KSP Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

[Darkstar One]

21 hours ago, Gaarst said:

As long as I still get muh free DLC, I don't really care.

Depends on what quality and content the coming DLCs contain - I don't like that events and all.

 

Make a safe backup of your setups and keep your favorite mods achived, can be gone tomorrow.

[kokospl]

Can't wait for KSP2 by Take Two:

• $5 RCS parts Megapack DLC - "Manouver easily in vacuum!"
• $5 Ladders & Jet-pack - "Land your ship, get out and explore!"
• $2 30-days Premium Pack - "Tired of dV <REDACTED> requirements? Antimatter engines!"

No modding required! (nor possible) - "...We've decided to work even harder on this game to give our custmers the best experince they can get. Mods are no longer required to fully enjoy KSP, so there is no need for KSP to support them..."

Edited June 1, 2017 by Frybert
Filter evasion.

[Castille7]

Congratulations Squad, and thanks again for all the hard work!

[hildegain]

19 hours ago, StahnAileron said:

I kinda wanted Elon Musk to buy KSP if it was gonna happen ^_~ Guess he was too busy investing in ACTUAL rockets and didn't have any funds to spare. His loss, I suppose

Nah, his loss is the hyperloop. Doing a good job investing billions into a project that he can't make work.

That said, I don't like Take-Two... I really don't. I don't think KSP will affected negatively in the short-term but it will have dire ramifications for the extended future.

[VITAS]

I wouldnt call it "exciting" times more like "cautious".

Are there any planned Changes to the PR staff? Will Take two set up their own forums or will they send staff here?

Andmost important to me: What will happen to the curse contract?

I was responsible for the integration of IT infrastructures after mergers in the past and i know how hard and confusing it is when things change from the usual ways to how the new owner does things.

What i want to say is: I know how it feels beeing in such a transition.

All i wish is for who ever is in charge to supoort the community (especialy the the part supplying mods) and to understand that KSP wont exist like it does without it.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Does this community like anything? I don't think I've ever seen an announcement that ya'll have been happy about.

[Ringkeeper]

2 hours ago, ZalgoWaits said:

Whole lotta Chicken Littles in this here thread. Discarded stages may be falling, but the sky isn't. Cool your jets and wait to see what actually happens before you assume the worst.

The problem is, at least for me, that the "Chicken Littles" are already very old and therefor have already seen alot of good games/companys been bought by big publisher and know what happend to them.

Short list maybe? Westwood Studios (Command &Conquer, Eye of Beholder) -> killed by EA , Origin Systems (Wing Commander, Ultima) -> killed by EA , Bullfrog -> killed by EA Sierra -> eaten by Activision , BlueByte -> bought by Ubisoft, after that all the good games went bad (Settler, Silent Hunter)

 

So, yeah, we can happy that not EA/Ubisoft bought Squad. Just expect the worst and you won't be disappointed.

[Spartwo]

Human nature. If they announced NASA bought the game people would complain that political views would start leaking in.

[VITAS]

Just now, Frozen_Heart said:

Does this community like anything? I don't think I've ever seen an announcement that ya'll have been happy about.

Take any group of random people and they wont be all happy.

Seeing how mainstream Games are these day (yearly itterations, paied DLCs, if multiplaer than on company hosts,...) im just cautious. Im not raging

(disclaimer: i worked in the the game industry (including EA) for some years and and i left because they stopped sharing my basic ethics.)

[Kerbart]

Felipe had the dream of building a game, not Squad. So it's not a surprise squad's owners are looking to "cash in," and I can't blame them for that either.

With that in mind, the first question is: should the game have been picked up by a small independent publisher who can't act on the global level KSP (multi lingo) needs to be now? Perhaps it can, but are they willing to make that investment?

The second question, if not TKe Two, who should it have been? Electronics Arts? Zynga? Sony? Would that be preferred?

TT invested big (I have to assume), they're not going to destroy their property by shortsighted micropayments or subscription models. I do expect a lot more DLC and that will only continue to sell if it's good. I don't think it's a bad thing.

[Space_Coyote]

Here's my thoughts on this.. and here we go..

 

It's Mojang's Minecraft gettting bought out by Microsoft all over again..

But I do remain optimistic, provided we are not being forced to pay money for new DLC.. 

Also I'm optimistic if  modders are still allowed (That's what happened with JMojang  and the Minecraft Community is happy..

