What Facts Do We Know About The Devs Leaving?

[StarStreak2109]

1 minute ago, Signo said:

@StarStreak2109: If I ask the clerk at the counter a polite question I expect a polite answer, moreover if I am a recurrent customer.

It is a basic customer service. If I am said to take my toys and leave I will, and I will tell all my friends. 

That is exactly what I mean. People asked and Squad replied. And you were not satisfied with the answer. So what can we do? You can be unhappy, that is, as I stated, your prerogative.

And again: it is not the responsibility of Squad to fill you in on internal affairs. They announced more news for next Tuesdays on the future of KSP.

Finally, nobody is telling you to pack up and leave. I said, if you are so unhappy, you are welcome to leave, if KSP is such a nuisance for you. If you enjoy KSP as I do, you can also be very happy with what you got and with what you will/may get in the near future...

[p1t1o]

1 minute ago, Signo said:

@StarStreak2109: If I ask the clerk at the counter a polite question I expect a polite answer, moreover if I am a recurrent customer.

It is a basic customer service. If I am said to take my toys and leave I will, and I will tell all my friends. 

Im confused, are Squad a bank or a toy manufacturer?

But in all seriousness, Squad do not have a counter, nor a clerk to post there. They do have this forum though. However, you can reasonably expect conversational dialogue (at least in terms of official company posture) NOT to be possible and information question-answer times to be in the region of weeks, not the hours which seems to be expected. Nor can we expect all of our questions to be answered.

This behaviour you would not like from a clerk, but is completely reasonable here.

I would advocate giving it a week or two, or three.

 

2 minutes ago, Andem said:

I would like a response from Roverdude that actually addresses my point. And, to that end, I would like the same from Squad. nothing more, nothing less.

So would a lot of people. And I want a house made of gold. 

[Andem]

Just now, p1t1o said:

So would a lot of people. And I want a house made of gold. 

Well you see, one is wholly unreasonable and one is not. If you cannot see the difference then there is nothing more for me to say to you.

[Signo]

1 minute ago, StarStreak2109 said:

snip

As far as I am aware, SQUAD made an announcement hiding a "possible DLC incoming" with an uncommon release date, then the day after merely reacted to a Reddit post made by the leaving devs.

Devs that, by the way, are leaving at an odd time - just a few days before a few bugs are scheduled to be discovered.

I will look forward next tuesday. 

[Randazzo]

15 hours ago, Andem said:

 there is nothing more for me to say

You got that part right.

The majority of this thread is counter-productive garbage, but I suppose that is to be expected. Remove bleeding heart from sleeve, try again later.

[Andem]

Just now, Randazzo said:

You got that part right.

The majority of this thread is counter-productive garbage, but I suppose that is to be expected. Remove bleeding heart from sleeve, try again later.

E tu, Randazzo? Fine. Let me direct you to the thread where your post belongs:

 

[StarStreak2109]

Just now, Signo said:

As far as I am aware, SQUAD made an announcement hiding a "possible DLC incoming" with an uncommon release date, then the day after merely reacted to a Reddit post made by the leaving devs.

This is IMHO the only way this company can support further development. 1.2 is by all means probably the true 1.0 many were hoping for. TBH, I was wondering they kept going as far as they went without any new sources of income. So yes, I agree, there may be paid "DLC" coming, but as I wrote in another thread, I for myself will be happy to pay for it, if reasonable. If this goes down the EA route, where you pay in the range of 10-20 dollars for a "parts pack" that adds little to no value to the base game, I will refrain myself. But if it adds real value to the game, I'm all in to support further development!

Quote

Devs that, by the way, are leaving at an odd time - just a few days before a few bugs are scheduled to be discovered.

That is your own interpretation, which - again - has been talked to death!

Quote

I will look forward next tuesday. 

So will I!

[Alewx]

14 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Im confused, are Squad a bank or a toy manufacturer?

None of this, SQUAD is a PR company. An employee was allowed to make a computergame which turned out to be a good revenue source so it was made official product.
But as a PR company their official statements are well suboptimal.

