What they did to Kerbal is heart wrenching. That game was the nexus of something that transcends a video game. It created a community, and it spread the understanding and love of the realities of space travel.
My childhood friend is literally studying astrophysics because of that game. I remember him trying to explain KSP to me when we were still both in primary school, and while it was pretty lost on me, he clearly had such a passion and interest for it that it's gone on to literally shape his life. What a shame to hear about Kerbal :(
its gone, one thing I've learned, when the original devs are gone, the thing is over. we should stop buying thing for their name, and only buy things made by those who know how to make. companies need to learn that IP means nothing, its the people that create the value. which is why everything is a dead carcass when it comes to public companies
@@Eltener123 As an actual areospace engineer, get over yourself. Sure, I was intrested in spaceflight and engineering far prior to my discovery of KSP, but I absolutely benifited directly from the hands-on experience I could get with the results of orbital mechanics in a way that absolutely would not have been possible without KSP. Sure, I never learned how to do real engine design from the game, but the intuitions it built for me about rocket engine size, thrust needs in different parts of missions, and the unintuitive nature of orbital manuvers absolutely helped me in university and kept a passion for it alive even when the only part of space I was learning about was locked behind nightmares of partial differential equations.
When I heard that KSP2 devs sold out to be incorporated into a blanket studio, I knew this was going to be the outcome. Thats all these blanket companies do. Buy up the rights to titles, get peoples money, close the indie studio but keep the title rights. Now the studio we all know and love lost their studio, AND lost the rights to their own game franchise. We will no longer have ANY KSP games in the future now.
The only thing that is kept is the title it does not stop a company from using similar concepts to create a new game under a different title just look at pal world for example if anything this leaves a market open for someone to come in with a better product because lets face it KSP 2 was a buggy mess.
Take 2 wasted money on buying the IP than even more on hiring devs and didn't make a game and got bad reputation, so that couldn't be a good deal for them.
The copyright protection of KSP should expire 50 years after the death of his author, so maybe your grandkids or the grandkids of your grandkids might have a chance to play a better KSP. (With a bit of luck... lol)
the moment i saw take two taking the reigns on kerbal space program i knew this was gonna happen. None of the issues surprised me. The abysmal launch. The high price. The lack of content and now the closure of the studio. It's about as predictable as it can get
Not only did Take Two shut down the original private dev team by cancelling the contract and poaching the company's dev's, they then turn around and shut the NEW dev team down too.
Moral of the story (goes for any Industry) NEVER EVER EVER sell your Company to a gigantic for-profit Publicly held Corporation because bad things WILL ensue.
The flip side of that is The Tale of Obsidian. They were independent for almost two decades while sitting on what was probably the largest collection of industry veterans of western RPGs. They just could not get a win. The best version of every franchise they worked on is the one they made. Everything they touched is beloved by someone. Even their failures have a sort of cult classic status for writing and inventiveness of mechanics. And they were constantly in worry of going bankrupt from publisher deals. It was kinda sad. Every publisher hired them to work on a game because they knew it would be a good game and they knew their financial situation was so bad they'd take anything just to keep the doors open. Obsidian got taken advantage of by everyone while trying to stay independent.
Indie games have made up like 70% of what I play the last few years, if this leads to more developers going indie and joining smaller groups, I'll call that a win.
the last AAA title i bought was cyberpunk at launch and i didnt play it until the 2.0 update. starsector and rimworld take up most of my gaming time nowadays
yea same. indies fill my library and i havemt touched a big title for the better part of a decade. industry is ripe for new devs and talent to come in and deliver what market wants cause these big players are awful
If you like trucking games and space games you should take a look at an upcoming indie game Star Truckers. Looks like an interesting game. Not Sponsored.
This. This is what will happen in the coming years. Many people being laid off are going to make their small studios, and it's only a matter of time until we see a big AA dominace. These big publishers are completely out of touch. It's time for the old guard to pass on.
2 years from now they can hire new, inexperienced staff who grew up dreaming on making games, pay them 1/4 the salary and release KSP 3 where you have DLC for everything and KSP Infinite a mobile free to play game that makes T2 loads more profit
Just goes to show that having an outside or "third party" publisher / owner is a bad thing. Go solo / indi for there is no need to publishers in current day
While I agree with the general sentiment, keep in mind that in game development you will work on a title for years before it actually brings on money. So the thought of an affluent company paying the bills is very tempting and makes a lot of sense for many studios.
