUYA console.

(actually OUYA guys might have enough funding to get PPC+GPU on single die from Verisilicon & do a console... Someone, put red pill in their cofee mug ASAP!)

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- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
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// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

Trading Development Diary from David Braben.

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Time to give up now I think

We will smash the goal within 2-3 hours!! Lets go for the Mac stretch!! At the moment we are pulling in £12000 an hour,so it is possible!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

btw,new stretch goal announced today £1,500,000 is 10 extra ships!

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