Mantarochen

I don't understand the DEV pipeline of this game. There are fundamental core-gameplay issues with the game, and you add stuff like grid fins and the matching mechanics before delivering a science update, a performance fix or several bug sweeping patches after each other. And this all is dated to June? what. Players stopped playing the game because the core is rotten, not because they were missing the grid fins. How is this even something that needs to be said. Who is prioritizing stuff over there?

Just glancing over the threads, what is the purpose of this? Every thread that has discussions about "what the hell" is going on with the development of this game gets locked, moved, merged or just disappears. If you want feedback and feedback alone, just close the "discussion" tab entirely and just keep the bug report section open. I do believe that pointing out that the game has sub 200 players at times is nothing a thread should get locked over. It sadly is the truth of the current state the game is in. And I understand everyone that feels the need to express their sorrow and yes, maybe even some salt about spending $50 on a game, that seems to have little to none development happening on. At least these threads could be a place for senior DEV staff to share some insights. Every other news channel of yours is basically dead, with no updates or insights other than" we are on it" to speak of. Which is quite sad, considering how the DEV staff propagated them being very communicative before the launch.

2 months in, with ~380 players at peak a day still playing, the devs "slowing down the rate of updates" and the previous 2 patches being a joke in terms of actual fixes, even patching in some more in some circumstances... -How is anyone still defending this piece of turd? I mean for real. I understand how everyone was hyped when the game released, even when it was buggy, because "it will get fixed". But at this rate? How long until take2 cuts losses? 3 months? 6 months? With the current trend in player numbers, the game will probably have peaks of ~100 players by then anyway. Sad to see such a (potentially) fun game with promising features go down the drain because of the clusterlove the development has been.

Just me and my take, but them stating that they will collect bug fixes bundling them into "big updates" is the wrong take in my opinion. The player numbers are already vanishing, with only the most hardcore fans left, and with every video I see, save game I start and hour I play, I am more and more annoyed by absolutely ridiculous bugs that should honestly be hot fixed right away instead of gulped up into a big patch. And with every bug that gets ever more dumb, I'm closer to uninstalling the game all together. Bugs like the game saves breaking, Crafts breaking up when loading a quick save, the wobbling of the rockets or the KSC teleporting in front of you mid-flight should be things that are patched within a day or two. Not WEEKS. These are literally game breaking bugs. I can see why bundling up performance improvements and gameplay changes might prove to be better, but bugs that break the game? I don't think that's the way to go.... I just don't think they can allow themself to keep bugs like these in the game for longer periods. They probably already made half of the people who bought the game refund on the spot by releasing the game in the state it is in, judging by the steam reviews and player numbers. That other half is a) annoyed by the bugs and leave over time, or b) hardcore fans that just don't care and play anyway. Hardcore fans won't make the numbers of the sales tho. Without the "general" playerbase I don't see this game being a success to be honest. And I don't see take2 keeping the lights on for too long sadly.

You can set the stores at different values for playernumbers, say "but there is a direct buy for the game" etc. If you just look at the numbers, you see that the game is losing traction. And that the traction it had wasn't good from the start. People trying to nullify the KSP1-KSP2 player number comparision by saying : "yes many players started with KSP1 again after they tried KSP2, so the numbers are inflated". That's december 2022. October 2022 had about 400 players more. KSP1 is on it's way or at times at the level of late 2022 in terms of player numbers. And these are the numbers that make me question the sales aswell. There is no way this game has more then 300.000 sold copies as some people claim. Not with ~2400 concurrent players with 24 hour peaks of ~4.000. The green line dropping like a rock is KSP2 btw. The fact that tomorrow is 1 week after launch and we still haven't even seen a hotfix, is well.... I mean really? Not even a hotfix for the save games breaking? Or the one where the KSC teleports with you?

Regarding the "release build", you're probably not too far off, considering the naming scheme of the updates that are pushed to steam. Some people on reddit hinted on a new patch coming, after"releasetest" "development" and "candidate" where pushed to steam in the last few hours The naming scheme of the pushes already tells you what version they were forced to push to live. With the "playtest" only being 2 days before the actual release.

