KSP2 Studio Shut Down? What We REALLY Know!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2024
- Has the studio for Kerbal Space Program 2 been shut down due to corporate layoffs? Information is fuzzy, I try to cut through the fog in this video.
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0:00 KSP2 studio shutting down?
1:53 What do we REALLY know?
2:11 Verified: WARN notice
3:04 How many people are working on KSP2?
3:23 Verified: laid off developer tweet
4:21 Verified: company statement 1
5:22 Verified: company statement 2
6:25 The problems with current reporting
7:26 The problem with the company statements
7:57 Unverified claims and misinformation
9:19 What will happen? Four Scenarios
11:21 How I approached this
12:26 Don't fall for outrage farming!
12:57 "We're not going to get the plug pulled" set in context
14:18 It doesn't look good
#ksp2 #kerbalspaceprogram2 #layoffs
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i vote we break in and take the source code and give it to the ksp1 modders
@@thesharkyand? if they ain't usin it, we take it
@@thesharky oh no... how will taketwo survive after this, i hope they don't go bankrupt if this happens
Let's do it. While we're at it, let's just make an open-source KSP 2.
@@thesharky what are you, a lawyer? laws are a construct, steal all the stuff
@@thesharky dnSpy will get you very close to the source.
I think this only reflects the current sad state of the game industry: Pump and dump. They ship half-assed games, not optimized at all, bugged as hell, sometimes the only part that works is the battle pass and lootbox mechanics (at least that's not the case in KSP2), and then cash out. Layoffs of the engineers who tried to do a good job is even more f'ed up.
I bet the developers are fed up about thier hard work dragged along in the mud like this but can't say anything about it
Thank God we have had several blockbuster indie titles in the last year. Really seems to confirm it's just big bad greedy publishers to blame, which is something people only disagree with on technicalities
This is why pure indie devved and published games are better now and increasingly so. Big companies are not usually at all worth buying from.
Take Two has nothing to do with this lmao. The devs released garbage, they cut off their losses and laid them off. Simple as.
@Screeno1993 so you didn't buy assassin's creed 9 which uses all the same animations as assassin's creed 3? 🤣🤣🤣
Someone with journalistic integrity? Not in my freakin 2024. Seriously tho, thanks for keeping tabs on this. So much misinformation out there.
Seriously. Seems like every single "journalist" is just a basement blogger or an activist these days.
I am like number 69 on this comment and that makes me happy.
nice pfp dude
@@autumnwinter3639 lol
@@autumnwinter3639 if you know, you know
My guess regarding KSP2 is that Take Two will transfer the project to a different studio under their umbrella, very little will get done for a while because the people now working on it are unfamiliar with its codebase, and then 6-8 months from now it will officially be cancelled.
I hope those laid off manage to find employment quickly and that the take two executive who decided to do this steps on a lego daily for the rest of their life
Why would they do that? It would inject unnecessary delay into development without saving them money.
@@RobertLutece909 You step scandal or potential scandal with a time gap to stay out of the news cycle. We are a fairly small number of consumers and no one will be sympathetic if the company appears to try and fail versus perhaps some sympathy if the company flips us the bird and runs with the bag. So there is a real financial incentive to appearing to spend effort on a project.
I hope they do switch studios so they can find a company that will actually develop the project
Harsh, but fitting punishment.
I am here to offer my strongest possible concurrence with the LEGO stomping reward.
I wanted KSP2, primarily for the interstellar and colonies, but didn't buy.
I'm disappointed...but not surprised after what happened on day 1.
What happened on day 1?
@@brysont.phagura4130 the game was a broken mess that ran at 10fps and had major game breaking bugs in nearly every thing you tried to do
Honestly it was starting to look up at this point. Of course Take-Two would come along and ruin everything, publishers are great at doing that.
Me too. I bought a good gaming computer in anticipation of that one game. I never bought the game based on the fact that it turned put to be trash at the time. That release destroyed sales of the game. The result! Layoffs.
A lack of people buying sure didn't help it ether. Kind of a double edged sword.
this game might have the most cursed development since Duke Nukem Forever
Buddy, I'm a Star Citizen backer, don't even start with the comparisons, lmao ;)
@@theMedicatedCitizen at least star citizen is still in development
what about stalker 2?
@@exalosm Stalker 2 isn't really cursed, it's actualkly going remarkably smooth considering their country is at war.
@@exalosm SoC took forever too, turned out great.
KSP2 currently has no gameplay functionality that is not already done better in KSP1. The coming colonization update was to have introduced the first new actual game elements unique to KSP2. Colonization is (or was) THE make or break point for the whole franchise. If colonization doesn't happen before the end of summer this is very, very bad indeed.
It's expected that an in-development sequel doesn't have 100% of the features of the original game, but what is completely unacceptable is that they are running into every single bug and issue that KSP 1 had. Poor performance, wobbly rockets, broken aerodynamics, the kraken. I mean the vehicle editor experience absolutely sucks in KSP2. Dare I say, they deserved the layoff.
Yeah. You can't release a sequel the way you release an original. We were all happy to get updates to early KSP because there wasn't anything else, but now we have the original to play. You're not going to get big sales numbers on a sequel until you give people a compelling reason to purchase, something they just haven't done yet. Personally I'm not sold on an early access strategy for a game like that. You disappoint the player base and end up underestimating the true demand for the finished product.
@@addmix I expected the bugs. The game went to a totally different company that had no experience with the code base. They likely used the old code as a reference when they ran into problems, but other than that it's new code. And with new code you get bugs, sometimes even the same bugs that were in the original because you went down the same logical path.
@@RobertLutece909 They weren't bugs, there were fundamental systems that weren't present in the game, things like the floating origin for velocities, which was figured out a very long time ago in ksp 1. Same with the wobbly rockets. Some bugs are to be expected, but it's clear they did absolutely 0 in-house playtesting to make sure the game ran and worked properly. Oh, and they charged $60 for a tech-demo that lacks features.
