Pay-to-win: "Elite: Dangerous" turns fanbase against itself
26/4/2024
Translation: machine translated
Only cosmetic items were supposed to be available in Elite: Dangerous in exchange for real money. But now players can also buy early access to a spaceship. The fans are angry.
An announcement about the space game "Elite: Dangerous" a few days ago sparked a debate among gamers. Many accuse the studio Frontier Development of pay-to-win practices and are disappointed by this development. However, the case is not entirely clear-cut.
Pay-to-win (abbreviated to P2W) refers to the purchase of powerful items in games with real money in order to gain an advantage over other players. In the broadest sense, this creates a two-tier society: some earn their successes in the game themselves, while others help themselves with money. In general, P2W is therefore very unpopular with players who do not (or cannot) use it.
In "Elite: Dangerous", you can freely explore the galaxy with different, individualised spaceships and complete missions - with or against other players if you wish.
Early access to a new ship is expensive or time-consuming
The centrepiece of Elite: Dangerous is a new spaceship. You can buy it from 7 August in exchange for credits, the normal in-game currency, if you own the current DLC "Odyssey". What has some players up in arms is the addition, freely translated here from English: "If you don't want to wait that long, you can get three months' early access from 7 May by paying 16,250 Arx."
Arx is the premium currency in the game. Players can buy Arx packages for real money. You can get a package with 16,800 Arx for 11.49 euros. You can also earn Arx through special quests in the game - but only a maximum of 400 per week. To be able to buy the ship with Arx, you would therefore have to work for more than 40 weeks to earn the maximum possible amount of Arx.
The excitement: With money to a free ticket
"Elite: Dangerous" is now around ten years old. The player base is largely made up of loyal fans who have invested hundreds or thousands of hours in the game. Many of them will already have the necessary artefacts anyway. It's more a matter of principle for them: new, expensive spaceships are also seen as a status symbol. They represent the work done in the game and the experience of the owner. The ability to buy the spaceship for real money means that this principle no longer applies.
With this in mind, many gamers were also annoyed by Frontier Developments' promise in 2019 that there would be no pay-to-win items in the game. At that time, Arx was introduced as a premium currency. With the statement, the developers wanted to counter possible P2W fears: Arx purchases should only have cosmetic value, such as additional Cockpit decorations or special paint jobs for the spaceships. Frontier Developments has now softened this promise.
Here you can follow the discussion in the Elite-Fourm itself. Many gamers are also complaining on Reddit.
Is it even about pay-to-win?
"Elite: Dangerous" is not a purely competitive game. PvP is possible, but can also be avoided. In the P2W debate surrounding the game, it is therefore also argued that the new spaceship cannot lead to a "victory". It is more about pay-to-early access. If you don't want to pay, you could wait and see or even do without the new ship altogether and not be at a disadvantage. Ultimately, buyers of the ship would simply be taking a shortcut and foregoing lengthy missions to earn credits.
What do you think of the debate? Let me know in the comments!
Header image: Frontier Development/"Elite: Dangerous"
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.