What Facts Do We Know About The Devs Leaving?

[Sirad]

I strongly suggest Low Pay and bad Management. Any dev who get knowledge of that is quite smart to get out of it as long as possible. If i would code that and seeeeee My Boss is not willing to invest even the tinyest fraction of the millions earned then you know its flogging a dead horse. Leave.This'l lead to nothin.

Question: Why should a company who earned (my guess 50.000.000 Dollars) in selling that game but only investing the least anyhow possible of that in future development of it change the way it runs until it runs ? Business is no Playgarden. ´So whip everything possible out of the devs and pile up the Money in Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Even cute little Green Aliens can be jerks!

[RoverDude]

@Sirad - Except that what you describe was not and is not my experience.  So while you are free to 'suggest' all you want, I'll happily counter that with facts.

Fact.  We negotiated our own compensation.

Fact.  We negotiated the hours we were willing to commit to the work.

Fact.  On numerous occasions, we were told to rest, to not work weekends, to take it easy, and in that same conversation, told that certain timeframes were adjustable.

Fact.  There were regular enquiries made to make sure I was happy, not burnt out, asked if there was anything the business could provide that I needed, etc. - in other words, a pretty genuine concern for the welfare of the team.  And pretty par for the course on what I'd expect management to do (I do the same with my own engineering team).  

Fact.  I work precisely the hours I have contracted for.  No more, no less.  It's how I maintain work life balance.

Fact.  These represent a single data point (mine).  But that data point is from someone who has worked with (and continues to work with) Squad since after the 0.90 launch.

Also - note Nestor's relevant facts (quoted)

"Fact: Chris (porkjet) left a few weeks ago in a totally unrelated event. He told me he had a new working opportunity. Not sure why he is listed with the rest of the group.

Fact: Sebastian (sarbian) was invited as a temporal [sic] dev to help fixing bugs until 1.2 was released"

[p1t1o]

I gather there was one squad ex-employee who vocalised some fairly strong negative opinions of squad.

We have all met "that guy", it isn't a surprise to anyone that someone dissatisfied with his compnay/job would publicly badmouth them, nor would it be a surprise to find out that his opinions are highly unreliable. Similar could be said for another "that guy", who remains at the company, who posts incessantly positive things about it, regardless of what happens to his colleagues.

But Im a scientist, I can try and look at things objectively. Lets call that one guy a datapoint. 1 strongly negative datapoint.

So then we have Roverdude, his reports and opinions are undeniably, another datapoint, strongly positive.

Its hard to quantify exactly how positive/negative these datapoints are, so to help approach an estimate, we will assume "+1" and "-1".

So let those two datapoints cancel out, for arguments sake. An objective assessment of the reliability of each report cannot be performed at this time.

Now where are we. Not much left in the negative column as far as I know. Im pretty sure I have seen one or two more positive reports, but am uncertain, so lets ignore those too.

So we are at neutral.

 

If we assume neutral, what does the dev "exodus" tell us? It tells us that the business is...running normally, with expected occasional staff turnover. 

That it correlates with deadlines is...obviously to be expected?

 

Unless there are yet more ex-squad employees waiting in the wings to give scathing reveiws, Im not sure what there is to discuss.

Sure, the development process of KSP itself can be debated until the cows come home (my own opinion: its a unique piece of software developed under unusual conditions, taking that into account, along with the quality of the working content, KSP and squad perform admirably), but that is another matter. 

The matter of the staff exodus (how we were informed, what squad said about it and how it will likely affect KSP) is, in my opinion, pretty ok.

***

The insane conclusions (and certainty!) that some in the community can generate from such sparse data would put a quantum computer to shame!

Edited October 12, 2016 by Red Iron Crown
Removed quote

[Mycroft]

  On 10/12/2016 at 1:10 PM, RoverDude said:

@Sirad - Except that what you describe was not and is not my experience.  So while you are free to 'suggest' all you want, I'll happily counter that with facts.

Fact.  We negotiated our own compensation.

Fact.  We negotiated the hours we were willing to commit to the work.

Fact.  On numerous occasions, we were told to rest, to not work weekends, to take it easy, and in that same conversation, told that certain timeframes were adjustable.

Fact.  There were regular enquiries made to make sure I was happy, not burnt out, asked if there was anything the business could provide that I needed, etc. - in other words, a pretty genuine concern for the welfare of the team.  And pretty par for the course on what I'd expect management to do (I do the same with my own engineering team).  