All they had to do is a ksp 1 with good performance and possibility to build large vessels and bases without it becoming a slide show and it would have been a major succes. They are sitting on a gold mine and decided to screw it up
Thank you for a balanced approach based on verified sources
FWIW, ShadowZone's experience with he industry is consistent with my own. Every time I was at a studio that has gone through massive layoffs, people, including heads of studios sometimes, found out on the day of. It honestly doesn't look good for the Intercept. I hope people land on their feet. As for KSP2, we'll see how it goes, I guess.
The tech industry as a whole is terrible about this. I was let go 3 times in 2 years with no notice.
I was never in game development, but I've been in middle management. There are always hints layoffs are coming, but as a manager there's no point in saying anything until you get official word. I was part of a big layoff twice, where my team lost substantial head count, and in both cases they didn't tell me anything until the morning of.
@@RobertLutece909 Depends on how wide they're cutting. If you suddenly get a message asking you to provide feedback on your reports and their productivity, that's a big red flag. Odds are, a couple of weeks later, you'll be told to terminate some of them. But if they're cutting entire departments, and your role's going away with the rest of your team, the decision will be made several heads above yours. And the way game industry is structured, if you're working for the studio that's getting cut, and the publisher-owner is headquartered in another state, you're going to get zero warning. It'll be business as usual on Monday, and you'll be told to pack your desk on a Tuesday. And yeah, I've managed teams in game dev, reporting directly to C-levels and having team leads report to me. I'd never know it was coming if I'm part of the cut.
I'm not sympathetic. The history of these dev's is abysmal. They've continually mis-handled projects and misled consumers. Particularly Nate Simpson has been caught up in this throughout.
If it were upto me they'd never work in the industry again, at least those linked to other failed projects.
In fact, if I see any of the former Intercept Games dev's (excluding the modder) on a project I'll not be giving them any money.
@@RpattoYT So you're starting out with total ignorance of how the games are made, then proceed to be angry at the workers over the management screwup, insisting they deserve to be fired for doing their job, and you finish it with a claim that might as well be a promise to eat your socks, because there were 70 people that got fired, you'll have to check the names against every single game you'll play from now on, and most of them will have at least one of these people listed. Congrads on getting the entitled Karen hat trick.
Well, we still have the original KSP, and it's still fun to play.
Amen!
The moment I learned that some Two company was acquiring it, I started making archival backups of each iterative version. "Just in case."
we love ksp 1, and It's there for us to come back
@@cheddar2648 I did so too. But long before. I have backups starting with KSP version 0.19
If ksp 2 dies, we'll just make ksp 1 into ksp 2 using mods
I'm honestly not surprised. A sequel to KSP1 was always going to be a tenuous proposition, given the original game already had the core functionality down pat, with mods serving to fill in the blanks and extend functionality. The biggest complaints people had with the original was that the game's code was a mess of spaghetti that ran poorly on lower-end hardware and had a number of bugs led to many "silly" occurrences happening. In my opinion, the best thing they could've done to justify a sequel would be to essentially take KSP1, polish up the looks and graphics a bit, but optimize the engine and underlying code to make it run smoothly and perform well. If they would've done that, they would've had my money.
And instead, it seems like they did the complete opposite. In its early days, the game struggled on the best GPU of the time, the 4090. The Kraken was back in full force and it brought its friends. Wobble was worse than ever. Etc etc. Maybe they fixed it, maybe they didn't, but to release a game in such an abysmally sorry state... and then have the audacity to charge money for it? It immediately killed all trust I may have had in this project. I turned away and never looked back. And I gotta say, I'm glad I made that decision.
I couldn't even be bothered to "try it for free"...
I bought a new computer just for that one game. Then never bought the glitchy game. I'm guessing the first early release is why they are going broke.
I don't consider KSP 2 a genuine effort to improve and expand on the original. Considering the development hell it went through and the general indifference of studios towards it, I fully feared and expected it to get bought cheap, put through the corporate game mulcher and extruded as something iPhone-ready for $59.99.
The issue is, they couldn't just "Take KSP1 and polish it up."
The issues in the engine and code of KSP1 basically required a full recode of the entire game.
I imagine it went something like this: Okay, I fixed this optimization thing..... but now the orbits on the map don't work.
I fixed the map orbits, but now SOI changes don't work like they're supposed to (etc, etc)
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim I meant that in a more conceptual manner. I'm not saying update KSP1 and call it KSP2, I'm saying "make KSP1 but with prettier graphics and a codebase that isn't spaghetti".
Maybe it will go back to Squad. I lost my job the exact same way you mentioned. One day they said, "Our expenses are too high." and I was expendable. I got a better job that I'm currently in. Best job I have ever had.
it will just die because of the Take 2 interactive enormous greed and only care about money and short term
Squad doesn't deserve it back, nor do they want it. They've squeezed the KSP orange already. Felipe Falanghe is long gone.
I'm glad it worked out better for you in the end.
once a corp has the rights to something they never let it go even if they're never gonna use it.
So...they charge FULL PRICE for an early access game. Then cancel it? Indy devolper: makes instant classic game. Corporate developer: scams it's hopeful and loyal customers.
I agree with Nate being thruthfull when giving you that statment, but I do believe he is a bit of a charlatan. The development of the game has been smoke and mirrors for a long time (look, 3 colony part assets you may see in game in 3 years, now lets talk about interstellar travel irl and how we calculated this flame would be pink) and comunication has been horrible on their part.
You know, I forgot they even promised interstellar travel.
Nate lied about a lot of things at the launch of the game and nobody can change my mind on that. My favorite being the amount of multiplayer they were playing. This game is cooked and i feel like an idiot spending $50 on promises that the game will get better.
