Oh man, now we know where the A-team went...

[Snark]

13 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

It never occurred to me to worry that such talented people would NOT find a job somewhere

^ This.

Speaking as a professional software engineer who's had occasion to interview literally hundreds of job candidates... good people are really hard to find.

These are good guys, I expect they'll land on their feet. 

 

5 hours ago, T-Bouw said:

Though Valve employing most ex-squad members and modders, you'd think that Valve's got an ulterior motive...
A spaceprogram sim perhaps?

No clue.  However, based on my experience in the software industry, there's one very clear "ulterior motive" (if that's the right term) that every software company has:  "Hire good people."

It's difficult.  They're hard to find.  If you find a good one, snap 'em up.  Heck, I'd love to have 'em where I work, and we're not even a gaming company.

"These are tried-and-tested game devs, and Valve is a gaming company and needs game devs" is the explanation that Occam's razor tells me.    Probably best not to read a whole lot more into it than that.

[regex]

I like how being thankful that a friend landed a great job is somehow an indication that one was worried they would never find one.

 

But you know what? I'm thankful my friend found a great job and that his friends found great jobs too.

[Alshain]

47 minutes ago, Snark said:

^ This.

Speaking as a professional software engineer who's had occasion to interview literally hundreds of job candidates... good people are really hard to find.

These are good guys, I expect they'll land on their feet. 

It's going to get tougher.  Too many companies are unwilling to train entry level developers and the older generation, the first groups of professional programmers, are at retirement age.  The end result is not a balanced mix of developers of all experience levels.  It's hurting the industry.

[klgraham1013]

19 hours ago, regex said:

If it's a "NathanKell game", I'm buying it.

Probably.

This! ...and congrats to everyone else who made the transition!

[ZooNamedGames]

I firstly want to congratulate those who got picked up by Valve, as it's good to know that they are finally getting to put their skills into something else, especially since Valve clearly has something in mind for them!

That said, I'm going to be the stick in the mud (yes, go ahead and boo me) and just state, as a continuing player of various Valve games (and Steam); they have some interesting games, but their content has starting sliding downhill. What names and titles they do own have started to fall apart. As a part of another Valve community, I have heard nothing positive that community has had to say to Valve. The new content they release is exceptionally late (maybe 2-3+ years after the planned release date) and then subpar and riddled with issues.

So despite being proud for the developers for finding new employment, I'm not happy with whom decided to pick them up (ok, could've been worse; EA could have hired them). As Valve to me as a game developer started well but with every day continues to go downhill more and more. I'm not against anything they make, it's just what content they have made recently. If Valve were to use these old KSP developers to make something fantastic, then my opinion will skyrocket of them, but until I can't feel that I trust what Valve has in mind.

Especially when I've heard of Valve work policies.

However I'll reiterate; I'm proud they finally found a place to put their exceptional skills and talents to work. Go old KSP developers, and bring us something epic!

[LoSBoL]

7 hours ago, Adelaar said:

Yeah, building spaceships with a crowbar! Killing aliens by constructing Juno based flamethrowers! Converting Black Mesa into something that is still unsafe for work, but arguably has actual scientific value!

 

Could be, but it could also be HL3 without a storyline  

 

[regex]

5 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Could be, but it could also be HL3 without a storyline  

 

Isn't that just Gary's Mod?

[LoSBoL]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

Isn't that just Gary's Mod?

I'm ashamed to say I had to look it up, it sure looks like it 

[UomoCapra]

Hi there o/

You probably have already read this, but just in case

On 5/22/2017 at 4:33 PM, UomoCapra said:

Hello everyone,

There was news today that former KSP developers have joined Valve. We want to clarify that Squad is not joining Valve, and we continue to be an independent studio with the core KSP team remaining at Squad, hard at work on the improved KSP for consoles port,  Update 1.3 and the Making History Expansion. The KSP community shouldn't be concerned about this news having any impact on the game.

Regarding the developers joining Valve, it is important to note that we have had several people working on our team over the years, and it is common among development studios for team members to come and go. If some of them joined Valve, it is on their own behalf and we wish them good luck and success in their current and future endeavors.

So do not worry, everything continues normally with KSP

Happy launchings, 

The KSP Dev Team

Just bear in mind that KSP development won't be affected in any way.

We also have no knowledge of the people who are joining Valve nor the projects they are going to be part of. Whomever they are, we wish them success

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

6 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I firstly want to congratulate those who got picked up by Valve, as it's good to know that they are finally getting to put their skills into something else, especially since Valve clearly has something in mind for them!

That said, I'm going to be the stick in the mud (yes, go ahead and boo me) and just state, as a continuing player of various Valve games (and Steam); they have some interesting games, but their content has starting sliding downhill. What names and titles they do own have started to fall apart. As a part of another Valve community, I have heard nothing positive that community has had to say to Valve. The new content they release is exceptionally late (maybe 2-3+ years after the planned release date) and then subpar and riddled with issues.

So despite being proud for the developers for finding new employment, I'm not happy with whom decided to pick them up (ok, could've been worse; EA could have hired them). As Valve to me as a game developer started well but with every day continues to go downhill more and more. I'm not against anything they make, it's just what content they have made recently. If Valve were to use these old KSP developers to make something fantastic, then my opinion will skyrocket of them, but until I can't feel that I trust what Valve has in mind.

Especially when I've heard of Valve work policies.

However I'll reiterate; I'm proud they finally found a place to put their exceptional skills and talents to work. Go old KSP developers, and bring us something epic!

Not sure if you dig sports or not, but a crappy team can turn things around fast with just a few key players. That could be what they're hoping for with these new hires. The people who helped develop this game were bound to move on to other projects sooner or later. Not sure if anything they make will ever rise to the level of KSP, but I'll at least give it a look just based on what they've done in the past. Just because you've hit .300 the last three years doesn't mean you will this year (or ever again), but it's a pretty good indicator of potential. Overall, a good move by Valve at the very least.

[ZooNamedGames]

2 minutes ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

Not sure if you dig sports or not, but a crappy team can turn things around fast with just a few key players. That could be what they're hoping for with these new hires. The people who helped develop this game were bound to move on to other projects sooner or later. Not sure if anything they make will ever rise to the level of KSP, but I'll at least give it a look just based on what they've done in the past. Just because you've hit .300 the last three years doesn't mean you will this year (or ever again), but it's a pretty good indicator of potential. Overall, a good move by Valve at the very least.

Exactly what I meant with my last sentence of the third paragraph. If they manage to create something amazing with these new members, then more power to Valve and I can't wait to join the community for it.

However until this new epic game is released, I'm going to remain with my negative POV. Hence why I'm hoping even harder these older KSP developers can bring what Valve needs.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Exactly what I meant with my last sentence of the third paragraph. If they manage to create something amazing with these new members, then more power to Valve and I can't wait to join the community for it.

However until this new epic game is released, I'm going to remain with my negative POV. Hence why I'm hoping even harder these older KSP developers can bring what Valve needs.

Yeah, I was readin' ya. We're in agreement there. I wanna say about 90% of everything on Steam is crap these days. I go through them and wonder "who's buying these and why?". People's tastes differ, obviously, but I don't have much time for gaming (not as much as I'd like, of course ), so I have to be picky about it. I bought this game on a whim at the official 1.0 release and never looked back. I think KSP is one of those "lightning in a bottle" things, though. Not sure if it'll translate to other games or not, but Valve has to know their quality has gone down (if Steam is good for nothing else, their gamer reviews are usually right on), so this looks like they're trying to bring it back up. It'd be nice if they succeeded.