Elite: Dangerous Creator Reassessing Refund Refusal

David Braben, the founder of Frontier, appears to be reassessing the company's stance of refusing refunds for Elite: Dangerous to those who have already sampled the game.

However, it is no longer entirely clear what the studio's policy now is.

Frontier has been criticised by some of its fans after Braben revealed that the game would no longer feature an offline mode. While some people found this reasonable, others were disappointed asked for their money back.

The matter worsened when the studio then announced that those who have played the game--in alpha or beta form--would not be eligible for refunds.

Many who have sampled the game in alpha or beta will have also been those who backed the project on Kickstarter, helping raise more than £1.5 million. Those who pledged high amounts were rewarded with access to private betas.

Now Braben wants to manage the problem on a case-by-case basis.

"We initially declined some people's request for refund as our records showed they have already played Elite: Dangerous online," he wrote on the game's forum.

"After listening to many of the comments I received after my AMA here, we have since re-opened these requests and informed those people that we will be contacting them so that we can fully understand their individual situation before making a more informed decision. We will be contacting them each in the next few working days."

The developer did not publicly clarify what are the new rules for refund eligibility.

Braben previously explained that crapping offline functionality "is a creative decision, not wanting to produce an empty game."

He added that an offline mode is "technically possible", but says the extent that this would compromise the game's quality was too great.

"Offline support was not one of our original aims, though we did believe we could support it at the start of the project. We do a great deal of processing in the cloud, and this benefits everyone playing. We had considered that an online connection is a reasonable pre-requisite for a game delivered online. I am really sorry this has upset people, but we have a strong, consistent vision that we do not want to compromise."