@@eran3161 Not necessarily. Some indies like Sleeper Games make small games in a year that are extremely good. If the dude just had some way to announcements they would make a lot of cash (they have 100% positives). But if you can afford to spend years making an amazing game then that's all the better. So many of the indies Inlove took 5-8 years to make
Nothing a corporate executive gets involved in goes well. A truly fascinating system we have created where these c-suite losers can make so many awful decisions yet are richly rewarded. And everyone around them pays the price.
Bobby says hello. He created their hellhole and reaped the benefits and then dipped out. "cya nerds!" or whatever. Now every CEO is trying to copy that and see where that leads.
@@sodasaintcommentaries4054 exactly, this is not how a merit based system is supposed to work. When a company is failing why shouldn't the CEO be the first to take a pay cut rather than 500 employees at the bottom following orders?
@@stsk7 For my entire life I have never seen "merit based" to ever mean skill based, be it in business or politics it's always been a code for rich white man with well connected rich parents.
Let’s hope so. Gaming started with indie studio’s and they grown in the monsters they are now. But they first have to crash to give the indies space to grow.
No, what we are witnessing is a poor economy leading to less people spending money in leisure. Companies, despite what people think, are not comprised of idiots. They are downsizing spending in what will probably be a less profitable set of years.
KSP felt like it was slow walking to the gallows as soon as I heard they'd been bought by Take Two. In this instance, I derive no satisfaction from being right.
@@Shadowkey392 KSP 2 was a failure at heart and from the very start. The launch was catastrophic and saw over 80% of dowloads get refunded in the hour. Everyone knew the promesses were empty shells but we wanted to believe, because KSP has such a dedicated fanbase, it's a unique game. I'm really sorry for the dev team who lost their job over this but the game was doomed anyway 🤕
@@Shadowkey392it was confirmed from insiders that ksp 2 was originally supposed to be same ksp 1 code repackaged with new graphics, they brought literally nothing new, but the director tried to add tons of more content while with the original budget but instead strained resources, and also take two swore absolutely secrecy to the point where the original devs weren’t brought in at the start of ksp 2 development, so many mistakes were made at the start that if it continued i doubt it would still end well
When the execs say "Yeah, updates are still coming" after firing all the developers it REALLY makes me wonder... do they not realise people need to make those? Are they actually that detached?
Its entirely possible that T2 is moving KSP2 ro a different studio that can ACTUALLY get stuff done. KSP2 had an initial release date of 2020, three years after they started development. here we are 4 years after the initial release date and barely have a playable game. No Mans Sky had a similar length of development but got alot more done than the KSP 2 devs
Publishers are decision making companies for the things they publish, as they're making all the marketing campaign and all publishing things about what they will sell. It's a real job and those things cost money too.
Some: Yes. The good ones tend to get squashed/bought out. But there are a few. Publishers are like every company: Stage 1: You get a passionate person, who wants to help people get their products to market. They themselves have struggled through the process - and wish to make it easier. Stage 2: The original founder is succeeded - this successor typically fully understands the work and effort, and has a huge respect for the creators. He worked with a creator - and see's the passion. This phase is a fair bit of optimizing, making the entire show run a little smoother but it's still very much a great place for the creators to go. Stage 3: The first successor is replaced by a purely business numbers guy. This guy has very little to no understanding of the actual process of creation - R&D is seen as a cost burden they do not understand, and odds are this guy is a marketing guy. This is when things start to go downhill. Optional Stage: The Original founder, or the successor are brought back to reinvigorate the company. Stage 4: The company devolves into profit first, marketing second, creators sometime after if at all. All passion for the craft slowly gets erased, and the ego's that have never created a true thing of value of it's own end up running the show. This is how you end up with DEI initiatives convinced that you just have to appeal to the right people to grow sales, or you get studio's pushed into producing a product that is completely foreign to what they have mastered over the previous decade or two. Stage 5: Profit loss - at this point, the only way to stay profitable is to cut costs. Senior developers, "under performing" studio's, and more get sold off, closed, and terminated. IP might be sold off if desperate enough, but typically that is held as a "It might have value later" despite the very people who understood the property are all gone and what ever new team you build is liable to turn fans against it. Stage 6: Bankruptcy. In a financial state of decline there are basically two options - the first, is bankruptcy and winding down the business. The other, is selling the entire thing off either wholesale (Microsoft buying out Activision sort of falls under this - a bit more nuanced as it was more opportunistic and Activision likely had another decade in it - but the signs of decline were all present), or piecemeal where you auction things off to cover debts. If you want to avoid Stage 3: You need to create a culture of training passionate creators to take over the business aspects and continue the path of being a creator focused enterprise. But sooner or later, someone gets to a point of having enough, or makes a mistake on who the successor is, and you fall to stage 3. If you have a REALLY strong culture, it can be reversed - but few businesses ever achieve that. Especially in today's day and age where companies have made it only feasible to stay ahead with income by changing jobs every 18 months to 3 years.