The be fan and feel good or if you don't like and then leave, attitude does really not help, a discussion is more healthy than blind fanaticism for a product or a company.

[Signo]

@StarStreak2109: That is exactly the point - this fanbase is extremely loyal, several people including you (and me) want to support the project with any necessary mean. I've read hundreds of "I bought 10 copies" or "I will pay money for it again". 

They should just ask.

But this relationship is going south if I ask you "what's wrong?" and the answer is "nothing". (ever heard about this?  )

[KerikBalm]

As to those saying its none of our business:

We are "interested parties", not stalkers. We paid them money for a service: development of the game. That money was paid with the expectation of continued development - although the exact amount was unspecified.

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).

 

We don't know why they left. I am inclined to be sympathetic to the devs that gave us this great game... but... they haven't publicly said anything bad about squad.

Lets not forget how KSP started...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squad_(company)

Quote

The main business of Squad is to provide digital and interactive services to customers like Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Samsung and Nissan, including creating websites, guerrilla marketing, multi-media installations, and corporate-image design.^[1] They have developed software for different applications, some of which were video games.^[2]

In October 2010, Felipe Falanghe (a.k.a. "HarvesteR") approached Squad owners Adrian Goya and Ezequiel Ayarza. He intended to resign to work on a video game he had been planning. However, Squad said he could create the game as a company project after finishing his current assignment. That was the start of Kerbal Space Program, an indie space flight simulation game

I think we should also give Squad enourmous credit for allowing Felipe to follow his dream without losing his job. That is not the action of an evil upper management. That sounds like the management was actually composed of pretty nice and flexible people.

So... knowing no facts about this departure, but knowing facts about the start of the development and the development team I think it is improper to start speculation villifying Squad.

Consider how nice they were at the start when they wouldn't have had any reasonable expectation of the success that KSP would become?

Why now that they've had success would they suddenly become oppressive employers with terrible working conditions?

[Nerfclasher]

10 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

As to those saying its none of our business:

We are "interested parties", not stalkers. We paid them money for a service: development of the game. That money was paid with the expectation of continued development - although the exact amount was unspecified.

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).

 

We don't know why they left. I am inclined to be sympathetic to the devs that gave us this great game... but... they haven't publicly said anything bad about squad.

Lets not forget how KSP started...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squad_(company)

I think we should also give Squad enourmous credit for allowing Felipe to follow his dream without losing his job. That is not the action of an evil upper management. That sounds like the management was actually composed of pretty nice and flexible people.

So... knowing no facts about this departure, but knowing facts about the start of the development and the development team I think it is improper to start speculation villifying Squad.

Consider how nice they were at the start when they wouldn't have had any reasonable expectation of the success that KSP would become?

Why now that they've had success would they suddenly become oppressive employers with terrible working conditions?

  Well they wouldn't let him start project if they were mean so you are correct on that point 

[Ignath]

7 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

As to those saying its none of our business:

We are "interested parties", not stalkers. We paid them money for a service: development of the game. That money was paid with the expectation of continued development - although the exact amount was unspecified.

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).

This is totally incorrect.  Employment issues are completely none of our concern.  No employer that I've ever worked for has discussed their hiring, retention or firing policies nor specific circumstances around any of these items.  Any employer that would do something like that (if it were ever discovered) would have a hard time hiring and retaining employees in the future...would you really want to work for a company that told the public exactly why you were let go?

SQUAD owes us NOTHING.  What you paid for was the released version of KSP and it dropped with KSP 1.0, you didn't pay for a service, the development of the game...you paid for the RELEASED GAME and you got it.  SQUAD released KSP 1.0 quite some time ago now, and they have completely lived up to their promise of development.  They've then extended their FREE development time for another 2 full patches worth of improvements to the game.  You said it yourself in your post that the exact amount of continued development time was unspecified...

