A Turning Point for Elite Dangerous in 2024?

what is set fully dangerous in 2024 could it be at the end of the line for this long established game will the frontier have some surprising plans for it the fact is we don't know however based upon the information Frontier have just released we can take a strong educated guess so right up front someone to really point out that it is my opinion that things are not looking good for the game I'm not sure what's going to happen in the 2024 I don't think it's um going to be fantastic but other people will likely have a different opinion either way before we get too deeply into all of this we're going to need some contacts so let's start with the Frontiers recent financial report that released at the end of last week definitely have just announced an operating loss of 26.6 million pounds for their punch for their current Financial year this is undoubtedly a huge deal for the company in turn this announcement appears to have directly affected the value of the company's shares today as I'm recording this the Share value of Frontier is sitting at around about two pounds of 56 and this is a massive drop from where it started at 9 Pound 75 at the beginning of this year that's a massive drop of over 70 percent in value and if not forget a few years back Frontier shares were valued at nearly 35 pounds a share for this drop in share price has had a massive impact on the overall value of the company Frontier once held a market cap value of over 1 billion pounds of very valuable company today it sits at just under 100 million pounds that's a drop of close to 900 million in the market so in the company's market value right at this point I think it's important to mention that I'm not a financial advisor nothing I say in this video should be taken as Financial advice it is simply a my speculation and interpretation as an unexpert on some of the publicly available data so do take all of this as you will now at any rate what does all of this have to do with it later more specifically what does it have to do with the late dinner 2024 8 is directly tied to the profitability of not only the game itself but also a two Frontier the more problems and challenges Frontier face the more potential issues it could be possibly a head for elite as a game so here's a few issues that Frontier are currently facing as a company um in their financial report Frontier confirmed that F1 manager 2023 had lower than expected initial sales now a few weeks back I mentioned that I fully expected this to be the case simply based on the data from Steam charts and it turns out that was indeed accurate I mean just look at the player numbers here for these two games this in itself really should speak volumes another problem for Frontier is that their third-party publishing armor Frontier Foundry has been closed previously if Frontier said that this business arm has been underperforming now these two issues with F1 manager 2023 and Frontier Foundry have led to Frontiers operating loss of 26.6 million so this is a massive concern for Frontier no doubt about that going forwards it seems that Frontier are re-evaluating their business model Frontiers CEO Johnny Watts said since I took up the Baton from David Braven last summer aboard on our senior management team have been invested in more time in reviewing our future plans we are conscious that our financial performance over the last two years has not been good enough another there is always room for improvement on Project execution and operational delivery I firmly believe that the majority of financial challenges have been driven by some of the decisions that we have collectively made over the last five to six years which is not always result in the expected that Financial outcomes for the company so it's clear that watts is accepting that the company has made a Spate of bad decisions something at which many players of Frontier games have been said for many years at this point it's not all bad for Frontier though the report goes on to say that they have confidence in that the future for example of their Warhammer age of Sigma gaming is due to release in November and meanwhile they currently have two more Untitled management titles in production one of these set for release in financial year 2025 and another in financial year 2026 Hunter confirmed that they are going to refocus their attention on titles they know work well they specifically say that this means their focus will be on what they call Creative management games or CMS in other words games like Planet zoo and and its coaster maybe the Jurassic World Games as well now the report mentions very little about Elite dangerous but it does confirm that Elite is one of the four pillars that have been successful for the company specifically space simulation games right so we know that Frontier hasn't had a good Financial year for 2023 we know that they believe they are facing challenges and that they believe their decisions have affected these things without their focusing with their attention on management games going forwards with an expanded focus on a real-time strategy games such as Warhammer and let's not forget in 2023 Financial year I think they also purchased complex games the studio behind the Warhammer chaos demons a recent game that Frontier published so what does all of this mean for elite well here is where it gets all very very speculative so do keep that in mind none of what I see here is official information in any capacity it's all speculation and opinion but it is based on educated guesses here's how things look to me to start with Frontier are concerned about profitability perhaps first and foremost they want to focus on games they know have worked for them in the past and this seems to suggest they don't want to focus on games they know haven't worked for example Odyssey may be for