I only play indies or critically aclaimed AAA from atleast 2 years back Corperate is destroying everything allong with their own future profits they want so bad. It's baffeling how little business insight C level exccess are
KSP 2 is a great example of the dangers of Early Access. If the game doesn't do well, it will never be completed. Then you are stuck. No one will buy KSP 3 and if you try and finish KSP 2 then you will have to do so with zero new sales. The franchise is toast.
To be fair, if you release a sequel to a game then it should be at least as good as the first game in terms of gameplay and amount of content. KSP 2 was in worse shape than KSP 1 in every single way pretty much.
Huh, it's almost as if purchased studios serve as ablative armor for big publishers - suffer reputation damage? Just throw away a studio! Gee, that sure seems like a really smart idea that absolutely will never ever backfire!
Nothing improves morale more than letting the workforce know the quality of their work has nothing to do with whether they get to keep their jobs (sarcasm).
Tbh in older days ( probably still do it now ) of music you had producers and record companies that would purchase bands music and just never release them and just spin out an act that was in the style of the music bands they were sitting on. Way to eliminate competition but also maintain an advantage on a style of music
We can pretty much blame the same conglomerates that destroyed film and television. They figured games were the next big thing and wanted to have a monopoly on that too. The difference is, distribution is way easier in video games, and anyone can make a pretty fun game as a one man shop. There was so much more competition in gaming and no way was the usual scummy behavior of the major entertainment conglomerates was going to work out for them. Unfortunately, they still tried, because they're a bunch of boomers who don't know anything about the market.
The game that should never have been in early access will now never leave it. At this point, early access is something I'd only consider trusting an indie dev with. Any corporate studio or publisher should be denied the privilege.
Yeah, it's almost comical how exactly what dozens of analysts said would happen is: MSoft is dropping redundant studios now that the company structure is tightening.
@@AoiKaze2000All MSoft did was recognize what was already being done. ABK was forced by the state of Washington to change multiple things as a result of the lawsuits. And I've heard from some that the changes have addressed some problems, but the company's basically still a giant meat grinder where you walk on egg shells.
To be fair, I've never heard of Rollerdrome until this video, but it still sucks that the old saying of "just make good games" is now a fallacy. I'm also starting to see a pattern regarding publishers and really bad decisions in the name of "now money".
Nah, this is just the bubble bursting and MSoft executing the plan they already had in place. Reality is 2020-2021 were such MASSIVE successes, companies got fat. They started spending dumb and it didn't matter because the cash was flowing. Fast forward two years, the federal reserve is still holding the economy hostage because the only thing less reputable than CEOs are Politicians and Journalists. Loans to make big games are just not there, so, you need to cut projects. After you cut projects, studios end up idle (or fat). That happens enough, studios collapse. Same thing happened to film and tech last year. I don't think people realize a lot of these creative industries are fueled by the pipeline. Doesn't matter if your last game was successful if you don't have something to work on next. The one exception here are the MSoft closures, specifically Tango Gameworks. I believe some of these closures have been planned since the acquisition, and I think the writing was on the wall with the re-org last year.
Damn. And I was ready to sing KSP2's praises to kingdom come after the science update, since it looked like they really were trying to make something out of the game.
I understand the appeal for a studio to be bought by a large publisher as it’ll bring in more capital to invest in a game while also not having to worry about advertising. However, time and time again large publishers continue to show they only care for the stock holders. And because the current system prioritizes infinite growth, small studios will always pay the price. On a hopeful note, publishers aren’t needed nearly as much as they once were.
This shit with KSP 2 is a damn shame. It has all the bones now of a good game, once they fixed the wobbly rockets, but even that was like pulling teeth to get them to do it. And all the while Nate Simpson is saying how they can't put down the test builds of the game. There was no follow through, they acted like we would just wait forever for the game to get good. There's plenty of Indy games that do updates weekly and monthly, religiously, even while working on other projects. Intercept had 7 years and barely reached parity with the base game of its predecessor. Sure, it probably looked like a mountain of fixes but that's why you just need to start and release fixes, so people see you're doing something. weekly updates with 5 fixes would have been better than waiting months in between updates. I'm so sure Intercept is going to work super hard between now and June 28 to push out that last feature update. (sarcasm) Why the F would they bother when these devs know they're done in a few weeks, apathy level 9000 right there. Frankly, they should probably not include that they worked on KSP2 on their resume in their next interview, and Nate should probably find work in anything other than games for a while. His credibility is below zero now, good luck with that. I'm glad T2 pulled the plug, maybe now they can get a decent studio on this game.