@@Redeyez2424 Yeah, no way they were playing multiplayer, I bet is unstable af looking at the state of the game at launch
@brunomorenomata7978 they can't get the game to run with one person playing let alone 2 or more lol
We as a community should start a fund and just buy the game rights off take2 and let the community develop the game.
Exactly Look what the team on rp1 have done
@@PeterLawrie-cx4tqyeah.Just buy it.
Sounds crazy but then again, we Kerbals like crazy ideas. I wonder how much the license would actually cost.
@@KerbalJoe I can't imagine Take 2 would actually sell it. It's probably worth more to them sitting dead on a shelf.
@@MikeTaylor-tw5wb...how?...
If there's a group willing to buy with money in hand, why would they hold on to it? Unless they MEANT to kill it...
Take two are the destroyers of online games - Empires and Allies is a prime example. It had over 6.2m online players and they took it down!
If it's really the end I hope they at least release the unstable devbuild.
That would be amazing. Maybe even better than a complete game :)
@@raymondgabriel5724 then there could at least be community patch mods
@GIRGHGH Dare I say the community makes their own company and develop it on their own
@@user-kl1yi6vo6s I think the main reason we haven't seen it is the immense time investment to at best match the original plus mods, then getting it to have unique differences for interest from the playerbase. Not to mention you simply probably couldn't use kerbals.
@@GIRGHGH You could if you bought the license, but I do agree
I gave them my trust in December when the new update brought some form of hope.
If they'll just cash in and shut this down, I'll add T2 to my list of publishers never to buy ever again from, alongside EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft. Publishers doing this should be investigated for fraud and them just going "we reserve the right to cancel our project any time we want" should not be allowed to get away with, especially since at this point it is becoming quite the common practice.
Imagine if I got paid to do an illustration and I randomly tell my client "you know what? I'm keeping the money and never gonna finish this, see ya loser!" How come if I do that I get arrested for fraud, but if a company scams thousands of people it's okay?
Buying into a game in early development is always a risk for anyone. And I don't recall a guarantee. So not fraud. And plenty of other issues to consider. Not at all like a one on one agreement. But even then you wouldn't get fraud lawsuit. Only guarantee is buying a finished(at least mostly). Still no guarantee of servers being up for long.
Sometimes risks don't pay out.
@@meegstomtom hard agree. I bought day one because I'm a superfan and was willing to wait, but everything about it is awful including the "science" update that made sure there is no money for parts no economics so no reason to optimize your ship at all. The entire science update I just built giant rockets, was boring as hell.
@@meegstomtom I know. I just wish it wasn't happening so often.
I went from absolutely buying GTA 6 to now I’ll never play it. Take-Two owns GTA, they are not short on money, they are cashing out for corporate greed.
If they actually expect us to believe that $110 million annually just from shark cards alone isn’t enough to fund ksp2
Just gotta say, in our age of clickbait and misinformation, I really appreciate you taking the time go find what information you can, but even more so your willingness to say "I don't know yet". Hopefully in the next few days we can get some more info and find out what is really going on.
Same, I also really like and appreciate his work.
Yeah, no.. we lost KSP2 for now. There is no financial incentive to continue working on it, they already cashed in.
If they don't release their roadmap, they'll need to refund all preorders
@@GrumpyPapaJimSadly no, according to Steam guidelines, if an EA game is left in a playable state they wont issue any refunds. They argue EA has somewhat of a risk attached.
@@GrumpyPapaJim you might be able to if you're in the EU...maybe. They may try to state this was the finished game the whole time and make it difficult. Anywhere else you will get exactly nothing.
@@brunomorenomata7978
Not to mention the term “playable state” is very broad in gaming law. The initial release of No Man’s Sky didn’t even get legally penalized as unplayable.
Sadly true. I call for boycotting of this publisher's other games, at least all early access ones.
There is a slight possibility that the game will still be developed by the Private Division team.
However, if KSP2 dies and no further development comes then Take Two goes on my blacklist of companies to never buy from ever again.
Even GTA VI?
@@TunderTunder.I certainly hope so. While I know what Rockstar was capable of back then, I've also seen where they are now, and where they're heading. I have almost no hope for VI. Also, everyone who was behind some of Rockstar's greatest games, aren't even working at Rockstar anymore. Whoever's in charge of VI has some big shoes to fill.
Screw T2. And companies have the audacity to wonder why piracy is so rampant.
@@JackFoxtrotEDM 80% my games arent copirated)
@@TunderTunder. Hmm?
@@JackFoxtrotEDM In the countries where I live, there are no legal restrictions and punishments for torrents and piracy
"I primarily did telemetry."
They paid people to engineer data collection solutions when those monies could have been better spent--I will argue here--making a feature complete launch day space exploration game.
Man, thank you so much for being a voice of reason. Every freaking time I see someone losing their mind over a clickbait article I have to pull out the old "what do we actually know for certain here" checklist and work through their panic. I too studied journalism in college and I appreciate you promoting calm and rational responses on your channel. Even in our little space video game nerd corner, you're doing the world a service, so please keep at it.
Definitely not a good look for KSP2, Take Two, or the community, though. The corpo PR smokescreen statement they've put up is to be expected, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating or insulting. I hope we can get some real answers soon.
As soon as I heard the news I knew I needed to wait for your video to really find out what is actually known.
Don’t worry you chose a way more worthwhile way to spend the 1. May holiday… I spent the whole day sick in bed. Because apparently the perfect day for a ride on my Motorcycle is also a perfect day to get the flu…
Oh no! Get well soon and back on the road!
May 1 is a holiday?
@@wmason1961 yup the 1. of May is Labor Day here in Germany
@@Simoxs7in Sweden too!
Yeah me as well burning with fever on the 1st of may
Aaand another franchise successfully destroyed by sociopaths in suits and/or dresses. I hate what this society has become.
It's like nuclear fallout...Honestly, since the execs made the decision, you'd think a proper response would have been planned before the announcement
i thought it would be obvious by now they dont care about customers at all.