Fact.  I work precisely the hours I have contracted for.  No more, no less.  It's how I maintain work life balance.

Fact.  These represent a single data point (mine).  But that data point is from someone who has worked with (and continues to work with) Squad since after the 0.90 launch.

Also - note Nestor's relevant facts (quoted)

"Fact: Chris (porkjet) left a few weeks ago in a totally unrelated event. He told me he had a new working opportunity. Not sure why he is listed with the rest of the group.

Fact: Sebastian (sarbian) was invited as a temporal [sic] dev to help fixing bugs until 1.2 was released"

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Noted.

btw, thanks for all your amazing hard work and being willing to put up with **** and being bad mouthed and called a SQUAD toady. There are several people in this thread, who shall remain unnamed, who seem to make irrationality a habit, and constantly revive dead issues even after being explicitly told not to. You just have to ignore those, and rest assured that the rest of the community thinks very highly of you (when your name pops up on a mod, that automatically says quality) and is supportive of you. Don't get discouraged over a few, vocal haters.

[Superfluous J]

  On 10/12/2016 at 1:10 PM, RoverDude said:

Fact: Sebastian (sarbian) was invited as a temporal [sic] dev to help fixing bugs until 1.2 was released"

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Time Travel confirmed for 1.3.

No wait. Of course that's not going to happen.

Time Travel mod confirmed.

[stibbons]

Time travel is already in stock. Variable speed, but slightly directionally nerfed.

[Mycroft]

  On 10/12/2016 at 4:02 PM, stibbons said:

Time travel is already in stock. Variable speed, but slightly directionally nerfed.

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Through config editing, you can set the time to anything you want!

[Red Iron Crown]

Removed some more posts, please stop attacking each other personally and namecalling. 

[something]

Staff changes with a higher frequency in Mexico and the US than say in western Europe or Japan (where some employees never change the company). (working in an international company gives you some insight in oversee offices) As a consequence, I am not that much worried about a Mexican company having a ridiculously high staff rotation (from a European point of view), but I am a bit worried about 8 people leaving at once. To be fair, we do know that some of those people left in the last weeks but it wasn't announced until now. That might just be bad and/or slow communication - stuff like that happens, even in German companies.

From my side, I'll download version 1.2 some day, test it and wait for my mods to update. And time  will tell in which direction the development goes... I am tense to find out - both - in a positive and a negative sense.

[Sirad]

  On 10/12/2016 at 4:50 PM, something said:

I am not that much worried about a Mexican company having a ridiculously high staff rotation (from a European point of view), but I am a bit worried about 8 people leaving at once.

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This is something that can be the source of precious speculation. All else what comes with it (loss of even more precious knowledge) is just something that will affect the bloody 'Customer' anyway at the end. But, Squad is no Charity at all. So all of those that think of that this we have so beautiful loving community and we are alltogether a big family, huh wake up. Read your License Agreement.

 

If the 'Big Developer Exodus' leads to a better Game then all'll shout Hurray. But for me it has a stinky smell and is in 'middevelopment' even for the usual American Hire-and-Fire Stile no logical decision. And it stinks from both sides.

[Stache K]

As someone who normally doesn't follow these things, I had no idea anything was going on until I saw a Scott Manley video where he discussed some of this. This post is an excellent summary of the situation for someone just trying to figure out what is going on and I just want to thank you for putting it together Mycroft.

[pandaman]

I understand the concerns that the departure of several of the most well known devs (under whatever circumstances you may choose to believe) could have a negative effect of future KSP development through loss of expertise and experience etc.

BUT...   They left the game in a very good state (from what I can tell), several familiar and very experienced devs are still working for Squad, and squad have said that there are more devs working on it too, of which we currently know very little, but that doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing.

ALSO. .. It would appear to me that the devs that left did so on generally good terms with squad.  Which means there could be a fair chance that they may well be prepared to help out again on similar temporary arrangements to those just ended, should the need arise.

Therefore I see very little cause for alarm.  We are all concerned for the future of KSP, and that's no bad thing,  but I don't personally feel as of the end is imminent by a long way.  KSP has matured a lot the last two releases.

[Mycroft]

  On 10/12/2016 at 8:28 PM, Stache K said:

As someone who normally doesn't follow these things, I had no idea anything was going on until I saw a Scott Manley video where he discussed some of this. This post is an excellent summary of the situation for someone just trying to figure out what is going on and I just want to thank you for putting it together Mycroft.

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Wow, thanks for joining the minority that appreciates my making of this thread!

