KSP Acquired by Take-Two Interactive

[tjsnh]

Well, at least it wasn't EA ....

[Spartwo]

Or Ubisoft, Activision, King, Telltale, Warner Bros, Deep Silver.

Or Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony because they'd lock it off to certain platforms.

A bit iffy on Konami.

Preferably Paradox over TT but I'd be ok with Capcom or Devolver as well.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Spartwo

[StupidAndy]

6 minutes ago, Spartwo said:

Preferably Paradox over TT but I'd be ok with Capcom or Devolver as well.

it would be cool to see what Paradox could do with kerbals

[Spartwo]

It seems like their kind of game, they'd hopefully expand the careers side of it which would be great because it's a bit "grind to sandbox" at the moment.

[TheEpicSquared]

Isn't Cities Skylines made by Paradox? 

[Spartwo]

Paradox published it, it was developed by Colossal Order.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Spartwo

[HebaruSan]

38 minutes ago, StupidAndy said:

it would be cool to see what Paradox could do with kerbals

I respect Paradox, but I would rather not have any more to do with war goals or war score than absolutely necessary.

[StupidAndy]

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

I respect Paradox, but I would rather not have any more to do with war goals or war score than absolutely necessary.

what about something like Cities Skylines? not warmongering, but still something to do with the paradoxian strategy

EDIT: above comments

Edited June 3, 2017 by StupidAndy

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, StupidAndy said:

what about something like Cities Skylines? not warmongering, but still something to do with the paradoxian strategy

I'm fine with warmongering, but it's frustrating having to give back and re-conquer planets over and over again in Stellaris, with long stretches of nothing in between to let your Threat rating slowly decay. Something about Paradox's approach to games makes me want to stop playing them in the early mid-game.

[StupidAndy]

4 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

I'm fine with warmongering, but it's frustrating having to give back and re-conquer planets over and over again in Stellaris, with long stretches of nothing in between to let your Threat rating slowly decay. Something about Paradox's approach to games makes me want to stop playing them in the early mid-game.

they do need a better midgame in most of their games

[neamerjell]

9 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

...SQUAD management ...exchanged the KSP IP for a lavish bag o' kredits.

 

My thoughts exactly. I knew the game was dead when the entire development team suddenly left.

[RoverDude]

2 minutes ago, neamerjell said:

My thoughts exactly. I knew the game was dead when the entire development team suddenly left.

Inaccurate.  Even after said departures, we had a larger dev team than before 1.0, and have continued to expand.  

[icantmakemodels]

I hate doing this, but: I am now saving copies of KSP to my hard disk in hopes that they will still be good when Take-Two does... Well, what publishers do.

 

"Microtransactions: Developers hate them, players hate them, publishers love them."

-- Someone, I forget who.

Edited June 4, 2017 by icantmakemodels

[Kerbart]

12 minutes ago, icantmakemodels said:

I hate doing this, but: I am now saving copies of KSP to my hard disk in hopes that they will still be good when Take-Two does... Well, what publishers do.

 

"Microtransactions: Developers hate them, players hate them, publishers love them."

-- Someone, I forget who.

Pray tell, what are all the Take Two games that have micro transactions? Because I'm not convinced they force them in every game. Players hate them, after all, and that's the ones that provide revenue.

Microtransactions are exceptionally popular on smartphone/tablet game that are downloaded for free. KSP isn't a smartphone/tablet game though; nor is the initial game free.

[icantmakemodels]

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

-- Helmuth von Moltke

 

 

i.e., It can't hurt to be prepared, can it?

[Kerbart]

3 minutes ago, icantmakemodels said:

i.e., It can't hurt to be prepared, can it?

Keeping one or two previous versions on hand is standard procedure for me, and most people here, anyway. If only because you don't want to break an existing save and some mods take longer than others to be updated. So yes, having an older version at hand wouldn't hurt and is certainly good practice.

