Fallarnon

Yeah unfortunately I've got this thread on subscribe so your post here cluttered up my inbox and caught my eye. You came down really hard on a relatively new user who. while deserving of a polite prod saying 'hey, you should really have read the most recent replies here before posting' did not need the smack down you delivered and, worse, you were objectively incorrect about the rule (actually, they're called guidelines here). You misquoted it and, worse, applied a stricter interpretation than even the moderators do. The guidelines are designed to enforce things in accordance with a specific spirit in which they have been enacted, not applied as black and white do or do not regulations. Even if a rule had been listed overtly forbidding asking such a question, the spirit behind said rule is to prevent spam and harassment of mod authors. By contrast, a single request in a thread for a modder whose last post on the topic was months ago is not violating that spirit, and further that's not even what was asked. The guy didn't read, that much is obvious, but he didn't violate a rule.

Actually you pretty well demonstrated you don't understand where we're coming from at all. The point is that if you're going to stand on principle about alleged offenses on a small scale by a small time developer you should stand on the same principle with regards to offenses by big companies that have been independently verified. Nike, for example, sells shoes for $140+/pair that they pay $2/week to a worker to make, a rate which isn't even a living wage in the areas they employ them in.

I do so love how you danced around actually contradicting my statement without actually presenting any meaningful presentation of 'facts' about your experience (as you say, those same murky waters enable pufferfish to prosper) so I'll go ahead and do the same. You see, you're the one sitting here making sweeping declarations about what Squad would have accomplished if they had been well managed, completely unsubstantiable claims. Now, you could have been more reserved about it, something lighter like 'KSP would probably be in much better shape today if Squad had been able to employ some Unity experts' is just reasonable sounding and nebulous enough to pass muster, but to just outright declare that it would be done now if they'd done X? No chance, you're not getting a pass there chief. Bad tactics, sure you can say that, but the objection was to your declaration of the project status in your hypothetical situation without a shred of basis in fact. Such a sweeping statement makes me doubt very highly that you've ever managed a project involving a substantial programming effort. People experienced with software development know better than to make such broad claims. Edit: You know what... this is all academic. As you've so aptly noted it's the internet, you could say you're Bill Gates and I'd have no way to prove it or disprove it. Suffice to say sweeping declarations should be based on fact, not bandied about willy nilly on a whim.

Quoted for truth.

That would basically qualify as an alternative form of compensation to which no cash value can be ascribed, and, still doesn't change my point. He still has the ability to attach that name to his resume/CV so that wasn't taken away. As I said, this is an obvious attempt to inspire clickbait articles about how Squad mistreated the guy when, again, he was clearly okay with that wage at the time. Don't forget, sales outside of the KSP website are going to be subject to a 30% cut (industry average) going to the marketplace (Steam, Humble Store, GoG, etc.) and anything they took in on their website was hit for merchant processing fees. All of that before taxes and overhead like keeping the lights on, doors open, and employees paid. Really? Would you care to share your intimate knowledge of game development and the challenges that Squad has faced with the rest of the class that allowed you to come to such a profound conclusion? I mean seriously, what a bunch of unsubstantiable... I can't even. Game development is far from an exact science, it's really really really easy to sit around and armchair monday-morning quarterback, sitting here with the full benefit of hindsight and, unless I misjudge greatly, not a lick of industry experience to back it up and tell a developer what they should have done when deciding about X situation and wholly another thing to actually be there in the grind of things day to day making the hard decisions. We do? Have you considered the fact that without those owners fronting the money that enabled those developers to do what they did none of it would be possible in the first place? I mean really, this idea that this stuff just happens and the financial burden assumed by the owners is negligible really bugs me. They mad a high risk investment in an idea and it paid off, why shouldn't they get to reap the rewards of this? Can't you? What he said about brands like Nike and such, here's a novel idea, don't buy them. You don't need a cell phone, people got along just fine without them for centuries. There are plenty of responsibly sourced and produced products available on the market, sure they cost more but that's the price you pay for ensuring the person who made your shoes was paid a fair wage. I'd bet you dollars to doughnuts the "American" developers you're referring to, being remote from the actual company, were hired on a contractor basis. If so, they again must have been happy enough with the wage and fringe benefits to put in these hours when it was demanded of them et al.