It has been clear for a while now that the people making KSP 2 did not actually want to make a KSP game and did not care about what the community wanted at all.
@@grtninja Name on thing KSP2 in its current state does better than KSP1. I'll give you only one: The tutorials, even though they really should have been narrated by Scott Manley instead of a kid.
I had predicted these shutdowns and layoffs would be happening in massive numbers within a time frame of a couple of years. Same thing happened a few years after the 08 recesion. Economy was shit except for the games inudstry, which saw AMAZING growth. Created a massive bubble that kept rising until it burst hard in 2011-2012 ish. We saw massive layoffs and shutdowns across the industry, took out big names like THQ(they got revived later) and Midway. Its now a few years after the end of the covid crisis, an economic disaster event that saw entertainment industries like video games see a MASSIVE boom. Now the history is repeating. Get ready everyone, this is NOT the end if it follows what happened last time, could be another year of these happening
By video game industries you mean AAA studios like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Take Two, etc, right? I would assume that indie companies that aren't part of those publishers aren't part of the bubble, because they don't hire by the truck-load on a project they were going to lay off anyways a few months later because management doesn't want to do its job right.
@@shroomer3867 in terms of the historical pattern, indie is an unknown, that side of the industry was new and burgeoning back then. Heck you could say the indie industry really came into being as a result of these upsets in the industry, Fez came out in 2012 and cave story had just begun to reemerge into greater public awareness. I would say the combination of laid off experienced workers and fresh from college inexperienced new blood all competing for the same entry level positions led to the surge of the indie scene. But for the here and now, I would say depends on the Indie. Some have a bit more backing that may dry up. Now I am sure the scene overall will see a greater surge of fresh talent and ideas, but some of the longer lived indie devs that managed to get more investment backing behind them might struggle.
Nate Simpson and the crew at Intercept Games flat out lied about KSP2 and the state it would be in on E.A. Release while charging $50 for a barely functioning Alpha Release; which is Fraud.
I don't believe they lied. We've seen from other studio closures that this happens suddenly and without notice or warning, even at very high levels. More than likely, their first notice was being locked out of access to their systems that morning.
@@watchm4ker They were fired with notice, so they have a bit until it happens. Usually companies put people on paid leave during that time, it wouldn't have been a lockout.
@@watchm4ker I think he means back when it first released, or even when it was announced back in 2020. Allegedly they were having so much fun with the new colonization and everything that they could hardly focus on their work. And then it released and....you know the rest
@@watchm4ker Oh I'm sure they will release that internal multiplayer build that was eating so much into their office productivity. They wouldn't lie about that. Definitely not.
We need some sort of industry protections or laws to prevent what happened with Kerbal Space Program 2. It feels like fraud. Or false advertisement at a minimum.
Now I'm just as disappointed as anyone else, but this is the risk with early access games. Taken from the store page right at the top: Early Access Game Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops. Note: *This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further.* If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more Everyone that bought Early Access agreed to those terms so it can not be constituted as fraud or a scam.
Honestly, if Take Two gives KSP2 to another studio who has some semblance of a schedule? I wouldn't be too mad that Intercept is dead. Like... let's be real here. The game was a disaster. Yes, progress was being made, but at a snail's pace.
I'd be shocked if that actually happened. I'm mean, they still have an obligation to fulfill customers expectations based on long planned features but it's just not working at the current studio. Not that I believe they're likely to stick to their commitments in favor of just abandoning them; I think they cut and run.
Kerbal 1 story is quite crazy. Felipe Falanghe, a brazilian who loved to make rockets as a kid (and says he doesn´t know how he didn´t lost some fingers) was working on Squad in Mexico, an e-Marketing company who had never developed a game. Felipe approached them with the idea of Kerbal and they bought the idea and assembled a team of people who had never created a game...
I believe he said he was going to leave to work on his game, and they counter-offered with "if we pay to you work on it for a few days a week will you stay and keep doing your current job the rest of the week?" And then the game got some traction and they ended up turning it into a real project. Basically ended up having a games developer department almost by accident. Tech industry in general needs more bosses like that. KSP2 story is the polar opposite, it's kinda heart-breaking in contrast.
If I am a game dev, or small game studio. I would think hard and long on who I am getting into bed with. Publishers seems to be given way to much power. They are not just publishing games. They 100% own them. Even if not on paper. But they can completely sink them. Or close them. And ruin any future for them. Can be Paradox that just sink your games with bad decisions of releasing 20% finished games, in order to spam full game price DLC for the next 10 years. ( really wished gamers had a Helldiver moment with Paradox to stop them. Because they are no longer interested in making or releasing good games for their consumers. They design it to be empty, void and hollow. So they can spend the next 10 years selling 40-50 DLC's at between 20 and 40 dollars each, to make it as it should have been at release. And only a Helldiver moment can stop that insanity. Sadly, to many defend them ) Sony doing stuff. Microsoft doing stuff. Selling your studio, is most likely signing its death in this day an age. At best it will be torn apart and divided out into something else, at worst it will just be shut down, and its games and titles and universes put into a box where no one is allowed to work with it. And making deals with bad publishers will most likely force you into changing your game into something you do not want, and abuse the people you want to have a good time with your game. A lose lose. Should really start to consider the contracts you make. And not give away the key. If nothing else, we can hope hands of publishers start popping up. Might get less money, but you dont have to sell out your players, or your soul. But something will change, its peoples lifeworks that is just gutted time after time, by people who do not care about anything. So these people will start to look for contracts where they can have enough to build a game, but don't have to ruin the game before its ever released.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 Yea, Paradox could really do with a Helldiver event. Even when they completely messed up City Skylines, they did not really get much of the anger. It was all directed at the studio.
@mattijohansen3471 Okay, but colossal orders were not entirely innocent either. They lied about the game massively and tried to gaslight the community.
@@frogking5573 OFC not. its their game. And even though Paradox forced them to release, even though they did not want to do so. And forced them into the DLC nightmare and all that. They still made the deal with Paradox. And did what they where told. So not without fault. But the reason behind their actions where still Paradox.
So obviously I'm not in favor of publishers in general, but I do think KSP 2 is one of the rare cases where the developers were the problem. It being a worse game despite the development time allowed for it. They were given 3 years (or more, depending on when you want to start counting) and they didn't even build the one thing that every fan of the first game wanted: a functional physics system that doesn't run like shit. And they, personally, promised so many things and outright lied about the status of the game so many times, I have a hard time blaming Take Two for KSP 2. Take Two didn't make those trailers, Take Two didn't tell us that the kraken was gone, that multiplayer was working, and that all those promised features were just around the corner. Are major publishers like Take Two ruining the industry? Yes. Was KSP 2 Take Two's fault? I don't think so.
It was originally 3 years, aiming for a complete game release in 2020. Obviously that didn't happen and now we've had a rolling early access... totaling about 7 years. And STILL not able to even match the original features, while reusing large amounts of the original code in order to get anything shipped at all. Which defeats the whole reason to make the sequel in a more robust engine... and then on top of it all the early access is more than twice what the original sold for and very high for an EA game.
KSP was one of the games I poured my soul into. Back in the day, there was a free aerodynamics updates and that was awesome. Then at some point, it got into the end of Take-Two and Private Division, there was paid dlc, a special private Division launcher. All terrible. Then KSP2 pre-released. Huge pricetag, bare bones, and yet needing a NASA supercomputer to run (the irony). All kickass trailers, no product. And multiple studio change a slow, slow descent into shitness that could have been spotted a mile away. And it all hurt so much. I'll check on the game once in a while, but I'm not expecting much tbh
I genuinely believe that more and more indie developers are going to stay independent over the next few years because it’s blatantly clear that the ONE advantage that a big publisher brings to a dev, a stable and secure source of resources, is explicitly no longer the reality. All we see nowadays is layoffs and closed studios. An arguably less stable source of resources and income. It’s fucking despicable.
Mergers and Acquisitions never end well for the company acquired. First they reduce the benefits, then they have the layoffs, then they sell off the intellectual and physical property and...it's gone!
this is what happens when the only thing that matters is short term stock growth, shareholders do not care if you increase profits by making a good product or firing half your staff, as long as you deliver a number that is higher than before.
And all of that happened because some bald dude archived "impossible" "company growth" few decades ago by ripping guts out of major company and selling them, and then dipping with billions in his (and shareholders) pockets, which was then made into mf RELIGION, that every CEO and manager is being taught nowadays because "your job is to maxsimize shareholders value, nothing more".
This is what happens when the devs are incompetent. Take 2 gave them over 5 years of extra time, no doubt representing a mountain of money, because they believed in the brand and the project. This is not a corporate issue.
Same thing at another company a friend worked at. They had two bad years so management cut staff 30%. All the people who knew how to get things done. Lower managers with so little left their only choice is to leave. Just a big company desperately trying to go out of business, aka Sears, DEC (digital equipment corp), SGI (silicon graphics inc), World Com, Arthur Anderson (accounting), Enron.
