What Facts Do We Know About The Devs Leaving?

[Ignath]

35 minutes ago, Andem said:

I don't think any of us are suggesting that they have too. I don't understand why you insist that all of us are saying that.

But looking at the last real controversy with kerbalstuff. Squad released a statement after about 6 hours, and they were clear and concise. Is that really too much to ask? That someone, somewhere, give us any explanation? Even a "We can't release what happened" would be fine by me, acknowledge the silence instead of hoping no one notices it.

The last controversy was with KerbalStuff, an ENTIRELY different situation than an employment situation and one in which the community did deserve answers.  

If you want to go back, look at what happened when Capt. Skunky, NovaSilisko and PDxTV (think that was his name) were fired/left, SQUAD said NOTHING about that nor confirmed/denied all those rumors at the time.  Same with Maxmaps...when he left, SQUAD said thanks for your work and moved on.  Dr Turkey, same thing...

SQUAD has NEVER commented on employee retention or release matters and NO ONE should ever expect them to.  Asking more than that is asking for the company to delve into employment/employee information that is and should always be confidential, to protect both the employee and the employer.

[MaxPeck]

@RoverDude You're the man.  I love your work, keep on keepin' on.  Thanks for wading into the unwashed masses, sorry it ended in such a predictable manner.

Okay, a couple of things here.  First, the development cycle of KSP is EXTREMELY unusual.  Generally speaking, when a game drops (and I've been playing video games since before most of you were born, starting with an Atari 2600) you get the finished product.  You don't get to see or participate in the development process, you find out about the game when the company previews or demos it and then you get the finished product.  With KSP, you've gotten to see the development side of things, and even have a say in it.  This alone is extraordinary for any product going to market, whether it be a video game, a car, or a new breakfast cereal.  We've gotten to be the world's largest focus group for a product in development.  I don't think a lot of you appreciate that.

Next, as so many others have pointed out, the only thing you need to know (and you really don't even need to know that) is that a group of devs left.  The reasons are wholly immaterial and literally none of your business.  If they people who left wanted the reasons to be known, they would be known. If they were making a statement in leaving, fine - the statement wasn't for you, it was for the employer.  You have zero expectation of inside knowledge here, any more than you deserve to know why your favorite celebrity couple got a divorce or why your favorite car company decided to switch from coke to pepsi in its cafeteria.  You paid for a product, you didn't buy stock in the company.  You've received that product.  If you have a problem with that product, Squad has an obligation to address your product-related problem.  They do NOT have any duty to discuss employment issues with anyone, and in fact it's probably illegal for them to do so.

The problem here, as I see it, is that this forum has created an expectation - an unreasonable sense of entitlement, even - of intimate knowledge of every facet of Squad's inner workings.  Life doesn't work like that.  You paid for a product, that doesn't mean the company has to lay itself bare to you an your slightest whim.  That doesn't mean people have the right to come on here and harass @RoverDude for trying to be candid because they don't like what he said.  Squad, in fact, has zero duty to even maintain this forum, and could pull the plug on it in the next five minutes and leave you all in the dark permanently.

It's clear that things are changing.  Squad has been less forthright about the doings of developers, Devs themselves have been less inclined to post on the forums (and no wonder) and they're hiring a lot more community-focused people to interact with us.  You're not going to have direct access to the developers anymore, you're going to have people like Baddie and Uoumowhatever to deal with.  That's how it's going to be.  You're not *entitled* to anything but that icon on your desktop.  Demanding answers and acting like a general-purpose douchebag on here isn't going to change that.  Some of you guys need to get over yourselves, seriously.

 

[KerikBalm]

I never claimed to have any sort of legal contract. I'm only addressing the idea that socially people are overstepping their bounds by wanting information about the ongoing development of a game they paid for.

At no point have I claimed that Squad has any legal or moral obligation to provide us any information

[Ignath]

3 minutes ago, monstah said:

You bought a game. You did your business, got what you paid for, and you're not doing business with Squad anymore by playing the game, or by being on the forum. And you most definitely do not have a service contract with Squad or any of its developers.

Quoted for truth.  You purchased the game, your business is over.  There is no "service contract" unless you're still paying for ongoing development?!

[KerikBalm]

Now people are taking my statements out of context and distorting them... I can see why squad doesn't want to deal with this bunch.

Just to go back to what I actually said:

Quote

This departure of devs affects the outcome of what we've paid for. Therefore it is "our business"... at least in the social sense.

In the legal contractual sense, they aren't obliged to explain this to us. They aren't even morally obliged to. However, I don't think its inappropriate for us to want information (in contrast, stalking a girl is definitely inappropriate).

 

Edited October 6, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Signo]

To be honest a lot of people around here did not buy a finished game but rather funded an idea. 

At least this was the way it was.

Nobody complains if the status quo is changing. 

