tstein Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 2 minutes ago, RayneCloud said: I read what you wrote. I do not agree with you. Moving on. Sons of Forest 50% (EA a nice match to comapre to KSP 2) Atomic Heart almost 40% Both games released in same week as KSP 2 both with hype , possibly way less hype than KSP 2. Facts. If you try to compare all games including fail releases where 60 players play in the first day (looking at you phantom brigade) then you will skew completely the numbers. Fact.. KSP is way below the expected behavior for a highly anticipated game when compared to the contenders of the same week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcAbaddon Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 I can imagine the average retention to be very low when you consider all kind of indie games and newcomer games without a fanbase. So that's something you need to take into account when comparing. I agree it looks low for KSP 2, though we should wait for the weekend numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moons Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) 7 minutes ago, tstein said: Sons of Forest 50% (EA a nice match to comapre to KSP 2) Atomic Heart almost 40% Both games released in same week as KSP 2 both with hype , possibly way less hype than KSP 2. Facts. If you try to compare all games including fail releases where 60 players play in the first day (looking at you phantom brigade) then you will skew completely the numbers. Fact.. KSP is way below the expected behavior for a highly anticipated game when compared to the contenders of the same week. And its 100% the fault of the publisher from my point of view. Knowing the state of the game the only logical reason would have been a delay of EA - or at least having a reasonable EA price like 99% of all other EA games - i wouldnt even call selling a game at an AAA price in an alpha/beta state EA at all ... Chances are they wont recover from this - and it was obvious that this would happen from the start to anyone that knew the state of the game and the general concept of EA - you cant just charge full AAA price at EA release for an alpha/beta and expect that people have absoluetely no expectations. If the game would have been released like this at 30 USD there would be positive reactions and many fans wouldnt have been put off. I own KSP1 and all DLC since day 1 - i was 100% certain i would buy this game on release - then i saw the price and now chances are i will never buy it because i dont believe it has a future. I also had a lot of trust in the company behind it - all of that is pretty much gone now. If that was the goal - mission accomplished. Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcAbaddon Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) I think it's easy to blame the publisher, but we just don't have details. They are paying for the game after all and if the devs keep making promises they can't keep, what's the publisher to do at some point? NOT saying this is what happened here, just that we don't know. Edited March 3, 2023 by MarcAbaddon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Aziz Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 24 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said: I'm not suggesting that every single post needs a response; far from it. But even a once every two days 'hey, we hear you, we are working; thank so much for sticking around!' type post would be appreciated. Something suggesting 'hey - we will have a patch up in a week' would be excellent. Reminds me of the City Watch from Discworld. Every day ringing the bell "everything is fine" and moving on. It does nothing and gets boring. In fact such post is already out, do they need to repeat the same thing over and over? And the patch will be up when it's ready, not when they predict it will be or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RayneCloud Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 I'm an idealist, I just want to see factual data and fair and reasoned responses in our justified feedback to the dev team. It's hard for me to let go of how much KSP 1 and this community meant to me, and it's always been a dream of mine to return to the franchise (never gonna happen though, ) and what I'm hoping for here is to just give people that "other side" perspective so they can make more well informed decisions. The truth is, communication right now is not good and needs a lot of work. The game itself is unplayable for 50% of the community, and has a massively degraded play experience for the other 50% that are willing to work through and past it. If anything, what I'd love to see most is a full post launch reply from @Nate Simpsonto see his thoughts and get a plan from him, but I imagine he's uber busy working. KSP means a lot to all of us, so believe me when I say that I'm not downplaying anything, or trying to invalidate anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcAbaddon Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) I think if he has time to communicate that would actually do much to demonstrate things are working more or less smoothly. As the lead he should be able to delegate most of the fixing and focus on the big picture stuff. Edited March 3, 2023 by MarcAbaddon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razark Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 How would the player retention look if KSP2 was not a sequel? Many of the players have been around a long time and have invested a lot into a game they already know, with a much richer set of features already implemented, mods galore, and save files going back years. How many of the retained players are new vs former KSP players? