KSP Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

[Spartwo]

Forza, Halo(including Bungie's), and Age of Empires come to mind immediately as Microsoft games that are terrific.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Spartwo

[KAL 9000]

If someone on the KSP team ( @Badie, @UomoCapra, looking at you) could deliver this message to Take Two, that'd be great: 

Take Two, 

KSP, for me, is more than just a game. It's creativity itself. It's brought so many people so much joy. I myself, despite many, many hours in this game, still cheer whenever my periapsis rises above 70 kilometers. It's still fun when my missions fail catastrophically and explode. Not many games can give you that much entertainment. 

It's educational (it basically teaches rocket science so well that players know it intuitively) and accessible to everyone, with no inappropriate content whatsoever. 

Its community is the nicest and smartest I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. The mods are amazing, diverse, and, in many cases, hilarious. 

I may be just a guy with a PC and a Jeb plushie, but I know this: 

KSP is awesome. KSP is educational. KSP is fun. 

Please don't screw it up. 

Best wishes, 

- @KAL 9000

Edited May 31, 2017 by KAL 9000

[kerbinorbiter]

@SQUAD when you know more about whats happening please give us an update

[John FX]

3 hours ago, EladDv said:

A) lol.

B) I hope this extra funding will push KSP in a better direction, it's understandable that with slowing sales Squad saw no viability in maintaining the same level of development so they decided to slow it down and possibly go with the TT offer. 

I am of the mind that they have bought the rights to `kerbal` and they plan on making many `kerbal` games, some of which will not be anything like KSP. They will keep KSP alive, possibly with sequels to shift the demographic to a wider audience, because it creates a universe that hosts the greater `kerbal` range of products.

`Oh the times they are a changin`

[ZooNamedGames]

Just now, John FX said:

I am of the mind that they have bought the rights to `kerbal` and they plan on making many `kerbal` games, some of which will not be anything like KSP. They will keep KSP alive, possibly with sequels to shift the demographic to a wider audience, because it creates a universe that hosts the greater `kerbal` range of products.

`Oh the times they are a changin`

Agreed. Profit at all costs.

[Spartwo]

...Zoo, you've played the equivalent of a Kerbal Grand Strategy(RPs for those who don't follow). Suddenly if something like that becomes official it's evil?

[stratvox]

4 hours ago, Tykylo said:

That was actually free if I recall correctly, your argument is invalid.

No it isn't. When they announced in 2013 that only folks that had purchased up to that point would always get free DLC indefinitely, they were implicitly saying that there would be paid DLC in the future.

[ZooNamedGames]

Just now, Spartwo said:

...Zoo, you've played the equivalent of a Kerbal Grand Strategy(RPs for those who don't follow). Suddenly if something like that becomes official it's evil?

I've just been feeling KSP has been slipping and generally speaking, there's a snap before the fall. 

Myself and others may be wrong and jumping from a good ship. But our senses our telling us that this isn't good. It's a gut feeling infused with what we know can happen. 

[UomoCapra]

4 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

If someone on the KSP team ( @Badie, @UomoCapra, looking at you) could deliver this message to Take Two, that'd be great: 

Take Two, 

KSP, for me, is more than just a game. It's rocket science and creativity itself. It's brought so many people so much joy. I myself, despite many, many hours in this game, still cheer whenever my periapsis rises above 70 kilometers. It's still fun when my missions fail catastrophically and explode. Not many games can give you that much entertainment. 

It's educational (teaches rocket science, basically) and accessible to everyone, with no inappropriate content whatsoever. 

Its community is the nicest and smartest I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. The mods are amazing and diverse. 

I may be just a guy with a PC and a Jeb plushie, but I know this: 

KSP is awesome. KSP is educational. KSP is fun. 

Please don't screw it up. 

Best wishes, 

- @KAL 9000

Message delivered

[LordFerret]

Take Two publishes Rockstar (GTA), and their history and track record is publicly available to those watching the market (Sym: TTWO).

I'd be interested in knowing the offering, but that's not being disclosed... not just yet anyway. Gotta keep digging.

[razark]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

I've just been feeling KSP has been slipping and generally speaking, there's a snap before the fall.

People have been complaining about how KSP is going downhill every release.

 

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Myself and others may be wrong and jumping from a good ship.

Usually one waits until after hitting the iceberg to call for the lifeboats, though.

[ZooNamedGames]

Just now, razark said:

People have been complaining about how KSP is going downhill every release.

 

Usually one waits until after hitting the iceberg to call for the lifeboats, though.

Release was on squad and Squad alone. At least we know Squad and how the manage their game.

We see ice off the bow, this is our move.

[Brent Kerman]

31 minutes ago, regex said:

lol yeah, let's "boycott" a game we've already bought, good one.

\/

30 minutes ago, kerbinorbiter said:

yeah @Brent Kerman you didn't think that one through 

DLC, KSP merchandise, bad reviews, etc. ,etc.     -    -

29 minutes ago, diomedea said:

Someone feels not able to speak freely here...

You are about 3% of the reason for that.

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Release was on squad and Squad alone. At least we know Squad and how the manage their game.

We see ice off the bow, this is our move.

Exactly.

