Numberyellow

you are implying that worth is static. It is not. Take your car for example. It has a blue book value....that is nothing more than an average of it's market value....which is determined by sales data. The prices being used for that average are the result of what individual parties value the car at. Now, you may think your specific car is worth more, because that's the value YOU put on it. I may not think it's worth that much, and i may offer you blue book for it, or less... there is literally nothing wrong with you saying you don't want to sell to me, because i'm not offering you a number you think is fair. The value of a thing is entirely subjective. So, no, i'm not saying Take-Two was in the wrong, if Star Theory owners were holding out for more.... i'm saying they're in the wrong for destroying the company after negotiations fell through. You're employing a straw-man.

Yes, but doesn't the WAY the big one eats the small one matter? If Star Theory simply got bought out by Take-Two, like the way EA bought out Westwood back in the day, it would suck, but it wouldn't have been scummy. small companies sell out to bigger companies all the time, either because they're tired of trying to compete, or because it's fiscally advantageous. Willingly merging with another company is one thing, having your company dismantled, having everything forcibly taken from you...that's something entirely different.

I think this effort you have started, to try and focus the conversation, is worthwhile. It shows you are able to see the bigger picture, and the gaps in it.. It is good. Whether or not this bears out, is another story entirely. I do hope it does, though.

I like this. It's very well thought-out, and is thought-provoking. Good job. Is that level of specificity really necessary? You remind me of an attorney trying to get his client off on a technicality. It smacks of reaching. Is it not enough to simply know that there was a disagreement between the parties, as to the terms of the sale?

This reminds me something from my past... I used to work for a company. I was a field supervisor, fairly high up in the company.. i only answered to a handful of people. A guy who was just a manager of one of our affiliates SOLD his company to the owners of our company, in exchange for a sum of money, and a position as a part owner of the new merged company, with direct control over all operations for the division his former company was responsible for. As a part owner, he also had the ability to make policy, and eliminate people from other divisions. He didn't like me very much. We butted heads constantly, but because of the fact that i was in another division, and untouchable by him, his resentment grew, and grew. As soon as he became a partner in the company, he set a plan in motion to get rid of me. One day, during a particularly difficult job, he harassed me on the phone. I argued with him, and he threatened to create a new position within the company with an identical job description to mine, hire someone, and then eliminate the position i was occupying, "this is how i'll get rid of you", he said to me. Unfortunately for him, i had him on speaker...i thought i was alone, but it turns out the customer i was servicing overheard the conversation. They, unbeknownst to me, called the company our company was under contract to, and made a huge stink, threatened to cancel their account. Next thing i know, i'm in a room with one of the owners (not the one who was trying to get rid of me), who's telling me about the whole thing.... this effectively put an end to the guy's plans to get rid of me cleanly. Sadly, i couldn't outmanuver him entirely. He decided to do things the hard way, and pushed me out of the company, making me as miserable as possible, along the way. I tell this story, to illustrate that i have first-hand knowledge of how these things happen.

"without sufficient evidence" That is laughable.. "One company then took action to protect its IP and secure future development of it." You can be as sterile and clinical as you want.... it doesn't change the fact that what they did wasn't right. They couldn't get what they wanted on their terms, so they just took it, and destroyed the other company in the process.

A small indie house managing to attract talent from a large corporation doesn't put the large corporation out of business. It's an inconvenience, rather than a (pardon the pun) game-ender. What people have a problem with is the way in which Take-Two conducted itself during this affair. "Don't want to sell to us on our terms? We'll just go around you, and TAKE everything we want, and leave you with nothing". If you don't see a problem with that kind of behavior, i don't think anyone here can help you.

I can personally attest to the truthfulness of this statement.

I see what you did there. The issue in question is far heavier, than your trivial comparison. You paint people who don't want to support a company that does things they find morally repugnant, as irrational, and petty. At the end of the day, it is our money, to spend as we see fit, and if we decide we do not want to reward this kind of behavior, that is our prerogative.

When you have two parties, and you favor neither of them, that is the definition of impartiality, and the opposite of bias. I agree that we need more information, though we're unlikely to get it from Take-Two. As with the Nord situation.... if you're hiding it from your customers, it's probably bad.