Now I'm no shill for SQUAD, go back and look at my post history if you want...I disagree with many of their decisions during the Maxmaps era (Cursed anyone?!) and even some of them since, but this "controversy" is entirely ridiculous and unproductive.  It's not helping anything, it's not clarifying anything and it's just more BS for the devs/moderators to deal with instead of doing the important parts of their job...can we just drop it?

[Andem]

@Ignath but you also can't say that they haven't made (generally) transparency the norm? You can't say that this isn't a departure from Squad's normal PR actions.

[StarStreak2109]

28 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

We are "interested parties", not stalkers.

As an "interested party", you may request information and if you are eligible to receive this information and if it is available, Squad may choose to give it to you. And indeed, if it serves their marketing strategy to do so, they will be "quite happy" to do so. However: You are neither a shareholder nor an investor in the company. If you were, there'd be an obligation on behalf of Squad to inform you about their plans and strategies.

You aquired the right to use a piece of software. Some of us bought it during early access, which means there is some factual and/or moral obligation of Squad to deliver the finished project (which they did/do). They continued to provide us with new and updated versions of the game, even beyond the magical 1.0, for free. They type up a weekly progress report, which may or may not satisfy everyone, but again, this is damn more than many other companies do, who are developing games.

[Ignath]

Just now, Andem said:

@Ignath but you also can't say that they haven't made (generally) transparency the norm? You can't say that this isn't a departure from Squad's normal PR actions.

It does not matter...under NO circumstances is transparency required, nor even should be preferred, when it comes to retention and firing of employees.  There could be reasons and issues entirely out of SQUADs control for why the 8 developers left when/how they did.  Do you think someone like NathanKell, Sarbian or Mu really want it out there exactly why they left?  

<RAMPANT SPECULATION WITHOUT EVIDENCE> What if one of the devs had beef with the SQUAD management and decided to take 7 other devs with them?  Do you think it'd be good for their career to post something like that?  For future employment consideration?  Do you think it'd look good for SQUAD to accuse their employee of this?  Would it help them get new, good employees or retain old ones?  No, it just makes BOTH parties look bad, dirty, scummy, etc... </END RAMPANT SPECULATION WITHOUT EVIDENCE>

In response to your questions, no...SQUAD has not made transparency the norm, nor is it really their responsibility or job to do so, especially when it comes to employment information.  This is also not a departure from SQUADs normal PR actions, so why is anyone expecting any different?

This whole community needs to come to its senses and understand that this whole debate is having absolutely no positive value at all.  It's riling up the rabblerousers, causing moderators and devs extra work and in the end we'll get no answers and no satisfaction.  

[Andem]

1 minute ago, StarStreak2109 said:

As an "interested party", you may request information and if you are eligible to receive this information and if it is available, Squad may choose to give it to you. And indeed, if it serves their marketing strategy to do so, they will be "quite happy" to do so. However: You are neither a shareholder nor an investor in the company. If you were, there'd be an obligation on behalf of Squad to inform you about their plans and strategies.

You aquired the right to use a piece of software. Some of us bought it during early access, which means there is some factual and/or moral obligation of Squad to deliver the finished project (which they did/do). They continued to provide us with new and updated versions of the game, even beyond the magical 1.0, for free. They type up a weekly progress report, which may or may not satisfy everyone, but again, this is damn more than many other companies do, who are developing games.

Yes, obviously. But that does not make people who want to know what's going on in the wrong, nor is it in poor taste that they want to know.

[p1t1o]

1 minute ago, Andem said:

But that does not make people who want to know what's going on in the wrong, nor is it in poor taste that they want to know.

Strongly depends on how they word it IMO.

[steuben]

Three questions that everybody is kind of failing to ask. They are a little bit personal, but really need to be asked in the context of this and similar discussions.
1. Do I want to know?
2. Do I care to knowing?
3. Do I need to know?

My answers:
1. kind of
2. not really
3. no

Far too many people conflate 1 and 3. If I needed to know, at this point I would know. Very few people here need to know.