@@Infernal_Elf Yeah the concept of "good pr" has gone out the damn window with publishers.
Corporate types, who tend towards being political types rather than real leaders with vision, don't have any respect for the real enthusiasts that drive the market; they take that enthusiasm and turn it into hype which turns into cashflow. Some are honest enough to stay the course and do the work of actually completing a project and delivering a marketable product. Some pack up shop and run to a new project before the money ebbs and the responsibility swells.
Juno: New Origins was the rescue to the disappointment that was KSP2. It just got a new update with great new features.
That game deserves a spotlight.
Juno is great
FR
Note that Private Division itself is an office in Seatle. But also that the staff at IG in Seattle is going to be much smaller than the 76 from the credits. Not only does IG have a chunk of remote workers - but also many people who HAD been working on the game left mid-stream, (or got fired, in the case of Paul Furio for example).
What that all means? Probably same as we already expect - I think T2 is laying off both IG and a significant/all PD staff that are in Seattle as well.
I'm currently in university studying software engineering and seeing so many people loosing their jobs just because someone on top said so is really striking fear in me and my dreams. Those 70 people poured their heartblood into a lot of games and now just get laid off. I'm so sorry for them.
I seem to remember most of the community being suspicious of TakeTwo when they joined the fray way back when... looks like our fears weren't far off.
I hate all the executives involved with this project. Four years overdue from launch and 85% of promised features are not implemented.
Just hope much more capable hands can pick up the franchise at some point.
Stuff like this sadly kills franchises. Modders and KSP 1 will be our only hope
This is incredibly misinformed. KSP 2 was doing fine, but the higher-ups at Take 2 caused this. I actually prefer KSP 2 ove rmodded KSP 1 and I'm not afraid to say thst.
@@fabiopauli420 Yup. I'm usually totally fine with game delays, I was for a long time one of the "take your time you guys got this" people.
Sadly, this is just a case of incompetence. Someone in charge of the corporate side of things lied when we initially heard the game was coming in Spring 2020. The end of the fiscal year was in March 2020 which meant they had 6-7 months until release at the date of announcement.
How in the world did executives think the game would have been ready by then, with the state we see it in now?!?
Yup. Not to mention the corporate sabotage that took place to bankrupt Star Theory, which contributed to the delays of KSP2.
People have called me a hater, and told me that I know nothing about game dev when I criticized how little "game" there was for 4+ years of development. KSP1 at it's first release almost had more features and better stability...
@@IvanRodriguez-tl2zr you can put down the copium man, ksp 2 is going nowhere
if they cancel the game... CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to force the code of both games to be made open source!
I enjoy your work as a journalist. Again with your calm and reasonable approach, you should definitely have more than 100,000 subscribers. I hope you break that number soon enough.
The worst case scenario is where we find out that this is why there has been a lack of communication from the devs, and why they made the kerbs monthly. Lets hope not.
Probably is
Rare that a place that pulls something like this doesn't also cultivate a toxic culture
Best case is probably open source and walk away. Give it to the community. Never gonna happen though.
I didn't really get the secrecy the devs did around future features and parts. Like People already payed 50 bucks, at least tell them more about the progress being made and futures futures that are comming (or now not comming)
@@anoniemw.222yeah the fact that all they basically did was tell me to get used to wobbly rockets and laugh at that and enjoy the fun of barely ever getting out of the atmosphere, well as an early adopter of both games I was extremely disappointed. I think we've been diking around with this game for over a year now and I believe after a year of diking around with ksp1 I think they had added the mun and I had landed on it.
If they were going to reproduce the success of that game they should have started out with the smaller scope. And they should have f****** learned the basic problems before they tried to add s***.
Im just mad I lost 50 bucks on this trainwreck...
I mean hey at least it's not as bad as Destiny 2. I paid $60 for the game and like 2 years later it turned into a F2P game with a battle pass and full of microtransactions... *_im still pissed at Bungie and this happened 5 years ago._*
If more people payed it could very well still be a thing
You can still refund if you want, even if you go past 2 hours of gameplay. It just takes a little persuasion but it's not unheard of.
@@KerbalJoe I think I have like 30 hours or something don't know if Steam would give me a refund 😆
@@1mariomaniacfwiw I have about the same hours, but I'm waiting on more concrete info to decide if I make a refund request. I've heard of people with 200+ hours in other games get refunds just fine because the games direction and vision completely changed, so I think you'll be fine.
rip debdeb and gurdma bop and rag and rusk and glumbo and all the other interstellar planets.
*pours one out for the KSP series*. One of the best. We’ll remember you, and miss you.
Thank you so much for covering this! I heard something bad had happened at IG, but I didn't know what it was, or how serious it is. It's good to know everything, or at least as close to everything as we can know right now.
I think many of us realized long ago Take Two was a terribly bad publisher for a game like KSP2.
I always feel my Stomach turn when a dev . I like gets a huge publisher
What does that have to do with Take Two? The game was trash from the start
@@sanantonio855 They bought KSP late in its development, and they are responsible for the state of KSP2.
Im upset. Even built a new computer for KSP2. I really don't game other than KSP. Now what? lol :( Cross my fingers I guess
Install a ton of mods for KSP1: turn it into *your* KSP2! Blackracks' clouds, Parallax, ReStock+, or if you really want to overhaul the game, Outer Planets and other planet packs, Kebalism, RP1, there is just so much you can do with 1 that vastly outshines 2 in it's current state. It's disappointing we won't see KSP2 in the flesh, but you can make the most out of a bad situation.
Sell your rig to crypto miners and take up knitting I guess.
Same! And I just bought it last week
lol same here just recently switched PC for KSP 2. The good part is KSP 1 heavily modded starts under 4 minutes on my new rig.