But microtransactions? They're not a magical money maker you can retroactively add to a game. The game model isn't designed for it. The platform (PC) isn't designed for it (Android/iOS is but KSP doesn't even run on it, let alone that it'd be the prime platform). It will decimate the user base, killing the far more obvious cash cow: DLC.

If Take Two had a history of adding microtransactions to every game, or even most, I'd agree with you. But they don't have that many games that have them, even brand new games that could have been designed from the ground up with microtransactions in mind. That tells you that microtransactions are not that popular on PC games and that it's extremely unlikely that Take Two would jeopardize their investment in KSP by implementing something they rarely ever implement in their games in the first place.

[sh1pman]

12 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

But microtransactions? They're not a magical money maker you can retroactively add to a game.

*cough* Modern Warfare Remastered *cough*

[Moh1336]

Well this is great news. All those people who hated the fact the price per kerbal increases with the more Kerbals you've hired can now rejoice when the recruitment agency offers you a $1 per kerbal micro-transaction options.

That started as a joke, let's hope it continues to be one a year from now.

If I am honest, it doesn't really bother me, there's nothing I can do about it and as long as it doesn't negatively affect KSP than that's all that really matters to me.

But as was mentioned above, I too will start keeping a back up of game files with each update "just in case". Hope for the best prepare for the worst.

[Wallygator]

Well, just found this thread.  As always, I'm late to the party...

First thought:  Yup... Whatever...

Second thought:  Next step on IP lifecycle COMPLETE.

Third thought...Complete doom is likely not on the horizon. But since the same cast of characters remains engaged, I would expect similar output (Eg. No published plans, sketchy communications, transient resources, etc.)

Final Thought: IMHO sustaining growth to a mature DRM-free title likely requires frequent and high quality content.  To date, content has been slim to none - rather critical patches to the core game/engine.  If T2 can influence or accelerate anything NOW, more content would be a good choice. Competent mods/modders would be in my sights if I were T2.

Edit: Microtransactions???  No way.  Never going to happen.

Edit 2:  Microtransactions regarding mods?  Absolutely.  There are a number of modders out there that deserve our financial support. As long as the entirety of the transition goes to the modder.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Wallygator
Forgot a hyphen

[KSK]

11 hours ago, icantmakemodels said:

I hate doing this, but: I am now saving copies of KSP to my hard disk in hopes that they will still be good when Take-Two does... Well, what publishers do.

"Microtransactions: Developers hate them, players hate them, publishers love them."

-- Someone, I forget who.

Nope - a vocal subset of players hate them and even then it depends on the genre. MMOs for example have largely gone over to a free-to-play model supported by... guess what? Why? Because players have rejected the old subscription based models but seem quite happy to pay out for hats, pets and goodness knows what other cosmetic knick-knacks.

In principle, KSP would be exceptionally easy to add microtransactions to, assuming you have the backend systems needed to handle the payments. Bored of orange spacesuits and want to have your kerbals go up in natty retro-futuristic Mercury style suits? That'll be $1 please. Or how about these nice 2001: A Space Odyssey themed ones? Those are 2$. Yeah, sorry about the added cost but we needed to license the design first. Right over here we have these StarWars themed LV-Ns. Same stats as a regular LV-N but they look just like an X-Wing engine nacelle. Only $2 for a set of four! What's that - you want Star Trek themed stuff? Well just step this way my friend - do we have the wares for you...

There are no end of purely cosmetic parts you could add to KSP for a small price. Keep the stats the same to avoid any accusations of KSP going 'play to win' and you're golden. Missions will be scoreable if I remember rightly, so you wouldn't want the microtransaction parts to offer any unfair advantages. 

In practice, I think two things (probably more) would get in the way. 1) All the really popular themed parts are likely to come with licensing costs attached and 2) I can imagine it being difficult to keep the game moddable whilst preventing modders from adding their own versions of the official microtransaction parts for free. 

[Mako]

This can only be a good thing. The core KSP product isn't suddenly gone because of it; everyone who puchased KSP still has it. Make backups if you like, it's always a good idea with software/data no matter what it is. What you already have isn't going to magically change or go anywhere.

