Why do we continue to offer concept sales?asked by [Uncredited]
TL;DRRoberts says concept sales continue because the community asks for them, they raise funds including for online infrastructure costs, and he wants a wide variety of ships in players' hands.
[86-minute special with Ben Lesnick - Summary Transcript]– One: The community likes them and asks for them; constantly sees threads asking for one ship or another.– Two: It's obviously a good way to continue to raise funds for the game; it's a big endeavor with a lot of people working, and more money equals a bigger richer experience they can do from the start.– Also allows for investing more in the online cloud stuff earlier; they've been delivering petabytes of data for patches and updates and that all costs money, much more than they estimated at the very beginning. Concept sales help support that in addition to obviously helping with development costs.– Three: Really wants to seed the universe with all these ships. People want to have a mining corporation, they want to build a huge merchant empire, they want to shuttle passengers around the universe, or just go and rescue people, take them onto a hospital ship and fix them up. CR wants to seed the universe with all these different ships and definitely wants to put them in the hands of players; doesn't want every single player to start with an Aurora because that would feel weird and boring.– Just like in real life with different cars, he wants there to be a full range of ships for all the different roles players can choose. Putting them in the hands of players is much better than putting them in the hands of AI, (they'll definitely have AI running around) but players do the most interesting thing. That's one of their tenets for the final PU, where players drive the drama and action of the universe; to do that you need a diverse range to go after different roles while also supporting the development of the game. Feels like it's a win/win.– (Ben can already see the [Concern] threads about Aurora pilots having their ship compared to a Ford Fiesta. Chris says nothing wrong with a Ford Fiesta; gets you from point A to point B and the new ones are pretty good. Ben asks how they deal with Vanduul. Chris says your starting ship isn't meant to be the best ship you can fly.)