Try some games, you'll find a genre you like. Sniper Elite 5, Factorio or Satisfactory, Teardown, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Skyrim, Stardew Valley are a good mix of genres.
Another case of « I told you so... » Not the first occurence from this company, btw...
I think that it would take a recommitment to the roadmap to still our concerns. And Nate Simpson restating "We're not getting cancelled". What does "updating" mean when a title is not 1.0?
okay, so two things. one, in terms of wesley thompson, i still count him working on the game. it doesnt matter if it was launcher or other parts was still a part of the team in some capacity.
Secondly. i dont think ksp2 is dead, yet. the kraken just reared its ugly head, and will be put back in its place soon enough
The Kraken has no part in this. It makes no sense for it to try and rid of the -buggy, unfinished mess with incredibly poor budgeting (most of it was put into the marketing) that is being passed off as "early access" as an excuse for being unfinished despite being "developed" for 4 years. This honestly doesn't even describe all of it thoroughly, I'd need a whole paragraph (not including the bugs still in the game, no wonder they had to make their own bug reporter). I sure hope this doesn't offend anyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- more suitable host dimension for tearing apart the innocent vessels of innocent explorers!
Soon as I saw that the lead Dev from KSP released his own game (Kit Bash), I knew something had gone off the rails with Intercept Games / Squad.
HarvesteR (Felipe Falanghe, creator and original lead dev of KSP1) was not involved with KSP development (one or two) since before KSP2 was even announced. He left in 2016 already. Since then, he has been working on what has now become "KitHack", the model building game.
@@ShadowZone I stand corrected sir.
So knowing we are a pretty small community and they won't get really big problems if they do end up softly trying to kill off KSP2 we should just start a community fund so if they do kill the game we can sue the parent company for all they are worth to get compensation for the game we wanted and never fully received because of them poorly managing it and then snuffing it out.
I am damn tired of companies getting away with stuff like this and we need to start actually pushing back in some way properly.
If nothing bad comes of it and the game goes on fine then we need not worry but just planting this seed out there because I am pretty miffed things I enjoy get choked out by their parent companies.
@RealAmunRa I mean yea, but the only thing really keeping people from grouping together and doing what we should to companies that do things like this is people saying it isn't realistic in the first place. The more people who doubt the fewer people join in. The fewer people join in, the less of a chance you have. We collectively have enough value to take out nearly any company we want as a society. We just don't ever do it because we are scared it will not work.
Tbh we should have long been rid of this trend of tossing away stuff people like for the sake of trying to milk out money from something that is like 5% better on a chart.
It's almost impossible to win legally... And even if you do they still win a lot of money.
The solution is easy, but need to be strictly apply: boycott.
I’m really disappointed because I was super excited for Colonies.
It’s either never coming now, or going to take ages and be half-assed.
I have been so excited and so hopeful for this game for so long. I have tolerated and even defended the update pace and state of the game.
I feel like a fool. Maybe, maybe it isn't dead. I hope so.
First off...good video, for the most part. I'm glad you didn't sensationalize it, but the title and thumbnail are kinda click-baity. Still, the information was useful and clear. I don't have high hopes at all, and I'm very glad now that I didn't get in on it all. I wanted KSP2 really bad...but I just felt something was off the entire time. So...that's that, from my perspective. I'd be glad to be wrong, but I'm not going to be keeping up with the news on it anymore.
Now...all that said...
"...recommend changing jobs, because your life is being drained by a corporation that does not give a damn about you."
Duh? NO corporation EVER cares about ANY of their employees...period. And change jobs? You think there's that much to go around? Hardly anybody (at the very least in the US, and probably a lot of "developing" nations) has savings, even in a "good" field of work, no matter how fiscally responsible they are. And most of the open postings in the entire US...are fake (or are strictly part-time with zero benefits). I work for Hy-Vee (a midwestern US grocery chain) and I know for a fact that they have many "openings" at nearly every store, and are getting dozens or even hundreds of applications (depending on urbanization), but hiring absolutely no one except in cases where someone actually quits and MUST be replaced. They are, in fact, CUTTING HOURS among existing department staff, in some cases down to literally none at all...but not actually firing or laying off anyone. And that is extremely far from even being uncommon among any other corporations, either.
The jobs postings exist exclusively for three reasons...
1) To artificially pump up the "jobs" numbers so incompetent economists can insist that the economy is improving by citing false data, when it's stagnating, or possibly still just getting worse.
2) To make themselves look good by giving the impression that it's people who don't want to work that are the real problem, rather than their own greedy asses. "We need the help, but nobody's applying!" Bullshit.
3) As a Sword of Damocles above their existing employees, the threat of which means, "if you don't abide our mistreatment of you, or if you try to unionize or anything, we'll ruin your life and hire someone cheaper and more compliant."
They're all already price-gouging the entire world. In plenty of countries inflation is real, and severe (catastrophic, in a few)...but in the US, it barely exists at all. The problem in the US...pure price-gouging, and absolutely nothing else at all.
And the only reason any of it happens...the price-gouging, the layoffs and closures...all of it is solely to pay some shitbag hundreds of thousands, or millions or even more, dollars because they rigged everything to get it. Not because they ran the company well, but just because they arranged for the board to give it to them. The solvency of a business is irrelevant. All that matters is getting their package before the company goes tits up. And so long as the primary investors and such get theirs in the process, they're happy to go along.
It's all a giant banquet of fiscal cannibalism, and zero actual economic growth or development of any sort. Held up by absolutely nothing but some wildly skewed and mathematically wrong number-juggling. A game of three-card-monty gone berserk.
would not be surprized if they used this to lay off the whole team and bring in a new team with the road map and code and have a new team take up deveolpment given the old teams massive amount of mismanagement of the project.
It wasn't just mismanagement that caused the old team's development to suck. Most of them didn't have the necessary experience to be making a game in the first place. Game modders are passionate, there's no doubt about that, but most of them can't structure projects from the ground up. KSP 2 died with Star Theory. I wish that Squad never sold KSP to Take 2.
