Not Everyone Making Epic Space Simulators Is Rolling In Cash

Chris Roberts of Roberts Space Industries may have in excess of $US50 million to pump into Star Citizen, but on the other side of the coin there’s the likes of Frontier Developments with Elite: Dangerous, which while given a £1.57 million ($2.73 million) injection thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, the David Braben-led studio is now “executing a transition” as it reports a £1.5 million loss for the last financial year.

This in comparison to the £1.1 million profit the company made the year before last. Obviously, it’s been pouring funds into Elite to make it rather awesome, with some of that coming from its own stockpile.

The good news is the transition, so to speak, was entirely expected. As Insider Media reports:

Frontier said it had entered a planned transitional investment phase after its IPO to develop and launch Elite: Dangerous, its first large-budget self-published title.

Chief executive officer David Braben said: “We started the current financial year as we expected and are now executing the transition of our business to its next stage. I believe that the continued delivery of our plan will result in greater opportunity and return.”

It also completely understandably why Frontier would be investigating in-game advertising and as long as it’s done well, I don’t think anyone is going to explode in outrage.

Elite has been developed at a steady pace and while most of that comes down to Braben’s experience, it probably helps knowing there isn’t a giant pile of money you can continuously draw on. Going by what we’ve seen of the game so far, its hard not to imagine Frontier making its investment back (and more).

Update: While Frontier raised £1.57 million via Kickstarter, it has taken in a combined amount of £2.7 million ($4.7 million) when you include its own crowdfunding efforts.

Video games maker slips into the red [Insider Media]


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