Now a word of Advice to you guys at Take Two Interactive.. and I'm going to do this as Gene Krantz..(Cap com of Apollo 13)

(Gene Krantz Voice Monologue)

Please by all means listen to what I just commented.. and remember what I said inwhen Apollo 13 occurred..

"Failure is NOT an option.."

So no mess ups, no screwups, and let the devs be able to create the interesting and fascinating content..

Else when KSP 2 comes out, I won't buy..

Also Take-Two, maybe you need some fresh Game desv in there to help, some of the folks at the community are biting at the bit to get a crack to make this game a lot better..

and I mean.. A LOT better..

Now.. Do I make myself clear? No? Then read the laast 15 pages of comments before this one, and rmember

The Customer is the bottom line..and they're always right, even when they are wrong..

Oh and one more thing.. Try to listen to us, some of us have good ideas, and in fact I'm one of those..

Carry on...

(End Gene Krantz  Voice Monologue)

Space_Coyote

[Frozen_Heart]

31 minutes ago, VITAS said:

Take any group of random people and they wont be all happy.

Seeing how mainstream Games are these day (yearly itterations, paied DLCs, if multiplaer than on company hosts,...) im just cautious. Im not raging

(disclaimer: i worked in the the game industry (including EA) for some years and and i left because they stopped sharing my basic ethics.)

I understand what you are saying, but Squad has not been the perfect ethical game company either.

 

In addition Take Two has some games that are really good. We don't get a yearly Xcom for example and the games themselves are very high quality.

[razark]

27 minutes ago, Space_Coyote said:

Gene Krantz..(Cap com of Apollo 13)

Kranz was a Flight Director, not CAPCOM.

[LoSBoL]

5 hours ago, T-Bouw said:

Oh, and since Take-Two has a history of distributing peripherals.....OFFICIAL KSP CONTROLLER!!

Yes Please!!! Would buy that within a heartbeat! 

Ah, and another thing @Badie Can't help saying, You look as cute IRL as you look kerbalized  

[AG5BPilot]

30 minutes ago, razark said:

Kranz was a Flight Director, not CAPCOM.

And, of course, that famous quote was actually a Hollywood writer's invention for the movie.  Kranz didn't actually say that.  But the point is well taken.  

Everyone, regardless of their opinion of how this might eventually go, should realize that TT -- more than anyone else -- wants and needs this to succeed.  They're putting their money on the line here.  Will they do it right?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  As has been noted, they've got some winners in their stable that they've "done right".  Not all, of course, but nobody succeeds at everything.  For that matter, "succeeding at everything" isn't even a good thing, as it usually means you're not taking enough risks.

Everyone's been talking about all the risk that they see moving forward here, but I don't think anyone has really mentioned the risk of NOT moving forward.  People are scared of flying since there's a certain amount of risk involved, but the risk of NOT flying is greater (e.g., taking a car or train instead.)  The same is probably true here.  It's entirely possible that NOT making this deal would have led to far worse things than what people are imagining TT might do.  (Such as "no more KSP".)

I'm going to hope for the best, and I'm prepared for the worst.  Worst case scenario is I never download another KSP update or mod and keep playing the game the way it is now.  If so, I've certainly gotten my money's worth here, many times over.

[SelectHalfling0]

So is this a "we've purchased you but you keep working how you've been working" sort of deal or is TT gonna start getting their own hands into the game? 

[HebaruSan]

Just now, SelectHalfling0 said:

So is this a "we've purchased you but you keep working how you've been working" sort of deal or is TT gonna start getting their own hands into the game? 

They haven't purchased "you." SQUAD is still a separate, independent company. Take Two has only purchased the software.

[SelectHalfling0]

25 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

They haven't purchased "you." SQUAD is still a separate, independent company. Take Two has only purchased the software.

I didn't mean you as in myself or other players, I meant it as in KSP and the Dev team. Basically how involved is Take Two going to be in the dev process from now on (or is that still unclear?).

[EladDv]

12 hours ago, ansaman said:

Hey, it isn't like we have not had bugs and stuff before.  Take Two and Squad MUST know that part of the amazing results for KSP has not just been the program, but the community and the people who play it and won't stop talking about it.  Further, the people that make the mods and have worked so hard make the game so adaptable that it can please almost everybody.  If they respect that, all will be well.

Yeah, but it seems that broken games on day 1 are more prevalent now that online distribution is the main way to get games, when the devs can push updates at whim they're more likely to decide to get the game certified with lesser quality and push fixes later down the line. 