Right up until Take-Two finds some scummy way to take it away from us.

ahh, ok. I'm not as "into" bioware as i'm into Westwood. All i know is that Westwood made great games, and they got shafted. and Bioware USED to make good games, and then totally ruined the ME franchise, in favor of a poorly-crafted Destiny clone....and then both games flopped.

Actually, Westwood was dissolved in '03, after the release of "C&C: Renegade", and "Earth and Beyond". Also i thought all the major staff were working on Bioware's OTHER stunning failure: "Anthem". You're right about making deals with the devil though.

except it's not generosity.... that's like putting an injured field tech on desk duty, and acting like you're doing them a favor... Labor law says you can't get rid of them because they're injured, so you HAVE to put them somewhere. They wanted to buy Star Theory, Star Theory wasn't willing to sell on Take-Two's terms. so they pulled the contract, poached the staff, and got everything they wanted, without having to make any compromises. Assigning a new team to the project wouldn't have been a viable option, as it would have resulted in lost development time while the new team got up to speed, and it probably would have resulted in a product that was substantially different from what's currently being worked on. They wanted the company, and that's essentially what they got, because a company is nothing, without staff. It was a scummy thing to do, and trying to characterize it as anything else is just plain ignorance and naivete.

This kind of reminds me of that time that NORDVPN had that intrusion in to their network, due to lousy security at one of the datacenters they were renting from. The intruder managed to infiltrate the system, and intercept client data. Nord hid the whole affair from their customers for nearly 2 years. Finally, someone in the company spills the beans, and then Nord lies, and says that no client data was intercepted....a few days later, the customer data that wasn't intercepted was dumped to a pastebin for everyone to see. Had it not been for that whistleblower in the company, nobody would have ever even known that any of this had happened. to this day, it still floors me that anyone would shill for Nord.

i don't believe i'm biased here. Yes, i do very much dislike Take-Two....but it's for legit reasons. I was also VERY skeptical of Star Theory.....as the company they USED to be, didn't really have all that many accomplishments.. While i really did like Monday Night Combat, i never really thought the company that spawned that fun little diversion, was the right choice to build the successor to KSP. So i guess you could say i'm not really a fan of either party, which would mean i'm not really biased.. That, aside, We have the information in the article on one side, and we have our knowledge of how Take-Two operates, and the kind of scummy stuff they do.. The math is pretty simple here.

don't get it twisted... hiring a new team would have been disastrously costly for Take-Two. poaching Star Theory's staff saved them the money of having to lose development time while a new team gets up to speed. i don't think they actually give a damn about getting the game right, they just want to see some return on their investment as soon as possible.

no, which is that, as per the article, they were in negotiations, star theory opted not to sell, and so Take Two decided to take what they wanted. unless you're saying the article is bunk

My statements are based on available information. Given Take-Two's track record of scummy behavior, this move is not out of character for them.

They'll either interpret it as "there's no market for space games", or they'll see the protest for what it is, and target original KSP, in an attempt to force KSP2 sales. if we're really lucky, and this'll never happen, but if we were really lucky they'd either make KSP open source, and let the community make it better, OR sell the IP back to it's original owners..

Pepperidge Farm Remembers. Cute. You know what i mean. Please stop being argumentative. I've got plenty of other reasons to despise Take-Two, and not want to give them my money. This is just the latest in a long list. And in case you're wondering, no, i'm not one of those "corporations are evil" types. If i dislike a company, it's because they've done something genuinely lousy. i'm talking about the subsequent ship-jumpers. the ones who didn't initially go

The protest will come when the game is released, and next to nobody buys it. not purchasing the game is really the only way to protest. is it really that interesting? KSP was their only project.. their only income source. With the pandemic, they were unable to shop project ideas to publishers. It's a matter of having a job, and not having a job. Which option would you take?

As i understand, Star Theory was in negotiations to sell the company to Take-Two, but they decided not to, because they were unhappy with the terms.. After they declined to sell, Take-Two pulled this childish crap. As if i didn't need yet another reason to never buy another Take-two product.. KSP's future died the second Squad sold the IP to Take-Two.

It's kinda what they do.. I think they're trying to replace EA as "biggest scumbags in the industry"

Thanks, friend. I suspected it was 2.0.8, but i wasn't sure. i noticed with later releases, he would state in the notes: "this is the final update for [insert KSP version here]", but there wasn't one for 1.2.2. now, maybe i can finally finish this damned rover.