And in this case, an additional point for consideration. If the Kraken and his Italian cousin the Flying Spaghetti Monster were to come over and leave with Mexico, would it affect the game as it currently stands? No. Sure many people will quote John Greenleaf Whittier. It would be disappointing that many bugs and game play issues would not get fixed. But KSP would still exist. I would still be able to play it. I would still get many more years of enjoyment out of it.

It is time to dial back the zoom on the optics. It will help put this mole hill in perspective. In my library I have games whose publishers have long since ceased to exist. Ceased to exist before some of you were even born... a fact I find mildly disturbing. Publishers come and go. Dev teams come and go. But the games, they last forever. They may fade for a while as the hardware disappears, but they will eventually come back.

This is not a sign of the end times. This is not a sign of the times. It is not even a sign. 

 

[Andem]

8 minutes ago, Ignath said:

It does not matter...under NO circumstances is transparency required, nor even should be preferred, when it comes to retention and firing of employees.  There could be reasons and issues entirely out of SQUADs control for why the 8 developers left when/how they did.  Do you think someone like NathanKell, Sarbian or Mu really want it out there exactly why they left?  

<RAMPANT SPECULATION WITHOUT EVIDENCE> What if one of the devs had beef with the SQUAD management and decided to take 7 other devs with them?  Do you think it'd be good for their career to post something like that?  For future employment consideration?  Do you think it'd look good for SQUAD to accuse their employee of this?  Would it help them get new, good employees or retain old ones?  No, it just makes BOTH parties look bad, dirty, scummy, etc... </END RAMPANT SPECULATION WITHOUT EVIDENCE>

In response to your questions, no...SQUAD has not made transparency the norm, nor is it really their responsibility or job to do so, especially when it comes to employment information.  This is also not a departure from SQUADs normal PR actions, so why is anyone expecting any different?

This whole community needs to come to its senses and understand that this whole debate is having absolutely no positive value at all.  It's riling up the rabblerousers, causing moderators and devs extra work and in the end we'll get no answers and no satisfaction.  

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.

10 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Strongly depends on how they word it IMO.

Which party? Squad or the community?

6 minutes ago, steuben said:

Three questions that everybody is kind of failing to ask. They are a little bit personal, but really need to be asked in the context of this and similar discussions.
1. Do I want to know?
2. Do I care to knowing?
3. Do I need to know?

My answers:
1. kind of
2. not really
3. no

1. Definitely

2. Definitely

3. Depends on how loosely you define "need"

[p1t1o]

8 minutes ago, Andem said:

Which party? Squad or the community?

If it applies to one it applies to the other, though I cannot recall Squad requesting much information from us.

9 minutes ago, Andem said:

3. Depends on how loosely you define "need"

How about: "Will anything material happen to you if you dont get the information?"

[Andem]

3 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

If it applies to one it applies to the other, though I cannot recall Squad requesting much information from us.

You're post was extremely vague, it was unclear whether you meant the demand (which varies too much for anything honest to be said) or the response.

4 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

How about: "Will anything material happen to you if you dont get the information?"

Classic definition then? In that case, No. But that does not necessarily negate the first two, it really is up to Squad (barring any and all backlash to the lack of communication).

[monstah]

Eh, I confess by end of page five this became a Reddit post, and I quit reading. Anyway, I came here looking for new info, but apparently I was already up-to-date.

11 hours ago, Mycroft said:

Rumor: He also claimed to have heard that RoverDude's work was going to be released as a paid mod.

Well, sort of. He said two things on the same sentence: that what Squad announced as an expansion was in fact RoverDude's MKS, and that paid DLC was finally coming to KSP. Connecting the dots between the two is really a no-brainer, but I don't recall him ever saying that explicitly.

3 hours ago, Alewx said:

Sure I'm wrong because there are sooooooo much more staff members labeled as programmers..... Maybe I'm just blind but I do only see 2 there.

Well, maybe you're blind about the rest of this topic? Those are the only ones with forum accounts.