a game to be profitable whilst Auto maintaining a future development the gamer needs to have a decent number of players so with all of that in mind here's the problems as I see them when it comes to Elite dangerous the first of these issues then is indeed player numbers and they're shown by steam charts for elite dangerous player numbers have been dropping significantly throughout 2023 by July 2023 the numbers the player numbers were at the lowest point in the game's history now back in July when I actually pointed this out there were some other people who were claiming that player numbers appeared to be stabilizing despite that being quite obviously Incorrect and since then the numbers have continued to fall that said there has been a slight Boost from the 1st of September that coincides with the release of Starfield whether that's going to be an ongoing boost or a temporary one only time will tell it could go either way but either way the good news is that update 17 is set to release in October although aside from a strange and mysterious video we don't know much about the update at all we know very little in fact we also know that update 18 is coming at some point in the future although exactly when hasn't yet been confirmed I suspect though we'll probably see it before the end of the year Beyond updates 17 and 18 though we have no information on the future of elite what's more the much anticipated to feature overhaul that Frontier announced backina 2022 they promised for that release in early 23 well there's still no sign of that coming into existence so given all of this here is my take on Elite Frontier are looking to return to profitability for the company they confirmed that to do this they will be sticking with what they know specifically management games and maybe RTS games as well they've said that Elite has been accessed a success for them over the past 10 years but beyond that they give no further information on the title we know that player numbers for the game are drop in we also know that engagement from the elite Community team has also been reduced they've basically cut down the number of live streams so given all of this I wouldn't at all be surprised to see Elite enter a period of extreme quiet dinner 2024 now I don't believe for one moment that Elite will be shut or that the servers will be turned off but I wouldn't at all be surprised if update 18 is the final update Elite gets for a long long time Elite after all ears are now a very old game and it seems potentially it's not quite cutting it for Frontier anymore right now I've said all of that I want to set a record straight before we go any further this video is not an attack on Elite or Frontier I think anyone who watches my videos are regular enough will know that but well I'm just presenting data here much of which comes directly from Frontier and I'm offering my speculative insights based on that data but for some reason every time I release a video like this on these types of topics there's a vocal minority in the comment section that tends to misunderstand my analysis as a negative attack on Elite to those individuals they this isn't an invitation to twist my words or launch personal attacks although I'm sure some people may try and do that either way me pointing out specific comments on my videos isn't something I usually do when it comes to Elite videos there's always a small group that seems to be unable to separate criticism or analysis from outright hostility okay either way by the same token I'm sure that is going to be a select few others out there who are going to twist the wording of frontier's financial report to show or suggest only positive things are ahead for elite or for Frontier either way much of this is going to be entirely subjective and that's really how it should be ultimately I think many of you know I'm neither are you glass is half full guy nor glass is a half empty guy I'm simply well it's half a glass but in all my years on YouTube one thing I have noticed above all else is that people always seem to hear what they want to hear and really what his action is said although perhaps that just goes for a small segment people out there at any rate with all of this in mind here's another perspective for elite in a 2024 and you know people often wonder why I present more than one perspective that's because I tend not to sit in one particular Camp I'm a bit of a realist right now I'm 80 sure that my thoughts on the elite that I've already mentioned for 2024 are going to be accurate but here's what the other 20 of me actually thinks at Frontier have shown in the past many times over the years in fact that what they do today with Elite isn't a reflection of what they're going to do tomorrow sometimes that means we go through times of well lots of content releases followed by droughts other times it's vice versa and showed what I'm trying to say is that Frontier can surprise us with Elite content and sometimes in very good ways that means I don't 100 believe that the future ongoing development and continued updates for elite is going to end in 2024. I'm a realist so I'm not going to hold two unfounded hope so like I say I'm about 80 percent uh sure that things are going to go very quiet ultimately though I do want to see Elite continue onwards it's got an amazing Community it's been a great game and another 10 years of development would be a very nice thing indeed but even better would be an elite dangerous 2 at some point in the not too distant future either way let me know your thoughts and feelings about all of this in the comments section I'd love to hear from you as always thanks for watching and I'll catch you guys and girls next time

Channel: ObsidianAnt

Views: 96,228

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Id: bGa_EldTrHk

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2023