KSP 2 is really shady on both sides. The developer management changed their name from Uber entertainment to get away from their bad reputation on those games. KSP2 seems to have been in development since 2017, with the team apparently unable to deliver on their 2020 game-complete release date. I can kind of see Take 2's side in this since they were probably planning on releasing that game in 2020 instead of funding a perpetual Early Access game that was still struggling to match the original feature set 7 years into development. Take 2 obviously is being tightwads but I'm not sure how much more leeway that team should have gotten. I wish they'd sent it to a new studio instead of pulling the plug though.
The reason I don't quite buy the idea of the studio's closing being entirely on the devs' slow pace is because T2 chose to do it _now_ instead of last year or earlier when the game was in an even more sorry state. And we still have no idea what actually happened in 2020/21, which as a reminder is when T2 poached Star Theory to make intercept games; its entirely possible they had to start from scratch because of that or for some other reasons. I know this sounds like copium, but believe me, I've had my fair share of frustration over the game's state this past year.
@@alexsiemers7898 It lines up with the Science release around the end of a financial quarter. It feels like in the corporate world, T2 were using that to determine if they should keep going- but didn't tell anyone. Regardless of if they had to start over (twice even) it doesn't paint a shining picture of the development. That points to a management problem at IG, and one that led to the game not being as robust as they promised. Especially when they admitted they had lifted parts of the KSP 1 codebase to do features they couldn't figure out.
They kill the good games, the bad games and leave us with the ugly..... I need to restock my AAA Batteries and get my Gameboy up and running again. That's my version of AAA Gaming for quite some time now. In the meantime, NES is nice too.
You said it: avarice. Many businesses sink into avarice when they're taken over by the bean-counters and somehow they can become very successful for a time. But long-term sustainability for any enterprise also needs decent morals and ethics. A lot of the biggest corporations in the world don't believe this, of course, and remain big for now. They continue gobbling up good ethical businesses which basically represent competition or resources for them.
Imagine you take your car to a shop. A 20 yo kid with no experience works on it and then the next day it breaks down again. Is it the shops fault? Sure, they hired the kid. But the kid said he knew how to do this work in his interview. Should you never fire this kid becuase its mean. Or should you fire him, because if you dont. Your whole shop is gonna go out of business. Because none of the kids know what theyre doing. Indie studios. Stay indie. Dont bitch after you sell out and you cant make good games anymore.
Too much greed and bad decisions by publishers. They buy up studios and then constantly end up closing them as they've spent too much. You won't see them firing executives.
That's extremely naive view of what's happening here. Clearly not all has been well at the studio. 5+ years of alpha development to release into EA on a abysmal state. Tbh funding 5 years of KSP2 is a pretty huge investment for the expected return of a niche game like KSP.
they do it for the money duh, the owners get paid big bucks, and go retire to a quiet life on the beach somewhere. Happens with all start up companies, not just indie games. A lot of these indie devs probalby planned to do just that since the beginning.
@@mastah39 They've been funded for 5+ years past the original release date. Safe to say Take 2 threw a mountain of money after this. It's 100% on Intercept.
@@mastah39 you'd be crying if they shut the project down years ago, you'd be crying if they restructured the studio or demanded certain features be cut to make deadlines.
Started to think that selling out to megacorps is like taking Luciferium in rimworld, take 8 days to get another dose or you will die. (Meaning you have to make a game quick, and release it unfinished to get profit or get shutdown)
Intercept was incompetent. Take 2 gave them over 5 years of extra time, they were extremely lenient. We were supposed to be playing the FULL RELEASE in 2020, a date set by Intercept themselves.
Guess the unscrupulous companies have seen the gamer scams on Kickstarter and wanted some of that sweet sweet action for themselves. Just call it infinite early access and if anyone complains point to Star Citizen and say "See, we're not scamming you". Glad I decided to wait on KSP2 even though the trailer was top notch.
The other day I was discussing with a friend on "why a company like Sony does this to HD2 being fully aware this will ruin the game's reputation". I was being replied "because the company has obligations towards investors and they will get sued if they do not do what they promised, so they get desperate and start pushing stuff in the attempt to show them that things are running well, even if it's a lie, so long as numbers go up". Ok. So why can a company like T2 get away with cancelling an unfinished product I bought and run away with the money of my purchase? Why can they do it every single damn time? Why if I do that to my commissioners I get sued, but if big corpo does it it's all fair and square? Can we put some damn laws to stop this BS? Either you refund me, or you fulfill your damn promises. If putting an EULA saying "we reserve the right to drop the project at any time we want to" is legal, then how come if I do that I'd still get sued and they don't?