3 hours ago, Andem said:

And I also think that you're being unnecessarily (and unfairly) harsh towards the community.

@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?

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?

 

Now, I really wish some of the former devs would step in and speak something. Anything, really, just "hi, we're fine". I don't need an explanation, I don't suppose they owe me one. In fact, they don't even owe me what I just asked for, and I'm okay with that. Maybe they're angry, maybe they're afraid of backlash, maybe they're just too damn tired. Whatever their reason, even if they never show up again they're well within their rights, and I should just deal with it. Calling them on moral high ground isn't doing anyone any favors.

 

And @Mycroft, I applaud the intention of this thread. Not to discuss what is happening or what should be done (hint: nothing, at least by us), but simply because people are flaming all around, based on things that they heard other people flaming about, rather than any evidence. I like evidence. Is very nice.

(ran out of replikes last night and am still out  )

Edited October 6, 2016 by monstah

[KerikBalm]

56 minutes ago, Ignath said:

This is totally incorrect.  Employment issues are completely none of our concern.  No employer that I've ever worked for has discussed their hiring, retention or firing policies nor specific circumstances around any of these items.  Any employer that would do something like that (if it were ever discovered) would have a hard time hiring and retaining employees in the future...would you really want to work for a company that told the public exactly why you were let go?

SQUAD owes us NOTHING.  What you paid for was the released version of KSP and it dropped with KSP 1.0, you didn't pay for a service, the development of the game...you paid for the RELEASED GAME and you got it.  SQUAD released KSP 1.0 quite some time ago now, and they have completely lived up to their promise of development.  They've then extended their FREE development time for another 2 full patches worth of improvements to the game.  You said it yourself in your post that the exact amount of continued development time was unspecified.

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.

Anytime one goes around considering which company to do business with, their employees are a factor and its legitimate to be interested in them. The company is under no obligation to tell you anything about them (though that may not be a good approach for them).

I'm simply stating that the interest is legitimate, lets not compare people to stalkers.

You'll also note that I said they weren't morally obliged to tell us anything. You'll also note that earlier in the other thread on this subject I said that 1.2 felt like a complete game. You'll also note that I defended squad and give them credit for even starting this KSP project.

Now... as to the idea " What you paid for was the released version of KSP and it dropped with KSP 1.0, you didn't pay for a service, the development of the game...you paid for the RELEASED GAME and you got it"... this is a bit dubious. As with all pre-releases, you buy a game unfinished with the expectation of development and certain features. Any purchase is in fact a form of contract. You can't just drop the 1.0 label on anything and say you've fufilled your obligations. A recent example of this is No Mans Sky where the game they paid for isn't the game they got. An older example would be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rigs:_Over_the_Road_Racing

I'm not saying Squad did that. I think we all have gotten at least the minimum that we paid for, especially after 1.2 is released (I'm quite happy with the pre-release).

I'm simply saying the questions are from a legitimate interest even if Squad has no obligation at all to answer them.

 

42 minutes ago, StarStreak2109 said:

As an "interested party", you may request information and if you are eligible to receive this information and if it is available, Squad may choose to give it to you. And indeed, if it serves their marketing strategy to do so, they will be "quite happy" to do so. However: You are neither a shareholder nor an investor in the company. If you were, there'd be an obligation on behalf of Squad to inform you about their plans and strategies.

You aquired the right to use a piece of software. Some of us bought it during early access, which means there is some factual and/or moral obligation of Squad to deliver the finished project (which they did/do). They continued to provide us with new and updated versions of the game, even beyond the magical 1.0, for free. They type up a weekly progress report, which may or may not satisfy everyone, but again, this is damn more than many other companies do, who are developing games.

Again, I explicitely stated that Squad didn't even have a moral obligation to answer these questions.

I'm simply saying the comparisons of people to stalkers, or saying basically "S**t up, its none of your business" is going too far.

[tater]

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).

[monstah]

2 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

They are our concern. When you do business with a company, their employees are relevant to your business. (...) 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 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.