Kickstarter and EliteStore Refund Request

Dear Frontier Developments,

I hereby request a full refund of my pledge to your Kickstarter campaign (£85) as well as my "Order #100034764" in your store - the "Elite: Dangerous - Expansion Pass" (£35) - for a total of £120.

Requesting this refund has several reasons:
First and foremost, your "creative decision" to drop the promised DRM-free offline singleplayer. Yes, I'm aware of your MMO-singleplayer option that hides all other players. No, this isn't the same. You don't have to ask me if I'm aware of your multiplayer-singleplayer.

Second, your "no refund" policy regarding people that played the alpha, beta or gamma of the game under the reasonable assumption that you would keep your word regarding DRM-free offline singleplayer option.

Third, your decision to not post a Kickstarter update (until 2014-12-04) regarding your "creative decision".

Fourth (and this finally did it), your recent "no refund" policy regarding people that backed your Kickstarter before the announcement of full singleplayer. (see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/comments?cursor=8500368#comment-8500367 - "Our records show that you backed the game before we committed to an offline mode")

I backed your project on 2012-11-06 for an amount of £1 to voice my opinion in the comments section of the campaign. I upgraded my pledge 2013-01-04 to the amount of £25 and then £85 since the Mac version was finally confirmed.

I would have pulled even my initial pledge of £1 before the end of the project if you hadn't confirmed the DRM-free singleplayer in the meantime since I despise the whole concept of DRM.

I've been a hardcore Elite fan since C64 and have over 500 hours of in-game time in my Elite savegame on Amiga and I still play this version now and then after all this time, i.e. 30 years after it has been initially released. I'd have no problem throwing money at you for an up-to-date version of that experience which I can play for the next 30 years.

I HAVE a problem with giving you that amount of money for a game without any guarantee or control over its lifetime.

I initially decided to give you the chance to revert your decision, waiting for an official announcement on Kickstarter regarding this issue. But your disrespectful and dishonourable way of handling your backers and this whole issue convinced me that you are simply stalling the communication to keep our money. If I wouldn't request this refund now and would instead wait any longer for a positive decision on your part, you'd simply send me the physical Elite box and argue that you delivered.

I gave you way more time than you deserved to fix this issue. Your decision not to do so destroyed any remaining trust in Frontier Developments in general and David Braben specifically.

DRM-free offline singleplayer was promised during the campaign.

- in the FAQ:
	Will the game be DRM-free?

		Yes, the game code will not include DRM (Digital Rights Management), but there will be server authentication when you connect for multiplayer and/or updates and to synchronise with the server.
		(Last updated: Mon, Dec 10 2012 12:54 PM CET)

	How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?

		The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

		The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.

		Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate).
		(Last updated: Tue, Dec 11 2012 10:56 AM CET)

- in the tier description:
	Pledge £60 or more
		Physical DRM-free boxed edition of "Elite: Dangerous" plus all rewards above (please note: the disc in the pack is simply an alternative way to install the game - it will have the same online account code whether installed off disc or downloaded digitally).

- in the comments section:
	Good morning everybody. I've had a chat with David and gained more clarity on the single player question. The intended experience with the evolving galaxt will need to sync with the server. However you will be able to have a stand alone save if you choose. Note that the offline save won't contain all of the server features (exactly how it will balance out is unknown at the moment) and it may not be possible to sync an offline save with the server state, although we'll look at how we can do this. So yes, you can haveyour own save without having to connect to the galaxy server.
	https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/comments?cursor=1883344#comment-1883343

- in Update #11:
	We have also updated the FAQ, talking about the single player game, and have added some more concept art.
	https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/posts/367007

At the time of the singleplayer announcement, your campaign had reached about £700k of the required £1,250k:
	Over the £700,000 mark - thanks everyone! Michael https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/comments?cursor=1883788#comment-1883787


You canceled the promised DRM-free offline mode with this little sentence in Newsletter #49 (2014-11-14):
	 A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering.

You elaborated on that in Newsletter #50 (2014-11-19):
	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.

	When was the offline mode dropped?
		The decision was made recently, and was not made lightly as we have been looking for ways to satisfy everyone.  We announced shortly after we concluded that it wasn’t possible to create an offline mode without unacceptably compromising the game.

	Do you now consider Elite: Dangerous to be an MMO?
		Technically, it has always been. [..]

	Is offline mode an impossible problem, or just unfeasible?
		It is a creative decision, not wanting to produce an empty game. It is technically possible, but it would be a largely separate game development.



You replaced the promised DRM-free singleplayer game with a worst-case DRM-infested always-online abomination because of an arbitrary "creative decision" made "with heavy hearts but for the right reasons". So you voluntarily decided to not deliver the rewards as specified during the campaign.

Because of all of this, and since trusting any of your more current promises/propositions (e.g. "Could the server code be released publicly some day when the servers are shut down? Yes. This is something we would do if for whatever reason we cannot keep the game going." as well as any of your statements that are containing the words "we do not plan") would be grossly negligent on my part, I demand a full refund of my money.

Sincerely,
Joern Huxhorn.