I really appreciate it!

[Mycroft]

@Stache K, could you perhaps post a link to the Scott Manley video that discussed the Devs departure? If it's the livestream, can you get the approximate time stamp? I will include it in the OP if you can get me this info. 

And with that, I'm off to bed...

[StarStreak2109]

  On 10/13/2016 at 7:52 AM, Mycroft said:

@Stache K, could you perhaps post a link to the Scott Manley video that discussed the Devs departure? If it's the livestream, can you get the approximate time stamp? I will include it in the OP if you can get me this info. 

And with that, I'm off to bed...

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Here you go....

 

[Mycroft]

  On 10/13/2016 at 8:56 AM, StarStreak2109 said:

Here you go....

 

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Thanks! I added it!

[NSEP]

There are new devs coming, yet almost nobody in the community notices

Im not really sure if it is a fact, but it feels like it is happending with those new forum users that are Squad Staff.

[Jarin]

  On 10/16/2016 at 10:18 PM, NSEP said:

There are new devs coming, yet almost nobody in the community notices

Im not really sure if it is a fact, but it feels like it is happending with those new forum users that are Squad Staff.

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Maybe we can get some introductions on Tuesday

[NSEP]

  On 10/17/2016 at 6:39 AM, Jarin said:

Maybe we can get some introductions on Tuesday

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Maybe!

[Alewx]

  On 10/6/2016 at 5:27 PM, nestor said:

Hello,

I like the original intention of this post, listing facts and rumors.

I want to add with a few facts that I can confirm with my role as the Game Producer for KSP.

Fact: Chris (porkjet) left a few weeks ago in a totally unrelated event. He told me he had a new working opportunity. Not sure why he is listed with the rest of the group.

Fact: Sebastian (sarbian) was invited as a temporal dev to help fixing bugs until 1.2 was released

Fact: From the remaining 6 devs, 2 were working part time on KSP

Fact: 1.3 is confirmed, there are already devs working on this new version

Fact: Squad has been looking for new devs since june, new people are already working and more are coming

Fact: RoverDude (or any other team member) was not forced to make any comment about this topic

Fact: The team actually grew in comparison to the beginning of the year, even after these departures

 

These are just facts, I am not making any judgement. I was great working with all of them and I wish them the best of luck on their future endeavours.

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Thank you for participating in the communication with the community.

[Mycroft]

  On 10/17/2016 at 4:12 PM, Alewx said:

Thank you for participating in the communication with the community.

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A wholehearted second to that!

[pandaman]

  On 10/17/2016 at 4:12 PM, Alewx said:

Thank you for participating in the communication with the community.

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  On 10/17/2016 at 4:35 PM, Mycroft said:

A wholehearted second to that!

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And third.....

[DoctorDavinci]

This thread hasn't died yet? 

[Vanamonde]

Keep the discussion on-topic, please. 

[Yakuzi]

Thanks for the link @StarStreak2109!

Manley mentions quite some interesting stuff about the devs leaving (particularly from 42:20 to 43:44). Since it’s kinda spread out throughout his video I made a verbatim transcript* with corresponding timestamps of the relevant bits (watch the full video for some entertaining attempts at stock helicopters):

39:00 Scott summarizes the dev departures

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“What impact are the recent dev departures going to have?” And that is actually something potentially worth talking about. You see […], so I was wanting to talk about this last week. As you may or may not have heard, what happened on Tuesday morning last week was that a whole bunch of remote developers, that essentially do stuff in KSP, basically said they are quitting. They’re all stepping down resigning from the team, leaving a hand full of basically people in the Squad offices and, you know, Roverdude is one. He’s about the only remote worker. Here’s the thing, it’s kinda… it’s disappointing ‘cause, you know, it includes Mu for example who’s done a… he’s been around KSP for longer than anyone else in the team now, I think. You know, when… obviously Felipe was there before him and DanRosas was, but they’re both gone and well… you know, Mu did all the planet stuff, he’s in… he’s responsible for PQS, so… you know, that’s a serious thing to have these high level developers, you know, quitting essentially.

 

40:30 On the origin of Squad and KSP

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And I understand why. I mean, you know the developers, sorry the people that own it, right. You gotta understand that Squad was originally an advertising company. They weren’t a… they weren’t a video game company. Felipe wanted to make a game and he did it kinda in his spare time and then it became successful and then Squad of course kinda morphed into this notion of a game company.