The steps to fixing it are not that hard, the problem is that a huge number of people are convinced that regulations/laws/taxes/bureaucracy are bad and that we should be reducing it instead of increasing it. 1. Add more consumer protection laws/regulations. 2. Hire bureaucrats to enforce the new laws/regulations. 3. Raise taxes to pay the bureaucrats (I suggest getting the taxes from mega corps)
With KSP2's official player numbers I could imagine people just waiting for when - and if - it get's better than KSP1. KSP1 has a loooot of great mods that make it far more than the base game. So it would take a long time to live up to that for KSP2. At least that's how I'm doing that. Sheesh, the center of gravity doesn't even change in KSP2, depending on how full the tank is. I bought it, when it entered early access, knowing full well that it might most probably go pear shaped.
Is that a record? Take 2 have now killed 2 studios with the same game. The screwed over and killed star theory in the early days of KSP2 dev, and now intercept.
And this is why a crash of the large gaming companies is inevitable. when a successful game that makes a profit is simply not good enough, nothing will ever be good enough for them.
all entertainment industries are going through a hell of a contraction right now. as somebody who has been paying attention, its nigh impossible for me to have much sympathy. every one of these industries have been attacking their customer base, and they have been able to be propped up by outside investors. these people, companies, and entire industries have been allowed to be incredibly abusive to their customer base with no repercussions, until recently. these people were warned, they were even told what they needed to do to fix it. but they double and tripled down on it. as a result its all collapsing. and honestly, to quote the Starcraft 2 trailer, "hell, its about time."
KSP (1) was too good. And for 2nd one the roadmap wasn't ever really clear or that exciting. Also price went up significantly. For very, very early access? From the get go KSP 2 was a project a lot of KSP fans didn't really trust and rightfully so. Take Two was obviously eyeballing active dedicated KSP fanbase looking for easy margin, but somehow completely miscalculated work required, skill and timeframe. It's not canceled on Steam yet, but considering the current state and that every development requires people and money, this doesn't look good.
@@informitas0117 It was a trap contract. Take2 is infamous for making the, with what looks like good conditions and being fair, only to steel the workers, to trigger the trap.
@@informitas0117 It was a trap contract. Take2 is infamous for making trap contract that seem all above board, only to nab the tallent making the studio miss deadlines triggering the trap.
And yet another publisher to my do-not-purchase-their-games list... I loved KSP a lot and was waiting for KSP2 to be more mature. Fortunately I didn't buy it yet. RIP kerbals as an IP. :(
All these layoffs are going to have a serious impact on the quality of the gaming industry. How many talented people out in the world will either leave or completely avoid a career in game industry because of all the volatility and corporate bullshitteru
The idea was never to subsidize those indie products, despite Private divisions bullshit. It was always to make money, but in this case by tapping a different market, maybe find a gem that became huge (Minecraft canonically). Unfortunately PD never had the insight or culture to support indie developers. Just look at how many lawyers and other ancillaries are on ksp2's credits and you can see T2 does not know how to make a small anything. And of course, they handed the KSP IP to the absolute wrong developer when they chose Uber entertainment
@@OutsiderLabs You seem like a nice hang at a party... There is consequences and decisions. I don't know KSP2 at all. But if the consequence of their lack of output is the shutdown that is sad as there is decisions that led to that. "Deserve" I'm sorry they insulted you personally to have such hate for your fellow humans for (check's notes) not making another game...
Soon we started to get suits I’m gaming was the beginning of the end. I love small creative studios. I wish the big slimy greedy hands would leave them be.
Well this is how industry evolves, i have seen in a video about cars history that in US there was about 2000 makers untill the mid 20th century and how much are left now! Big ones swallow the little ones, digest them and sh.t the residues.
This is the end of an era. The end of the managerial elites in video-games. Like I said in the previous comment, the only games that will survive are the very very small developers (where there are no managers) and the very very large main titles (where all the managers that survive will flock to). All the game studio sizes in the middle are going instinct.
9:50 - This is EXACTLY why i get PISSED when people say "well, just wait for the game to get updates -- they are free. stop complaining. You're the worst playerbase" Because updates, even if free, aren't guaranteed and ONLY are prioritized if it makes money or directly impacts profit. A game should be complete at launch and complete at the point of sale.
The annoying thing about early access is it's abused so hard by a lot of developers, some games go a decade without a full release and then slap a 1.0 label on it and let it die, like mount and blade 2 for example. Early access should have a caveat that it gets completed within a time frame instead of it being treated like a weekend project until bored of it.