@@addmix yeah even with the pandemic a 3+ year delay to have something that arguably was less playable that ksp 0.13 is inexcusable. i still have the 0.13 game file folder on my computer and can go back and play it so i would know. even with changing studios if they poached the team then those people would have only been down for like a month maybe 2 while the files got moved over and offices got moved. i had bad feelings when the development vlogs which were already inconsistent at best talked about graphics and sound and didn't show any new gameplay footage to show progress.
@@sixwingproductions Yep. Asset flips and cash grabs always focus on visuals, because it's the easiest way to trick people into buying a turd.
Now I'm just thinking back to before KSP 2 was released, and during the release, how so many fanboys were yelling from the hilltops to "trust the process" "it's early access" and defending Take 2. 4.5 years of development isn't early access. Will those same fanboys now admit that KSP 2 is a sham asset flip?
@@addmix i more think it was management at intercept and before that star theory who were doing shady stuff. hate to say it but the team was to small for the project to begin with. and the original dev when they were uber screwed up planetary anihilation and it wasn't fixed until titans and is arguably still not 100% what was advertised in the kick starter(especaily with galactic conquest). and since even the porject director came from star theory the hide the problem and hope we can fix it attitude may have come with him. so i have a feeling the focus on graphics was to make it look like they were working to the higher ups and fanbase while they were hitting a wall and actually doing very little active development. lower management loves to hide things from upper management and make it seem like everything is going great. it has happened at every job i have ever had.
@@sixwingproductions The team didn't have enough competent programmers, and had way too many managers and """artists""".
You know what, Screw it. We sue the company, take the money and start a go fund me, finance our own ksp 2 call it “Scott manleys space program” and have the KSP -1 modders make the game, so sick of the corporate bullshit.
"Corporate bullshit" lmao. What are you going to pay developers with? Popularity? Reddit updoots?
Did you see the post from an hour ago? Just curious
The tweet saying "we're working"? Sure they're working... until June 28.
Seriously, this might come off cynical and I apologize, but I have tried to get ANY reliable information over the past 14 hours and have hit wall after wall. All we get are canned responses and corpos speak. I am tired and tired of it.
What happened?
@@ShadowZone I wish one of the people who got laid off would DM you :/
@@ShadowZone Honestly this game is a ticking time bomb. I love KSP so much, it saddens me to say it, but the project is four years overdue for full release and we are still lacking so much. I want to give the devs the benefit of the doubt for blame because we know about some fiascos that have happened. But the executives who are handling this project are horribly incompetent. :(
What caused them to announce the full game was coming in ~6 months back in August 2019, only to spend 4.5 years of development to make so little progress? Something doesn't add up.
@@wisconsinwintergreen6296 Ticking time bomb?! The game's a dud!!!
i can only hope that it will be picked up at some point in the future if it's really down.
In all honesty, as annoyed as I am with the speed of development of KSP 2, I REALLY don't want to see this game die. I've had one of the earliest copies of the game and have enjoyed the game since, even with all the bugs, and seeing the game progress further and further has always gotten me more excited about where it's going. I see a very bright future of the game and seeing TH-camrs, such as yourself and Matt Lowne, has always gotten me excited and always seeing KSP 1 and 2 videos gets me interested and try to find time out of my day to play a little bit. When Nate says that they're funded, I hope that his way of saying KSP will love on even if they don't have a studio to work in.
There is a lot to like. Visuals are incredible. The music is on point . The contextual music? Oh God I love it. So many good tracks. That moon track gives me chills.
It's going to die. I'm sorry. It was supposed to have a full release in March 2020. No way they keep burning money all the way to the game getting finished.
Always enjoy watching your content, informative and entertaining to boot!
Wow, what a suprise. A game was meant to release like 1 or 2 years earlier, and when it did it released in unplayable state with most features missing. Reviews were negative, people refunding, barely any players. There won't be KSP2 as advertised, ever. If the studio won't be shut down, expect many expensive DLC's. Game didn't earn much with the launch, funding goes into making the base game, to make profit they'll need to monetize the workhours of future content..
Without spreadsheets (VISICALC), we wouldn't likely have the video games we have today. It was the popularity of this application (and the related sales of the Apple II) that prompted IBM to start making PCs.
As I said in the video: I like spreadsheets!
Thanks for the history lesson.
That's a stretch. The usefulness of computers and graphical interfaces is widespread. If it wasn't spreadsheets, it would have been some other business-related application... shortly followed by spreadsheets.
In particular, the game _Populous_ was made because the devs were given Amiga systems to develop a speadsheet for that platform. It went on to be one of the best-selling games of all time, and was a huge win for EA as a publisher. While there's no love for EA as a publisher these days, back in the 1980s the whole studio/publisher system was new and unproven, and the success of _Populous_ really helped the industry. All thanks to "here's some hardware, hope you'll make a spreadsheet" back in the Wild West days of software.
I agree the Mac helped birth the IBM XT ..but Arcade Machines caused video consoling gaming, myself I would relate pc gaming to the 8bit home computers , eventually 16bit , like The Amiga and Atari ST the PC took over cause of Doom etc , but for a long time the PC was strictly business , it exploded cause of SVGA and 3D graphic cards like the :
Voodoo 2 , and boomer shooters
They rushed a shitty project out the door only realizing too late you can only reap what you sow. Such a shame for KSP.
I mean, it would make sense to pull the plug from a business standpoint... If a product or business isn't profitable, you discontinue it. I'm just surprised it took them this long.
Great video! I really like how you break down the misinformation and teach us more about it. Its been 3 days, have there been any updates on this KSP2?
The real misinformation was the lies from Nate Simpson that he broadcast on his channel without any criticism.
Its a sad day :(
Absolute banger of video. I love the scalding takedown of the stupid headlines.