Shall we begin handing out tinfoil caps? Who buried what? Two threads talking about the same exact thing were merged. PR what? Buried how? Identical information merged into thread discussing same. Issue?!?! While that's all nice to think about as someone who works for a game company I can say without reservation that it just doesn't work out that way in real life. Liked for the sake of the edit. I've fallen afoul of the milestone gremlin myself on many a forum.

I have yet to hear of any job responsibilities that would substantiate a 40+ hr/wk job so thus far it strikes me as more of a contractor who got overzealous and ended up with an inflated sense of self-worth as a result. Regardless of the potential that the alleged salary may be a highly livable wage wherever this guy might live, the biggest takeaway from all of this is that he was let go, not quit, so he was clearly okay with that wage at the time. If he was okay with being paid it under the terms of his contract with Squad why should I be upset for him when he clearly wasn't upset enough to quit? I mean really, the whole salary thing smacks of being solely designed to elicit outraged gnashing of teeth at the idea that some guy was paid pennies on the hour while Squad made bank.

Something just occurred to me that I don't think has been pointed out yet. If Squad doesn't care about their workers' well being why have they all gone on a two week vacation?

@regex seems to be asking for those individual answers from where I sit.

I think @regex's point is mostly a 'so what, what does it change?' Everybody here pretty much has long ago bought the game, even if some small fraction of those who bought it recently are eligible for refunds, will they care enough about the plight of some stranger they've never met who had a bad experience three years ago to get a refund? Before Squad had their information hidden on SteamSpy records indicated that KSP had sold over a million units on Steam alone. On. Steam. Alone. Even if Squad were to be forced to suspend all sales of KSP everywhere as a result of this, they've taken in massive sums of money and can likely happily go on their way. So, what's the plan if these allegations all come out as the true state of affairs at Squad? At this point KSP is such a massive success that it would take a herculean effort and widespread media cooperation to have any kind of meaningful success at harming KSP's future sales. Like @regex said, what are people going to do, stop accepting the free support and updates to the game?

Like I said, if this is really this guy and the other four named parties agree with his allegations a Reddit AMA would put much of what I've had to say to rest, provided they answered questions in an unbiased manner (e.g. answering even ones that don't necessarily help towards sticking pitchforks in Squad) but right now we've got someone on a site which offers near complete anonymity claiming to be this guy and claiming all of these things happened with literally no verification of any kind.

Simply declaring these points irrelevant or invalid doesn't make them so. Other similar claims by other people formerly associated with the project do not automatically make his claims true, or indeed prove his claims in any way. In fact, they could serve to undermine this whole thing given that his declared motive is to harm Squad it is not unreasonable to suspect that this post could be an outright fabrication using allegations that were known to already be floating around the community and enhancing them to aid the apparent credibility of the post by seeming to agree with other claims made. That's the real issue here, once the guy revealed his motive he threw all credibility for what he's said up in the air. I return again to the point that he was apparently content enough with the status quo prior to his termination that he continued to work there. Want to impress me with the 'truthiness' of what he says? Get all four parties, himself and the other three employees he named in his post, to do a Reddit AMA together as a group and make themselves available and open to cross examination. Right now we've got the alleged unsubstantiated claims of one of an alleged four parties who could provide some degree of cross-verification posted on a message board known for its anonymity. With a Reddit AMA such anonymity is not accepted, identity must be verified.

The relevance is that there are a lot of indicators here that contribute their respective grains of salt to what he's decided to say. Given the implications of such a post upon his future potential in the industry, he's either not had the maturity to recognize how stupid such a post is or has decided he's got nothing left to lose. If he hasn't been able to obtain gainful employ in the time since he was dismissed from Squad, it brings into question whether or not he was dismissed for the reasons he claims or because a more capable ass filled the seat. Not knowing the terms of his employment brings into question whether or not he was being paid a reasonable rate. If he was only contracted to work a couple of hours per week preparing a newsletter then $2400 isn't some incredibly unfair sum. The fact is that anyone taking his side on this is judging Squad based on a whole bunch of unsubstantiated claims from one alleged former employee Lol, I was about to PM the mods and ask em to get rid of it, I got the editor stuck on here and nothing else I tried seemed to be able to clear it.

When most of the really critical bugs are out of their hands and the others are minor nuisances? Absolutely. If you're under some delusion that this or any other software product will ever be completely free of bugs you should really disabuse yourself of it, outside of 'Hello, World' there aren't many.