[razark]

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

At least we know Squad and how the manage their game.

Yes, and as we've seen, TTI has completely changed everything.

 

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

We see ice off the bow, this is our move.

They just announced they were turning the ship a few degrees northward, and some are already building a monument to the victims.

[Jarin]

2 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Release was on squad and Squad alone. At least we know Squad and how the manage their game.

We see ice off the bow, this is our move.

Squad has been spinning their wheels a bit since 1.0, and - while I'm among the first to harp on "AAA" devs when they do excrementsty things - Take Two is far from the worst big studio that could have come along. I'm honestly cautiously optimistic. KSP has been in desperate need of some professional dev help for a while now.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Brent Kerman said:

DLC, KSP merchandise, bad reviews, etc. ,etc.     -    -

Ah, the power of the userbase.

Please, proceed.

[genbrien]

4 hours ago, severedsolo said:

 

 ninja'd by Badie

I would like to be ninja'd by her.... 

 

I'm just glad that it's not EA

 

[scottadges]

6 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

The complete opposite is happening here. Take-Two has shown us nothing but its full commitment to make KSP as great as it can be.

That's great to hear. Honestly, the community of KSP players should embrace news like this.

If TT sees the community support, and with such an active community of players and modders for years now, it makes it harder to make wholesale changes. They have to (hopefully) think about the community response because that does in fact affect the bottom line for the game. 

When games have few players and little or no activity, but a lot of investment, that's when publishers make significant changes.

In this case, it sounds like they see the potential and (hopefully) will put even more investment into building on this amazing base of community and code!

Edited May 31, 2017 by scottadges

[MiniMatt]

Honestly good news.

KSP is undoubtedly my most played game of all time. And I'm getting on a bit now - my next most played game was loaded from cassette tape. Yet this iteration has felt for a while like it's nearing the end of its course. Increasingly, the future improvements we'd like would be realistically best implemented by dumping the codebase and starting again.

We will always have KSP. This announcement increases the likelihood of KSP2. And equally it increases the likelihood of other devs and publishers taking a look at the genre this amazing game has pioneered and realising spinning up their own takes on it can be commercially viable.

From a purely selfish consumer perspective, more KSP, or KSP-like games is always going to be a good thing.

From a more empathetic perspective, I do hope Felipe/Harvester got a good deal out of all this and didn't leave just to see his baby sold behind his back - but frankly that's entirely none of my business.

[Superfluous J]

53 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

What if it's the Rockomax? 

I'd buy it ironically

[nascarlaser1]

I don't quite understand how business works yet, so can someone help me?

 

I am not sure what it means when they say that T2 has bought KSP. Does this mean that Squad is no longer in charge of it? That T2 gets to play the game for free? In my mind, buying KSP just means that they now get to play KSP like the rest of us (since we all had to "buy ksp" off of either the website or steam to play).

 

Thanks!

[Lupi]

3 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

I don't quite understand how business works yet, so can someone help me?

 

I am not sure what it means when they say that T2 has bought KSP. Does this mean that Squad is no longer in charge of it? That T2 gets to play the game for free? In my mind, buying KSP just means that they now get to play KSP like the rest of us (since we all had to "buy ksp" off of either the website or steam to play).

 

Thanks!

T2 is a game publisher, like EA or Microsoft or Activision.
They went to Squad and purchased the right to publish and manage the game, much like a book publisher will make a deal with an author to publish their book. We don't know much about the deal, but in the case of the book comparison, often authors and publishers negotiate things like rights to the name, to producing movies based on the book, and so on. We have yet to see and it will be a while until we know what sort of things SQUAD and T2 agreed upon. 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Lupi

[nascarlaser1]

Just now, Lupi said:

T2 is a game publisher, like EA or Microsoft or Activision.
They went to Squad and purchased the right to publish and manage the game, much like a book publisher will make a deal with an author to publish their book. We don't know much about the deal, but in the case of the book comparison, often authors and publishers negotiate things like rights to the name, to producing movies based on the book, and so on. We have yet to see and it will be a while until we know what sort of things SQUAD and T2 agreed upon. 

soo @SQUAD makes the game and T2 helps sell it?

Edited May 31, 2017 by nascarlaser1

[Lupi]

Just now, nascarlaser1 said:

soo @SQUAD makes the game and T2 helps sell it?

Something like that. They've bought the rights to publish the game, and presumably they've bought the Kerbal Space Program name and branding. We'll know more as things go forward, though perhaps @UomoCapra or @Badie could better explain.

[HebaruSan]

5 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

soo @SQUAD makes the game and T2 helps sell it?

The legal right to sell/license copies of KSP to consumers, as well as any other title using "Kerbal" names, imagery, characters, etc., now belongs to Take Two Interactive. SQUAD's rights and responsibilities are no longer those of an owner of that intellectual property, but instead those of a party to a contract with Take Two Interactive, the exact terms of which are not public and probably never will be.

Most of the answers to our questions would depend on the contents of that contract; for example, it might say that SQUAD shall be the exclusive developer of KSP indefinitely, or it might say that SQUAD's role is to be re-evaluated annually, or to be renegotiated between the parties as needed, etc. We don't know, and they have little reason to tell us.