Hey SZ, thanks for putting this together. I appreciate your perspective and maturity when it comes to games journalism so even if you have to find another game, I'll be interested to follow. Maybe you could even team up with someone like Liam from GamingOnLinux? He does a great job covering a wide breadth but doesn't tend to do your style of deep dives or key interviews. Just a thought.
Obviously I'm hoping for the best with KSP2 and the folks at Intercept. I actually just started playing and having fun (even though my PC is below spec) so fingers crossed that this was a misfiling or the 70 people are all marketing and analytics folks from Private Division and not under Nate Simpson.
You posted this video NINE DAYS AGO?!?!?!?!!! I'm just finding out about this on Saturday, May 11th. I'm a bit irked about that as well as about KSP2. Best case scenario is that SOMEBODY continues development.
hah, I kinda saw this coming when they released it in the state they did
5:10
*smashes like button*
Whenever this vid is watched this quote is relevant.
Hi, thanks for this update.
Is it me or there was no mention of employees that were on Temp or Rolling Contracts. These could quite easily be let go immediately or a weeks notice, plus they would get nothing extra as a goodbye payment.
Then there's the knock affect of businesses that are interconnected with them. This could either be cafes, security staff, or IT and Hardware Support staff. Accountants and Legal, but, they might be on retainer. Either way they lose something.
Advertising and cloud services, the list goes on.
On a another point all together, from what I've heard only a few months ago, KSP 2 had reached a level of patching where they should have been on release. This suggests to me, the team and company behind the development of KSP 2, just wasn't good enough.
What made KSP 1 great was the basic software got to solid point and the upgrades were in the form of Mods, written by the community (for free).
I feel sad that millions of young gamers might miss out on understanding Orbital Mechanics through a fun game that has great community. It might seem a simple thing, but, everyone needs some way of being introduced to it. With Space X and others stepping in to the space race, most kids still think rockets just go up to get into space.
Finally, thank you for your really old content on KSP 1.
I’m not too worried. Even if Take Two doesn’t manage to finish it (and they certainly will try to), the army of KSP modders will.
keep holding your breath
That intro feels like an "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" intro.
Always sunny on Kerbin
By the way, if anyone wants to kick off a community-driven project, I'll throw my expertise and free time in the pot.
Man I really hope it isn't cancelled. That would suck for everyone. But hey, if you're looking for a new thing to dig into and make videos Factorio 2.0 is coming out soon. I'd love to see what your brain can do with that :)
2:16 - This isn't Washington State. This Federal. WARN is a federal law. Its just lacks broad public awareness of it. Highly recommend learning about WARN if you're reading this. Legally, American companies have to post several months notice for layoffs, so if you are worried layoffs are incoming for the particular office of the company you're working at, every state has its own WARN notice board. They have to post layoff notices there months in advance, they just aren't legally required to directly notify you.
I recommend anyone working in this day and age in America should check their state WARN board once a month, at the start of every month. Its criminal that more people aren't aware of WARN. Its been the law for decades; layoffs haven't been a true surprise for just as long, but companies will *never* tell you WARN exists because broad public awareness of layoffs can cause stock prices to drop.
I've been following the situation for an entire day now.. it was chaotic as soon as "shit hit the fan" when the first stuff appeared.
I myself stayed speculative on the topic and waited for official news sources to release an article, in this case, IGN was the first to do so.
I'm glad you lightened up the situation a bit with your expertise
I had a look at the usual source for feedback the comment section on the latest steam news post. People are extreemly angry. Things might get ugly if we don't get something other than a 0 sum statement in the next week or so.
Alan Lewis's released statement along with the silence across the board from Intercept execs (e.g., Nate Simpson) suggests the company is in a "quiet period" prior to a sale or merger. This explains why developers are not leaking... they don't want to spoil the deal. Look for an announcement in June, when the layoffs take effect. Fingers crossed that the acquirer will re-hire the Intercept devs.
Thank you for being the guy to provide factual information because me and many others keep getting hit with headlines so the truth is good to know.
well shit..............................
The shambolic early access release was the end of KSP2. No dates on the roadmap, no solid timelines, it was never going to succeed after how they released it. It was just blatantly and incompetently mishandled from the start.
Thank you for your careful approach! All we can do for now is wait until we know more.
I have so much respect for you right now. Everything from the call for journalistic integrity to the message to those who are losing their jobs. Damn.
What about his lack of integrity for uncritically amplifying fraud?
Well, I've been waiting till it was closer to being done to actually play KSP2, so I'm still under the 2-hour refund limit. Hopefully it won't come to that though.
Well, I doubt you bought KSP 2 in the past 2 weeks anyways. If you did, refund it now, you wont have the chance. It doesn't have promised features like multiplayer, so you should just pirate it instead.
@addmix Somehow I forgot the 14-days restriction. Well, I'm stuck with it then.
2 hours play time or 2 weeks from purchase date
@@pownzyew2612 Less than 2 hours play time and less than 2 weeks from purchase date. You must meet both requirements.
@@Nobody1707 I'd try anyways, the sooner the better. Steam has a very good refund policy. Explain your situation and you might have a chance.
Guys chill its Early Acsess!!! Totally still in the works!! They just need new funding source and the above mentioned Early Acsess or "EA" has a great solution. Anyways rip KSP2 your colors were always very saturated😔.
I would ignore anything from that Game Developer article, given that quote was listed as being on April 18... a LOT can happen in a week!
7:33 he got the exact same response to his May 1st email
They’ve literally said the same thing on x lol. It’s the only thing they’ve said
Sir very nice video. Respect! rare to see youtubers who don't kneel before corporations.
KSP2 devs didn't want to listen to the players. They told us that the dildo rockets that wiggle in all directions were wanted...
The game got a very bad reputation because of this. I bought the game day one and I think I have 2 hours of gameplay. But 5000h on KSP1.
