(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Elite Dangerous
The gaming world is a sprawling size. At one and the same time, it is a mastodontic entertainment industry that with an annual turnover of about 80 trillion dollars far exceeds the size of the film industry – but at the same time the gaming world is characterized by also having a large number of independent productions and at the same time being partly driven by of communities and their passion for specific games. A relevant example of the latter is the game Elite Dangerous, released here this spring.
In 1984, the space game was released Elite. It was designed by then 20-year-old David Braben and 22-year-old Ian Bell, two students who worked in a small office in Cambridge, and the game was in many ways a landmark work. IN Elite – both the "old" game and the brand new – the concept is unbelievably simple. As a player you are equipped with a simple spaceship and at the beginning of the game you are staying at a space station. Outside, an almost infinitely large universe awaits you to explore, and otherwise it is up to your morals, interests and probably also a number of coincidences whether you want to work as a space pirate, explorer, space merchant or bounty hunter. The original game had extremely simple graphics consisting of almost sketchy 3D contour drawings, and it filled well with 20 kb in memory, which is what a plain, text-based mail fills today.
The hallmark of the game's launch in 1984 was its open structure and the obvious lack of a focused goal. one supports as such nothing in Elite, and that's why you can do everything. Where contemporary games typically had a much more defined universe and clearly defined goals, went Elite thus in a completely different direction, and in many ways did not feel like a game, but rather as an alternative reality that one could step into. The reception in the mid-1980s was also overwhelming, and in a few months the game sold more than one million copies, which was quite unusual back then.
The open universes. Since then, the gaming world has of course seen a gentle stream of games taking place in so-called open universes, where freedom rather than purpose is the fascination. Just think of a game like Grand Theft Auto (1997–), where there is probably a narrative and thus a progressive narrative that one can choose to adhere to, but where it is also possible to ignore the narrative and instead explore the universe and perform actions that nothing to do with the narrative. Similar are happening in works like Assassin's Creed (2007–) and Minecraft (2009), which is still driven by curiosity, discovery and not least moral autonomy.
Now that the gaming world has already seen a gentle stream of these open-universe games, one can rightly ask why Elite will be available in yet another edition (the game has appeared in a number of updated editions since 1984, though most recently in 1995). The obvious answer is, of course, that you can continue to cook soup on the old bones and make additional money, but in the case Elite Dangerous it would be wrong not to adhere to the meaning of the game of community. Elite Dangerous has really come to the world because of a loyal fan base who likes to get involved both financially and marketing already in the development phase of the game. Having had difficulty attracting a publisher for several years, David Braben, at the urging of the big fan base, chose to create the gaming project on the financing platform Kickstarter. Although Braben called for a whopping $ 50 million to develop and complete the game, the Kickstarter campaign quickly garnered full funding from approximately 000 fans, making it one of the fastest-funded Kickstarter projects with such a high budget. Elite Dangerous are not one to be more or less funded by an existing fan base. Also the update of the classic airplane game Wings and the Norwegian-produced Among the Sleep has come about because of financial backing from existing or new fans. As an alternative to the established industry, fan-based financing may just mean that more market-risky games may also have a chance and thus likely increase the diversity of the gaming market.
These games are contributed because, as a fan, you naturally like the games, but at the same time you contribute to a kind of ownership and thus to get closer to the game and its developers. It is not about ownership understood as an opportunity to make money, because these fans are extremely rarely given a share in any profits. Rather, the ownership is symbolic or mental, which is obviously more than enough for so many fans to back up their favorite game so it can be released in new and hopefully improved editions, although in reality it may be a nostalgic quest for the past rendezvous with the games given, which are a key part of why we support Kickstarter gaming projects.
The notion of the infinite. But what is it that we get in the new Elitethat we didn't get in the previous versions? In addition to the most obvious such as greatly improved graphics and sound, the most significant change is probably the ability to play multiplayer and thus form alliances – or fight – of other players around the world, thus increasing the sense of playing a hugely huge game. And it's huge. Our entire galaxy is transferred to the game, which means that 400 billiards stars with unique planetary systems can be found in this space adventure. Of course, it's been machines that have generated these stars, but that does not change the fact that the scope itself responds to the notion of being a unique space explorer that truly enters places no one else has been.
Elite Dangerous also allows the use of Virtual Reality glasses such as the Oculus Rift, which will of course increase the possibility of empathy, but may also override some of the element of imagination that may be lost when 3D contour drawings are replaced by photorealistic fabrication.
However, fascination is still primarily linked to the notion of an infinite universe and the moral choices one must make along the way. Do you want to go the legal route and just trade in legal goods? Do you want to seek the quick earnings by transporting drugs and slaves? Or will one go off the plank and become the abominable space pirate who steals from all the other players' hard work and perhaps even accepts to become a murderer, for whom only the price dictates whether one is willing to kill?
Elite Dangerous has been released for PC and Mac and later launched for Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The game costs about 400 kroner.
Moestrup is a game critic in Ny Tid.
moestrup@gmail.com