[snip] The state of mind that the situation the game is in being okay, is the core problem. Not the people adressing the fact, or trying to tinker out why it is that way, and how it can be fixed.

Ehm what? I mean copium is hell of a drug but what else are these numbers other than statistics? That is literally the entire point of that picture. You can find the same numbers on the official Steam charts page, just not displayed as fancy. To confirm your point about the sales numbers the site is okay, even if the site says that the values are probably not correct, because the game just launched, as @MarcAbaddon said, but if I use the same site to display current player numbers, the site isn't a real statistics site? Aha, okay.

The metric they use to calculate ownership by just multiplying Steam reviews x20 - x50 might work with some COD or City Builder game where people leave reviews because they always do. KSP2 has an absurd amount of reviews by people who vented because the release was a disaster and people who review the game with "don't listen to the haters" as review. Everyone and their mum left a review on the KSP2 store page. Completly inflating the numbers this site uses to calculate the "estimated owners" statistic. This graphic tells an entirely different story.

Yes. There are other possibilities to get the game. Since Epic games doesn't publish anything in terms of numbers and the DEVs won't for their own site, Steam is the next best data source. Besides steam being by far the most popular with the most people on the platform. KSP2 was in the Top 10 most wishlisted games on steam. It peaked below 30.000 players. So there is no way in hell the game has above 100.000 copies sold on Steam. Even if you'd account for half the people buying, but not even starting the game.

https://steamcharts.com/app/954850 ? The game literally sits below Dota 2 in topsellers over the last 14 days, behind Fallout 76 , Company of heroes 3 and god knows what. https://store.steampowered.com/charts/topselling/US The 40.000 - 50.000 sales estimate won't be this far off. Or do you think 400.000 people buy the game to then not start it?

How do you get to these numbers? I mean like for real, no offense but the devs didn't publish anything (you can figure out yourself why) and every steam tracker on this planet, tells me that there were a max of 11.812 players in the game at the same time. With 2.179 playing right now. Do you think there would be only 2.000 players in the game right now when the sales scrape at the 6 figures mark?

With an all time peak of 11.812 players on steam, I can pretty much say without a doubt that this is bullsh*t. At least in terms of steam sales, the 400.000 figure is pure fantasy.

I highly doubt that. With only around 40.000 sales, let's round to 50.000, without even taking the refunds into account, they made $2.5M before steam took a cut, before the marketing is paid, before they flew out people to ESA etc etc. At this stage they are nowhere near ROI. Someone on reddit calculated that this launch just covered about half a year in terms of development costs, just based on the average salaries and the team size. I might be wrong, and I hope so, because I don't want to see the game fail, even if I am highly critical to what they launched and the price. My best guess is that take 2 is gonna cut the losses in a few month if the sales don't recupe. But for that to happen they need to fix the game. And fast.

Yeah, like I stated in my comparison between the two, it isn't. It's a mess. That's what it is. Remember "the forest" ? An Indie Game developed by literally 10 people, launched in 2014. Just as a little comparison to shut down the "it's EA so that is a good number" post. Name Copies sold Review on Steam KSP1 ~4.5 M copies sold "Overhwelmingly Positive" The forest ~5M copies sold "Overhwelmingly Positive" KSP2 ~40.000 copies sold in 24 hours (launch 24.02,23) "mixed" (inflated review score) Sons of the forest ~2.000.000 copies sold in 24 hours (launch 23.02.23) "very positive" Both are: EA games Aren't finished Have bugs Have missing features Both were delayed multiple times Have games before it in the franchise with ruffly the same number of sales and review score The KSP2 figure doesn't even include the mass refunds that probably happened, judging the steam reviews. KSP1 having more concurrent players then KSP2 isn't bad, it's alarming. Just as a fun example, here are "the forest" and "sons of the forest": https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=242760,1326470 KSP2 sits at $50, Sons of the forest at $28.5 and people actually still defend the EA price of $50 KSP2 is shipping at somehow.... That for the "it's EA so that is a good number" statement. I think you can figure out yourself what these numbers mean.