What do we do with games that have a bad reputation when we are a gigantic company, we get rid of them. Perhaps a hope of development by another team. But if I remember correctly this would be the 3rd team to take charge of the game. Let passionate people make the games ! Sorry if bad English, I'm French
So does this mean game over for ksp2?
Yes.
so as seattle local, alot of the office space in the seattle area is currently going through an empty out phase, so my hope is that ksp2 will live and they are just yeeting the office too finish the game remote work style
Good coverage, thanks!
If KSP2 _DOES_ get canceled before it is released... well at least we'll all get our money back, since, you know, WE HAVEN'T GOTTEN A RELEASE PRODUCT YET. Of course they won't give us the money back. Welcome to _corporate america_ I don't feel very hopeful. I've been in this business a long time and seen a lot. Corporate spokespeople are about as reliable as Baghdad Bob was. Some of you will remember.
We don't get refunds for Early Access games that stop development. 🤷
No, the corpos will not return your money. Don't cry at them, it just gets them off.
That's why I don't buy early acces.
It put them in my wishlist and wait till they are released and reviews are good.
Saved me a lot of money and frustration.
It's partly due to the attempts to influence my emotional state that I don't bother with media. I only want the facts, not someone's opinion on how I should feel on their presentation of half-truths and outright lies. Thank you, Shadow Zone, for your measured response and examination of what facts are available.
Untill the wait is over, I'd like to see you play flyout, sure it doesnt have rockets, but its the best airplane builder right now.
Its cool that you talk about the journalism aspect, I didn't that was your field. That being said, I watched this video because your information always seemed valid to me in the past and I wanted to hear your opinion specifically.
This is what happens when people accept buying games at pre-alpha stages. Don’t ever purchase an early access so corporations can’t cash in on a project that is only 30% complete. For the corporation, this is a massive win. They made less than half a game, slapped an early access sticker on it, the stupid public lapped up that early access like hungry dogs and then the project gets shut down. Perfect business model guaranteed profit for minimal effort, all thanks to the common Joe for taking out his credit card the moment they see early access on their next game of choice.
They probably lost money on it, which is why they shut it down. Not exactly a win for them either. The early access release was probably just meant to recoup some losses with the hope it might become profitable.
If you consider they've been paying 70+ people salaries to work on this for far longer than needed, and they released a broken, buggy, featureless mess that resulted in large amounts of negative press and widespread refunds, it's probably been a massive financial hit to Take2.
Bad take imo. What you need to understand is that video games have become prohibitively expensive to make these days. So if a studio can start making money early to pay their staff, it's kind of the only way the game becomes possible. Pre-orders are about this too. It's not that greedy corporations want to screw customers over...more that these things are just so freaking expensive to make, and are honestly stupidly risky too. If players are happy to adopt early-access and buy early, play what's playable and be part of the journey, then great. If not...then we're only going to see fewer large games, and much less riskier ones too. Like we're up to Call of Duty 25 or something now?
@@inf3243 I see what you mean, however I don’t agree that it was the right decision. Take Baldur’s Gate 3 as an example, they had a very limited early access for a short time then they released a top notch finished game without any strings attached and that made it the most popular game of the year. Now I know what you’ll say, but BG3 is a big IP so it is easy to make money from it, kind of like Star Wars. Well don’t we all agree that KSP has become sort of a big deal too? It is a pretty hefty IP which is known to people all around the world as a one of a kind game which set a new era for space sims. So if a studio takes their 70+ people, really focuses on the long term plan and actually release a product worth its weight then the 1.0 release will make them more money than they can shake a stick at. Take Two however went the Electronic Arts way, the moment they see their project might become an issue, quick early access for full AAA price and shut down the studio the moment they hit net 0.
@@439sparky1 KSP is still a niche game within a super nerdy niche genre. It's never going to be able to command the attention and investment that a mainstream shooter will .
Like, just think about the operating costs of employing 70 people for 4 or 5 years. Depending on where you live it's anywhere from 25 to 40 million, just for salaries. Add rent, licensing... It's a literal boatload of dollaredoos *before you even have something you can sell*.
And then when they can sell it, Steam takes 30%, and then they have to pay off any investors too.
This is the dream of early access: a game gets to a point where players can do something in it, they want to help support the development, and understand that the game isn't finished yet.
Somewhere along the way the expectation changed: gamers now want a finished product early.
Early access isn't some get-rich-scheme. It's not a dump and grab. It's studios trying to grow a player-base and cover their development costs while they work.
If a game is buggy, or not fun, or looks too risky and we don't think it'll ever be finished then cool, nobody is forcing anyone to buy. But we shouldn't be surprised that an early access title is rough. All games are super rough until suddenly they're not.
This event is just another reminder that Take 2 exists to profit first and foremost, games are only the method they use to make money.
...all publicly traded companies exist to profit first and foremost. This is nothing new.
Or maybe that KSP 2's development has been dreadful, that's an indisputable fact that I will defend to the grave.
Isn't that true of every company? They all exist solely to make money. Without that as their primary concern, they will cease to exist. That is true of every company no matter what their product is.
If you can't make money you can't stay in business. This is very simple. Unless employees are willing to work for free hoping for a paycheck. Which is stupid.
@@RayneAngelusThis is true, which is part of why I distrust publicly traded companies on principle. All companies exist to make money, but publicly traded companies exist to make money _for their investors,_ which is usually done by screwing over their workers, their customers, or both.
There were 2 offices in Seattle, 1 for T2 and 1 for Intercept and while i don't know shit about Seattle they had 2 different addresses but now the T2 office doesn't show in T2's branch listings
This is why a company should present a move with a public statement. Even if the development goes on the damage to the title is already done judging by "press" and steam reviews.
I think you're giving Nate a bit too much trust on what he said.
It’s jebover
i was weiting for them to get at least to colony stage of the development well will se how it goes.
You really are making the best content out there. Thank you!