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moons Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 15 minutes ago, MarcAbaddon said: I think it's easy to blame the publisher, but we just don't have details. They are paying for the game after all and if the devs keep making promises they can't keep, what's the publisher to do at some point? NOT saying this is what happened here, just that we don't know. Who else would be responsible - the publisher decides on the budget, release and price and in this case the publisher actually bought the rights to this game and created a developer for it? This isnt some external studio etc. ... Even if the Developer had issues - those issues would be management and funding issues - and that would again be a problem of the publisher ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tstein Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Just now, Moons said: Who else would be responsible - the publisher decides on the budget, release and price and in this case the publisher actually bought the rights to this game and created a developer for it? This isnt some external studio etc. ... Even if the Developer had issues - those issues would be management and funding issues - and that would again be a problem of the publisher ... A lot of people can cause it . I will say that ANY SINGLE middle manager, if shielded by a bad director can send such a project into hell easily. No need to be publisher fault (although it can be) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moons Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) 4 minutes ago, razark said: How would the player retention look if KSP2 was not a sequel? Many of the players have been around a long time and have invested a lot into a game they already know, with a much richer set of features already implemented, mods galore, and save files going back years. How many of the retained players are new vs former KSP players? Way worse - and they would have way less sales to begin with. Please just stop making excuses when its so obvious ... Sons of the Forest has 170k players right now Forst 1 24k - according to your logic that doesnt make sense? SOTF released on 23.02 and players dropped - in a longer period from 424k to 172k. Why are people so obsesssed with whitewashing - this is helping no one. This game has problems and they have to be solved soon if this game should ever recover from this. Finding excuses for everything wont help anybody. Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fullmetal Analyst Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 11 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said: Virtually zero interaction from the Community Management team, they did in fact post an update, they just think its not worth posting it here on the forums, instead we have to rely on random users posting their tweets here guess they prefer using twitter for this, so they can use the character limit for an excuse to not post full patch notes or something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razark Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 1 minute ago, Moons said: Please just stop making excuses I'm not making excuses, just wondering a little "what if". 2 minutes ago, Moons said: according to your logic that doesnt make sense? Sure. I have no idea what "Sons of the Forest" or "Forst" are. 3 minutes ago, Moons said: Why are people so obsesssed with whitewashing - this is helping no one. Neither does being obsessed over a failed game. It'll get fixed or it won't. Nothing short of learning to perform all the tasks needed, obtaining the source code, and doing it all yourself is going to assure you that you are ever going to get the game you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcwaffles2003 Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 4 minutes ago, Moons said: Sons of the Forest has 170k players right now Forst 1 24k - according to your logic that doesnt make sense? Are those games in EA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuckatelli Posted March 3, 2023 Author Share Posted March 3, 2023 33 minutes ago, The Aziz said: Every day ringing the bell "everything is fine" and moving on. That level of disregard would be almost as annoying, I will grant you that. Still - it's like they have no concept of the reputational harm that is occurring. This Dev team and community deserve better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tstein Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 15 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said: Are those games in EA? yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moons Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) 4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said: That level of disregard would be almost as annoying, I will grant you that. Still - it's like they have no concept of the reputational harm that is occurring. This Dev team and community deserve better. Well lets just hope it was just a badly planned launch and not some sort of test of consumer interrest because of the long development time etc. What i really dont like about this is EA - since it means - as far as i know - buying "as is" so there is no guarantee for a finished product. I would have thought twice if it was beeing sold as a pre-order that gifted some sort of alpha/beta access to the game. Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilkoot Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 1 hour ago, tstein said: focus on the ones that stopped, because the turn over cases are the ones that will pinpoint you the real reason why their sales suffer Very true, esp in a non-subscription model and doubly so when fleeing users outnumber retained ones. It seems harsh, but as far as sales and retention go (i.e., the reason the business exists), loyal, resilient players' feedback is of limited value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuckatelli Posted March 3, 2023 Author Share Posted March 3, 2023 13 minutes ago, Moons said: What i really dont like about this is EA - since it means - as far as i know - buying "as is" so there is no guarantee for a finished product. I would have thought twice if it was beeing sold as a pre-order that gifted some sort of alpha/beta access to the game. The pricing should have certainly reflected the game state better. Pricing at $50 - which is, admittedly a discount over the planned 1.0 price - tells players that the game is in a true EA state; one that can be enjoyed fully with the features that are available and that more features are forthcoming. This is not in an EA state. Basics are not functioning like undocking a craft from a booster - and having the game label the endstage with the Kerbal in it as "Debris" with no way to switch to or control the craft boosters pulling fuel past decouplers and draining descent stage tanks wings that don't connect correctly to planes and flap instead of fly docking ports that explode ships when decoupled Selecting 'destroy debris' in the Space Center - and confirming - does not destroy debris Recover vessel - Kerbals disappear Taking a plane for a flight - and the camera angle is on its side by default Hell - just look at the bug report page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Aziz Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 42 minutes ago, Fullmetal Analyst said: they can use the character limit for an excuse to not post full patch notes or something Have you read Dakota's response or not? I guess you have. Besides, you can't post patch notes if there's no patch yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLTay Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) 11 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said: Pricing at $50 - which is, admittedly a discount over the planned 1.0 price - tells players that the game is in a true EA state; As a finance person, pricing at $50 bucks after years of delays and being rushed out the door in this state indicates (to me) the following: They're done funding development, and the project needs to fund itself with sales revenue from here forward. Given the current state of things, they're likely to rapidly burn through the current sales revenue with little to no more influx until more stability or features are completed. No telling after (5?) years of development when that will be. I do not have access to their books, but looking at this purely from a financial perspective, if sales are as bad as I suspect, and with the history of development issues, cancellation is a strong consideration, IMO. Edited March 3, 2023 by TLTay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilkoot Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Just now, The Aziz said: Besides, you can't post patch notes if there's no patch yet. Just looking through the builds, and it's like Dev->Dev->Release Test->Dev->Dev->Candidate->Dev->Dev (repeat). It seems like they're not yet sure what they'll be able to reliably fix yet, so probably no patch notes until the very last moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moons Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 1 minute ago, TLTay said: As a finance person, pricing at $50 bucks after years of delays and being rushed out the door in this state indicates (to me) the following: They're done funding development, and the project needs to fund itself with sales revenue from here forward. Given the current state of things, they're likely to rapidly burn through the current sales revenue with little to no more influx until more stability or features are completed. No telling after (5?) years when that will be. I do not have access to their books, but looking at this purely from a financial perspective, if sales are as bad as I suspect, and with the history of development issues, cancellation is a strong consideration, IMO. Yeah i really hope thats not the case because that would be bad - and it would probably mean the end of the KSP franchise and it would probably also damage the reputation of the publisher ... What i dont understand is - arround the world countries are arguing we need more people in tech - we need more females in tech etc. - a game like this probably brings more new people into tech than 99% of all campaigns done by marketing etc. - shouldnt it be possible to get governmental grants etc. for a game like this - it should be easy to market this to governments as educational and as a tool to get more people in the thech industry and kids interrested in tech? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pthigrivi Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Jebus Dakota was just here like yesterday. They're working on the game. When the next patch is ready they'll let us know. Patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tstein Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 7 minutes ago, Moons said: Yeah i really hope thats not the case because that would be bad - and it would probably mean the end of the KSP franchise and it would probably also damage the reputation of the publisher ... What i dont understand is - arround the world countries are arguing we need more people in tech - we need more females in tech etc. - a game like this probably brings more new people into tech than 99% of all campaigns done by marketing etc. - shouldnt it be possible to get governmental grants etc. for a game like this - it should be easy to market this to governments as educational and as a tool to get more people in the thech industry and kids interrested in tech? If it was government funded it would cost 400 billion, would be delayed for 11 years and would have an operational ratio of under 30%.. oo wait, that is the F-35... but close enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts