Frontier Developments revealed plans to sell ships for real money in Elite: Dangerous in a new announcement made to the community. Upfront, let’s just say this has gone over with players about as well as we’d expect.
The first ship to be added to the Elite: Dangerous gamestore is the upcoming Python Mk II, which will be available to Odyssey players on August 7 for credits, but players who want to pick it up early can spend real money beginning on May 7 to get three months of early access to it. Non-Odyssey owners will only be able to acquire the Python Mk II via the gamestore for real cash. The pricing of the Python Mk II is set at 16250 ARX, which nets out to $12.99 USD.
There’s more in Frontier’s update, including plans to share more on Powerplay 2.0, a feature coming in Update 19, but also upcoming balance changes to Engineering. Unsurprisingly, most of the discourse is around the cash-for-ships plans.
Reactions on Reddit range from cynically unsurprised to outrage. One user commented, “Been saying this for years, honestly surprised they took this long to add paid ships.” The most upvoted comment in the thread, however, lashes out at Frontier with accusations of abandoning their game.