Just, could anybody man up and tell us?

[Andem]

3 minutes ago, monstah said:

@Andem, I couldn't disagree more. In fact, I think you're the one being unnecessarily and unfairly harsh with him. He is having his job attacked; he is being accused of being a sock puppet; he is defending the people he (willingly and, it seems to me, proudly) works for, making a game he, you, I and everyone else in this forum loves. He is replying to accusations of Squad mistreating their employees stating that he loves working on the game and that his work conditions are fine, and that he can't say anything for the others because it's both illegal and unethical, and yet you insist on calling on him. Why? What do you expect him to do?

I'm going to need a citation on people in the community attacking @RoverDude, his job, or Squad. In my experience with threads, there have been no attacks. The legitimacy of their word has been called into question, but the community as a whole hasn't declared anyone guilty of anything. Calling something into question != attack.

8 minutes ago, monstah said:

Will you only be satisfied when someone starts naming names, narrating personal fights, disclosing who has received a better job proposition from where? Would you want that done to you?

Nice strawman there. Really high quality. I have said before in this very thread that all I want is a statement addressing the core reason for this uproar. There are already many explanations floating around. Even as much as "We can't disclose it at this time" would be enough.

5 minutes ago, tater said:

It strikes me that this thread is absurd. It's 6 pages, and there should be no post without an "ObFact" regarding the guys leaving.

ObFact: See initial announcement from reddit (there are no other facts).

Plato's Allegory of the Cave immediately springs to mind...

6 minutes ago, Ignath said:

The last controversy was with KerbalStuff, an ENTIRELY different situation than an employment situation and one in which the community did deserve answers.  

If you want to go back, look at what happened when Capt. Skunky, NovaSilisko and PDxTV (think that was his name) were fired/left, SQUAD said NOTHING about that nor confirmed/denied all those rumors at the time.  Same with Maxmaps...when he left, SQUAD said thanks for your work and moved on.  Dr Turkey, same thing...

SQUAD has NEVER commented on employee retention or release matters and NO ONE should ever expect them to.  Asking more than that is asking for the company to delve into employment/employee information that is and should always be confidential, to protect both the employee and the employer.

You missed my point by a mile... The point was, when a major controversy hit, they dealt with it immediately and put the concerns to rest. With all other departures, staff members left letters explaining why they left. What you say is technically correct, but you fail to see it in context.

 

If anything, I'm seeing the people arguing the other side being more "toxic" than we are.

[MaxPeck]

14 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

They are our concern. When you do business with a company, their employees are relevant to your business. Many times companies are bought up simply to acquire the employees (most often IP). If you have service contract a favorite garage/auto shop with a trusted mechanic, you'd be concerned if your trusted mechanic left and you'd want to at least know the qualifications of the replacement mechanic.

You don't have a service (or any other) contract with Squad.  And if you wanted to know the qualifications of the replacement mechanic, that's fine and totally within your rights as a consumer.  The reason your trusted mechanic left, however, and the internal workings and business practices of the shop are not in your purview unless you are a shareholder of the company, and a consumer demanding them is entirely inappropriate.  A business answers to its customers only where the goods or services delivered are concerned.  Demanding to know why the devs left or what goes on internally at Squad is about as appropriate as barging into the HQ of your cell phone carrier and demanding that all of their receptionists get longer lunch breaks.  

[Stargate525]

9 minutes ago, MaxPeck said:

@RoverDudeOkay, a couple of things here.  First, the development cycle of KSP is EXTREMELY unusual.  Generally speaking, when a game drops (and I've been playing video games since before most of you were born, starting with an Atari 2600) you get the finished product.  You don't get to see or participate in the development process, you find out about the game when the company previews or demos it and then you get the finished product.  With KSP, you've gotten to see the development side of things, and even have a say in it.  This alone is extraordinary for any product going to market, whether it be a video game, a car, or a new breakfast cereal.  We've gotten to be the world's largest focus group for a product in development.  I don't think a lot of you appreciate that.

This development model hasn't been extremely unusual for almost three years now. Early access, open betas, and perpetual development has been a growing norm since Minecraft.

[Andem]

2 minutes ago, Signo said:

To be honest a lot of people around here did not buy a finished game but rather funded an idea. 

At least this was the way it was.

Nobody complains if the status quo is changing. 

Just, could anybody man up and tell us?

Well, I may or may not protest, but I certainly don't pretend to be the end all of that decision.

[MaxPeck]

1 minute ago, Stargate525 said:

This development model hasn't been extremely unusual for almost three years now. Early access, open betas, and perpetual development has been a growing norm since Minecraft.

I can only think of a handful of games where that is true.  I don't think it's a growing norm inasmuch as it's a rookie mistake by a group of indie developers who don't know any better and learn the hard way when their "fan community" continually roasts them alive.