 

40:55 On public staff leaving and who's left

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Yes, Nathan is stepping down as well. Take a look at the list. It’s basically the people that really know space and know KSP. There’s a very… the people that are left aren’t anybody public. The most public person I can think of is Roverdude. I mean obviously you’ve got Andrea and Jose and they all know, or Joe sorry, they are the ones that are… you know Roverdude’s still developing mods and the other, you know, Andrea or Andy and Joe are doing their promotion stuff. The team that’s working on the console version they’re completely separate. So, ya 1.2 is… ya 1.2 could conceivably be the last version of KSP. […] As for a job, excuse me I already have two jobs plus a family. […]

 

42:20 On the management and ownership of KSP

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Ya you know, I’m really disappointed because, you know, this really represents something of an end for the team that I really knew. And as I said, what I guess I was trying to say was that, you know, the guys that started Squad, they never really thought about getting into gaming and it just happened on them and now they found themselves as a game studio and… you know, they’re trying to… I don’t know if they’re managing it correctly. I really don’t have much to say about it because there’s a lot of secrets that I can’t really talk about. There’s a lot of stuff that I shouldn’t know that I do know… and I am unhappy with that situation, but all the same, you know, Squad are the legal owners of KSP and, you know, you gotta respect that. […]

 

43:27 On Scott wanting to say more

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I don’t have much to say and yet I do have lots that I want to say. And now, you know, this whole question about Squad has put me in a position where I just can’t think straight on how to fix this. […]

 

45:43 On the difference with Minecraft

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No, so Minecraft is completely different. Minecraft, here’s the thing, Minecraft… Notch basically owned Minecraft and he sold Minecraft, he sold it to Microsoft and the team left and whatever and new teams came along. With Kerbal I’m not sure how much like Squad owns versus how much Felipe owns and Dan and like… You know, I don’t necessarily think that it seems so, ya… words. I mean there were a lot of complaints about Notch well before he decided to upsell the company. […]

 

47:18 On continuation of KSP, DLC and consoles

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Yes, so I mean they have committed to continuing the game, that’s very clear. And, you know, the other thing to realise, and this is… you know, if you were around in the early days of KSP you might have remembered there was the whole “DLC gate”, where it was suggested that there might be some DLC at some point. People instantly took that to say: “You’re gonna start charging us for updates”, and the whole like: “No, we're not”… a whole lot of people saying: “No, we weren’t gonna do that”, and they committed to never, you know, making any of the existing owners buy DLC. But, you know, with the changing of essentially all the public faces of the game, it’s entirely possible that policy may fall by the wayside. Especially considering that there is a console audience, albeit a console audience that are currently really mad at the low quality of, or the dubious quality of the port. I’m still hoping they will fix this, but [chuckles] yeah um… […]

 

52:28 On the potential future of KSP

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So, look guys, my point is I guess… look, KSP is probably going to continue. I’m not sure, I can’t tell you what kind of quality we’ll see from forthcoming updates, but you have to remember at this point there’s really no requirement that the developers supported any more unless they think they’re gonna get more sales as a result of updating the game. You know, it would be entirely consistent with, you know, major publishers they would, you know, just ditch the game and move on to something else, say Kerbal Submarine Program or something. I mean, presuming they own the trademark on Kerbal, right these little green guys, they could make games in the same vein that focus more on planes or cars or things like this, right? […]

 

54:28 On multiplayer

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Right, I mean I think there’s enough people to make some bug fixes and, you know, all sorts of stuff. […] So people are asking about future features in KSP. For example, the one that’s most often cited is multiplayer and I, honestly, I was surprised when they promised it given what I knew about Unity and I would still… I still don’t expect it to happen. But I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised. The last time I talked with any of the guys about multiplayer, the big problem is that the Unity physics engine really doesn’t support multiplayer, right, in the same physics system. So, to make it work you pretty much have to give up […].

 

56:34 On NathanKell and mod development

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So that’s the other big concern I have. NathanKell specifically is one of the… you know, is very much involved in modding and maintains some very important mods and we don’t know whether he is so burned by his experience that he will just abandon what he’s been up to, or whether we will continue to get RSS updates, I’m not clear. I honestly think that if I were, you know, if I were the developers, what… well ok… If I was developers wanting to be nice to the community I would just basically stop future feature development and focus on making things that are easier for mod developers to work around. Because basically the new features and stuff just break mods all the time. […]

 

*Note, I tried to document what Scott said as closely as possible, but likely there will be some typos and stuff that I missed/misinterpreted.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Yakuzi