Business Model

Frontier's business model is one with a proven track record of success. With each game they are building an ecosystem and community of players, which they will continue to develop into the future. 

Elite Dangerous, for example, was initially released in 2014. Since then there have been numerous paid and unpaid updates, improving gameplay, adding content, drawing in old and new players alike, increasing base game sales. This year will see Elite's largest free expansions to date, four years after it's release. In this way Frontier is able to keep players engaged, prolong the life of their games, and continue to improve player experiences. 

Elite has sold over 2.5 million units world wide. The last paid expansion, Horizons, cost £20. Many current players will want the new content as Elite is primarily an online game, meaning they will want to engage in the same adventures as their online friends. Assuming a low target of only 25% of total players buy the update, this will mean an initial revenue of £12.5 million. Steam, the online client through which they sell their games to PC players, charges 30% on this income. This leaves Frontier with £8.75 million. Actual sales figures are unknown, but this gives you an idea as to what sort of revenue each expansion can bring in, even considering a low percentage of buys. At 50% of players buying the expansion this income doubles to £17.5 million.  

In this way Frontier can create steady and reliable revenue from past games to support future developments. With each year this back catalogue grows, and will provide Frontier with a strong revenue base from which to expand.