[Andem]

1 minute ago, MaxPeck said:

You don't have a service (or any other) contract with Squad.  And if you wanted to know the qualifications of the replacement mechanic, that's fine and totally within your rights as a consumer.  The reason your trusted mechanic left, however, and the internal workings and business practices of the shop are not in your purview unless you are a shareholder of the company, and a consumer demanding them is entirely inappropriate.  A business answers to its customers only where the goods or services delivered are concerned.  Demanding to know why the devs left or what goes on internally at Squad is about as appropriate as barging into the HQ of your cell phone carrier and demanding that all of their receptionists get longer lunch breaks.  

Extremely poor examples... that don't really work at all in this context. If you were to show up at the premises making demands, that would be one thing, but that's not what's happening here. People are inquiring, hoping that Squad will answer them (not demanding!) and shed the slightest bit of light on the matter. Your argument is based entirely on fallacies and assumptions as to the state of the community at large while not actually interacting with them.

[Ignath]

3 minutes ago, Andem said:

You missed my point by a mile... The point was, when a major controversy hit, they dealt with it immediately and put the concerns to rest. With all other departures, staff members left letters explaining why they left. What you say is technically correct, but you fail to see it in context.

No, I didn't...I got your point, but you missed mine.

The 2 situations you are comparing (a MOD website going down vs. confidential/proprietary employment information) are nowhere near the same things and should NEVER be handled the same within the community.  The fact is that you, myself and no one else on this Forum has the right to know what happened with an employment situation.  The only people who have the right to that information are SQUAD and the employee.  To disseminate that information would not only be harmful to SQUAD but could also jeopardize the future earning potential of the employee who left...what is so hard to understand about that?

Again I will state (and you likely weren't around for it) that nearly this same thing happened 3+ years ago when NovaSilisko, Capt. Skunky and PDxTV left/were fired.  Nothing was said by SQUAD, no announcements were made about why it happened and everyone freaked out...we never (except for posts from an obviously disgruntled PDxTV) got answers from SQUAD on that, and we won't on this either.  Frankly, it's none of anyone on this forums' business.

[MaxPeck]

1 minute ago, Andem said:

Extremely poor examples... that don't really work at all in this context. If you were to show up at the premises making demands, that would be one thing, but that's not what's happening here. People are inquiring, hoping that Squad will answer them (not demanding!) and shed the slightest bit of light on the matter. Your argument is based entirely on fallacies and assumptions as to the state of the community at large while not actually interacting with them.

No they're not.  @RoverDude's treatment in the last 48 hours is explicit proof of this.  I've been actively reading the threads related to this, because as a fan of the game I'm naturally interested in the state of development as well as the condition of the developer.  But the attitudes and actions of people on this forum, particularly with RoverDude have been downright APPALLING.  You, yourself antagonized the guy to the point that he gave up and left.  He tried, within reason, to answer some of the stuff being tossed around, and you basically called him a corporate shill and a liar.  That's not reasonable, and you WERE making demands.  Trying to whitewash it now is just disingenuous.  You have all the information you're entitled to, and frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself for the way you acted toward RoverDude.

[KerikBalm]

3 minutes ago, Andem said:

Extremely poor examples... that don't really work at all in this context. If you were to show up at the premises making demands, that would be one thing, but that's not what's happening here. People are inquiring, hoping that Squad will answer them (not demanding!) and shed the slightest bit of light on the matter. Your argument is based entirely on fallacies and assumptions as to the state of the community at large while not actually interacting with them.

Yea, and he seemed to miss the post I had just made crticizing posts like that as taking stuff out of context and distorting them...

Quoting me and then using words like "demanding" and "barging into" just distorts what I said and is dishonest.

Quote

In the legal contractual sense, they aren't obliged to explain this to us. They aren't even morally obliged to. However, I don't think its inappropriate for us to want information (in contrast, stalking a girl is definitely inappropriate).

Yea... that's the same as us barging into Squad's office and demanding that they tell us why Porkjet left, and that they give their employees longer lunch breaks.... sure...

[monstah]

12 minutes ago, Andem said:

I have said before in this very thread that all I want is a statement addressing the core reason for this uproar.

Oh?

On 04/10/2016 at 7:21 PM, UomoCapra said:

Mike (Mu), Bill (Taniwha), Nathanael (NathanKell), Sébastien (Sarbian), Jim (Romfarer), Brian (Arsonide), Chris (Porkjet) and Nathan (Claw) decided to part ways from Squad.

If you still want anything more than that, then don't call my argument a straw man.

[Ignath]

6 minutes ago, Andem said:

Extremely poor examples... that don't really work at all in this context. If you were to show up at the premises making demands, that would be one thing, but that's not what's happening here. People are inquiring, hoping that Squad will answer them (not demanding!) and shed the slightest bit of light on the matter. Your argument is based entirely on fallacies and assumptions as to the state of the community at large while not actually interacting with them.