We've seen this happen with several games (the arkham series is a notable one) and publishing houses, with so much money on the line for a release date that was locked down up to a year before you're might not want to delay the game and that means that you're very likely to get caught up in issues and have to release an unfinished/buggy product.

Though I mean KSP wasnt a technical masterpiece it is a great game to explore physics in classes and at home - inspiring STEM in a young generation and promoting better education.

[UomoCapra]

2 hours ago, VITAS said:

I wouldnt call it "exciting" times more like "cautious".

Are there any planned Changes to the PR staff? Will Take two set up their own forums or will they send staff here?

Andmost important to me: What will happen to the curse contract?

I was responsible for the integration of IT infrastructures after mergers in the past and i know how hard and confusing it is when things change from the usual ways to how the new owner does things.

What i want to say is: I know how it feels beeing in such a transition.

All i wish is for who ever is in charge to supoort the community (especialy the the part supplying mods) and to understand that KSP wont exist like it does without it.

 

Our goal is for KSP to continue to operate as usual for all aspects of KSP as much as possible. There may be some minor changes during the transition, but we and Take-Two are both committed to continuing to support the great KSP community, and there are no plans for any major changes to PR staff or the forums.

[Darth Badie]

1 hour ago, LoSBoL said:

Yes Please!!! Would buy that within a heartbeat! 

Ah, and another thing @Badie Can't help saying, You look as cute IRL as you look kerbalized  

Thanks 

[HebaruSan]

22 minutes ago, SelectHalfling0 said:

I didn't mean you as in myself or other players, I meant it as in KSP and the Dev team.

I know, I was talking about SQUAD as well. My point was that SQUAD itself has not been acquired, contrary to "we've purchased you".

Quote

Basically how involved is Take Two going to be in the dev process from now on (or is that still unclear?).

Much too early to say. SQUAD devs on this thread have said they'll be autonomous and independent and so forth, but the buck stops with Take Two now. In a worst case scenario, if they aren't happy with how things are going, there would probably be polite emails/meetings/phone calls, followed by less polite, followed by official notices, potentially leading to no longer working with SQUAD. (But again, that's the absolute worst case scenario, not likely to occur.)

My guess is Take Two would have some sort of standards in terms of sale numbers and software quality, and probably also have to sign off on the overall direction of development such as what the focus of the next release should be, new expansion packs, new titles, etc. That's what I'd want if I was going to buy somebody's IP and hire them to keep working on it.

On the positive side, if SQUAD has a specific technical need, one phone call to Take Two could probably put them in touch with a vast number of experts. Imagine a garbage collection specialist from one of Take Two's other groups setting up shop in a spare office at SQUAD HQ for a few months to help with tuning that aspect of things. Or at least that's how it plays out in my fantasies.

[Simplicity]

On 1/06/2017 at 2:33 AM, Spartwo said:

Squad decided to make paid DLC in 2013...

Well I have just transferred KSP over to steam, so I hope that since I purchased the game before the end of April 2013 on the squad site, I am still entitled to the free DLC, although with TT acquiring KSP that could be anybodies guess..

I just hope that TT stay in the background and leave KSP - Squad - Community etc alone..

[Kermanzooming]

My two cents on this; good news! No one buys an asset without plans for it, so that means we are bound to see new KSP-things in the future. Different from what we have today? For sure. Better? Worse? Who knows, time will tell. But my sincere congratulations to all the KSP team.

And thank you for this absolutely amazing game.

[regex]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Much too early to say. SQUAD devs on this thread have said they'll be autonomous and independent and so forth, but the buck stops with Take Two now.

This, exactly.

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

In a worst case scenario, if they aren't happy with how things are going, there would probably be polite emails/meetings/phone calls, followed by less polite, followed by official notices, potentially leading to no longer working with SQUAD. (But again, that's the absolute worst case scenario, not likely to occur.)

And regarding that worst-case scenario, TTI owns KSP and Squad can't do jack about it.

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

My guess is Take Two would have some sort of standards in terms of sale numbers and software quality, and probably also have to sign off on the overall direction of development such as what the focus of the next release should be, new expansion packs, new titles, etc. That's what I'd want if I was going to buy somebody's IP and hire them to keep working on it.

I doubt it would even go that far. I view it more as a "hostage situation" where Squad basically has to remain profitable. So long as they're profitable and make TTI money, no one gets hurt.

Don't get me wrong, I kind of wish someone else would step in and give this game some damn direction and coherent design, but that boat sailed back in like, 0.22, IIRC. We have what we have.

I doubt we'll see anything change, really. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The only thing that's going to change is where the profit ends up.