I can't wait for the Sony fanboys who think the Microsoft layoffs are a W for them be reminded that the video game industry sucks as a whole. I'm _not_ enthusiastic about Sony inevitably shutting down studios mind, don't take that the wrong way.
It hard to sympathize with Intercept when the arguement against Take Two is that "They didnt give the dev much time", when the game essentially got delayed multiple times, coming out 2 years beyond the original release date in 2021. With what was released, it seems those 2 years of delay didnt add to the game, those 2 years of delay was them making the game, and what came out of it wasnt a good product. Hard to blame Take Two for everything when its the developers job to make a fun game for their audience, even given 2 years extra by a notoriously scummy and money hungry publisher. Im surprised I didnt predict this happening sooner.
They set themselves up to fail the second they listened to the kiddies and decided to put in stupid mulitplayer. If I knew from the very first announcement video, that this would never happen, THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! It was given to the WRONG PEOPLE! Those people then proceeded to lie and lie and lie all while patting themselves on the back and paying RU-vidrs to blame the customers for "Not supporting it enough". What a joke. "You clearly just do noty know the definition of 'early access!'" lmfao Yeah...ok kid...keep dreaming lol Some of us can see reality when presented with it and have been playin gearly access games since the first one existed. What a joke.
Well amazing, so many studios shut down, 10k people laid off while execs get hundred of millions in bonuses. This crash needs to come, CEOs need to loose their jobs because it is insanity at this point.
I mean it’s the same math we see with other entertainment products. X money in y money out, but their are very clearly some that have a high rate of return, so cut the studios dump more money into those high retina and get more money. That how you get films with a 300m dollar budget, and what 5 studios working on COD at this point. Of course throwing twice as much money at you big earned hasn’t doubled the money back.
The issue remains, as always, the huge commission that these platform owners charge: 30% is totally uneconomic at this point, there is no profit in developing games and no way for new studios to get established. Even if you make one hit, any failure and your studio is dead.
The only way to gain security and stability in the industry is to stay independent, suffer through the lean times, stay independent, make something great, and did I mention *STAY INDEPENDENT* yet? Selling out to a big company is still selling out.
@@Jose_Doe Cool, I look forward to it, the drama around HD2 was so much fun to see. Microsoft I'm not too worried about being a PC gamer & having gamepass, but I'm hopeful there's some fireworks.
I'm really hoping wisdom is gained by this dark era of gaming. When you have great talents and promising projects, then get approached by some corporation with acquisition on its mind, you tell them to kick rocks. It's not a tough choice. Trading stability for the near grauruntee that they cut your studios' throat within a few years is not the way to go, I'm crossing my fingers that every time this happens it acts as a cautionary tale for everyone witnessing it.
You know what's going to happen? Microsoft will get magnitudes bigger than they are now, Xbox will become like 5% of their entire income... and the CEO? Eh, we could be spending our yearly money we give Xbox to something better. Cancel Xbox. BAM. Corporations should NOT be in gaming. Just small companies.
To be honest, I think that the studio got what it deserved. For the amount of developers, it was moving at a snail pace and was going nowhere. In the gaming world, If you start to take it easy, you get kicked out. Period. I am a big fan of KSP 1 and felt that KSP 2 was a cheap copy of the initial game. It would never have reached the level of KSP 1 and the name was bad already. It was a good business decision to shut it down. I would have called the same. Sorry guys.
I think the games industry is doomed unless folks stop chasing outside money from hedge funds, major corps. angels and the like. Time to go back where we were BEFORE all that or only crap and depression will follow.
So high fi rush i feel like no ine is understanding that when the main visionary and leader leaves the company with their previous game ghostwire Tokyo not doing too well, and them not currently working on project when this went down are forgetting that there may be other reasons why a studio gets shut down. Spot on about the rest though, (expect arkane, redfall sucked dishonored 2 sucked)
I'm glad I saw the warning signs and decided to hold out on buying KSP 2 until it would have all the features (including multiplayer) rather than trusting the new corporate owners to deliver what was promised
well i mean its pretty clear that interactive or whatever they are called failed big time to KSP2. Some people should have def been fired, but the entire company just folded? seems harsh.
Such a nice thing that, thanks to Sony, I just learned how to block publishers in steam. To be honest, at this point it might be make sense to have them all blocked by default and only create whitelist.
KSP2 and The Pale Beyond launched the same day. Who bet that Bellular Studios would have the better outcome? Nicely done, guys, looking forward to the next one.
If only game devs had some sort of guild, some way to unite and protect their collective interests. If only we had hundreds of years of labor movements to learn from.