Except the point is that you will never get those answers from SQUAD as it is none of your business why the 8 developers left.  You hold no stake in SQUAD and are not a shareholder, they owe you only the game you already paid for and have been delivered.

[Andem]

2 minutes ago, Ignath said:

No, I didn't...I got your point, but you missed mine.

The 2 situations you are comparing (a MOD website going down vs. confidential/proprietary employment information) are nowhere near the same things and should NEVER be handled the same within the community.  The fact is that you, myself and no one else on this Forum has the right to know what happened with an employment situation.  The only people who have the right to that information are SQUAD and the employee.  To disseminate that information would not only be harmful to SQUAD but could also jeopardize the future earning potential of the employee who left...what is so hard to understand about that?

Again I will state (and you likely weren't around for it) that nearly this same thing happened 3+ years ago when NovaSilisko, Capt. Skunky and PDxTV left/were fired.  Nothing was said by SQUAD, no announcements were made about why it happened and everyone freaked out...we never (except for posts from an obviously disgruntled PDxTV) got answers from SQUAD on that, and we won't on this either.  Frankly, it's none of anyone on this forums' business.

Your point doesn't make any sense if you actually understood mine. So tell me, what is my point then?

3 minutes ago, MaxPeck said:

No they're not.  @RoverDude's treatment in the last 48 hours is explicit proof of this.  I've been actively reading the threads related to this, because as a fan of the game I'm naturally interested in the state of development as well as the condition of the developer.  But the attitudes and actions of people on this forum, particularly with RoverDude have been downright APPALLING.  You, yourself antagonized the guy to the point that he gave up and left.  He tried, within reason, to answer some of the stuff being tossed around, and you basically called him a corporate shill and a liar.  That's not reasonable, and you WERE making demands.  Trying to whitewash it now is just disingenuous.  You have all the information you're entitled to, and frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself for the way you acted toward RoverDude.

Have you? Have you really? Because so have I, and apparently one us has logged onto a different forum than the other.

2 minutes ago, monstah said:

Oh?

If you still want anything more than that, then don't call my argument a straw man.

You know exactly what was intended and implied, don't play dumb.

3 minutes ago, Ignath said:

Except the point is that you will never get those answers from SQUAD as it is none of your business why the 8 developers left.  You hold no stake in SQUAD and are not a shareholder, they owe you only the game you already paid for and have been delivered.

Go on. keep spouting the same argument and watch people stop addressing it over and over again.

[Randazzo]

As entertaining as this soapbox talk show is, will there be any discussion of facts in this thread about facts?

I know the mods tend to let people vent a touch more than usual after a big announcement, but this is silly.

[Andem]

1 minute ago, Randazzo said:

As entertaining as this soapbox talk show is, will there be any discussion of facts in this thread about facts?

I know the mods tend to let people vent a touch more than usual after a big announcement, but this is silly.

Well. I won't say it, butt I know exactly when and where this became a blowout.

[Green Baron]

 

Fact:-) Half of the above mentioned devs is actually underway in the addon forum, caring about their work. Does that calm you, Andem ?

(sayyesandthenletsclosethis)

 

[monstah]

6 minutes ago, Andem said:

You know exactly what was intended and implied, don't play dumb.

I believe I know, yes, you want to know why exactly they left. It is none of your business.

Or maybe I'm just dumb.

[MaxPeck]

This entire thread, while well-intentioned, is nothing but amateur tabloidism. It's just a glaring example of entitlement.  

Here's what you need to know:

Some people quit.  Some others will be hired to take their place.  The next iteration of the game drops on Tuesday.

 

That's literally all there is.  ANYTHING else is speculation and prying into things that are none of anyone's business.  Thanks again to @RoverDude for trying to set the record straight, but nothing productive is going to come of this discussion.  I'm done.  You guys have fun arguing in circles until one of the mods comes to their senses and shuts this down.

[p1t1o]

Honestly, if i was squad, I'd lock this thread and never mention the subject of staff levels again.

[Ignath]

6 minutes ago, Andem said:

Your point doesn't make any sense if you actually understood mine. So tell me, what is my point then?

You think SQUAD owes us some sort of explanation for why the 8 developers left, but the fact of the matter is that they don't.  As a matter of fact, you stated exactly this in a reply to me earlier:

"The point was, when a major controversy hit, they dealt with it immediately and put the concerns to rest."

Then you completely dismissed my points:

1. that the situation is entirely different when you take into account the subjects at hand (a Mod website vs. Employment information) AND

2. that this has happened before in the past.  There were 3 devs/employees that left/were fired around the same time 3+ years ago.  No explanation was given back then, other than to say that their work was appreciated and thank them.  SQUAD did that here as well.  They've never given explanations as to why employees left/were let go and they (if they are smart) will never do so.