KSP was not going anywhere already. It is unlikely there were going to be any more major changes to the core product; recent development on things like localization and paid DLC basically show KSP's current direction. It's also likely there's limits to what they can do given the existing code base and the intention of not breaking the product now that it's out of early access. Having a major publisher interested in this IP means we have a better chance of seeing new products with the same great concepts that we love from KSP. I'd guess that without Take-Two (or some other partner/publisher) the chance of new products is a lot lower. I'd rather have a chance at new, good games than the alternative of the KSP IP slowly winding down development and not having the opportunity to grow further.

Take-Two can't screw up what we already have, at any rate. Neither can Squad for that matter, since there's no DRM and we can maintain usable backups. New stuff could be lousy, but it can't ruin what we have now. New stuff also has the potential to be good.

 

On 5/31/2017 at 1:58 PM, UomoCapra said:

Take-Two values the creative independence of its collaborators and teams, so we’ll continue to operate autonomously and have total creative control, now with the best tools and complete support from Take-Two to realize our vision.

Maybe now is a good time to talk about that vision? Maybe put some minds at ease? What is the destination Squad hopes to reach with development of KSP? How do we get to that destination? What roads lead there? Is there something like a chart, or map of roads, that would show clear direction to your destination? It could be helpful and I believe it'd be far more helpful than harmful especially right now.

On 6/1/2017 at 3:16 PM, regex said:

I, for one, would love to see another developer's take on KSP. KSP is a fantastic idea with a somewhat sub-par implementation. I doubt any developer with the chops and seriousness to actually plan out their game would fail at a second KSP if they retained the core sandbox gameplay.

I couldn't agree more with every word in this quote.

[TheRagingIrishman]

8 minutes ago, Mako said:

This can only be a good thing. The core KSP product isn't suddenly gone because of it; everyone who puchased KSP still has it. Make backups if you like, it's always a good idea with software/data no matter what it is. What you already have isn't going to magically change or go anywhere.

KSP was not going anywhere already. It is unlikely there were going to be any more major changes to the core product; recent development on things like localization and paid DLC basically show KSP's current direction. It's also likely there's limits to what they can do given the existing code base and the intention of not breaking the product now that it's out of early access. Having a major publisher interested in this IP means we have a better chance of seeing new products with the same great concepts that we love from KSP. I'd guess that without Take-Two (or some other partner/publisher) the chance of new products is a lot lower. I'd rather have a chance at new, good games than the alternative of the KSP IP slowly winding down development and not having the opportunity to grow further.

Take-Two can't screw up what we already have, at any rate. Neither can Squad for that matter, since there's no DRM and we can maintain usable backups. New stuff could be lousy, but it can't ruin what we have now. New stuff also has the potential to be good.

Maybe now is a good time to talk about that vision? Maybe put some minds at ease? What is the destination Squad hopes to reach with development of KSP? How do we get to that destination? What roads lead there? Is there something like a chart, or map of roads, that would show clear direction to your destination? It could be helpful and I believe it'd be far more helpful than harmful especially right now.

I couldn't agree more with every word in this quote.

I agree with everything you said except for the part about a roadmap. Stuff changes and if a roadmap is published then people get angry when things change (as has happened in the past with Squad and public roadmaps). Better to only reveal stuff they know for certain they will and can do.

Edited June 4, 2017 by TheRagingIrishman
forum derped my post

[Mako]

@TheRagingIrishman That is the common argument against it. I don't care if people get upset. I believe Squad shouldn't either. A roadmap is not a promise; things change and if someone can't understand that very simple idea then there's really no point to worrying about whether they're upset or not. It is my belief that it would do more good than harm. I recognize that you and others have a different opinion on the matter and that's okay.

I can't agree that withholding information because some people might be upset by it is helpful to the community. You can't please everyone, and if your roadmap upsets people they'd be upset sooner or later with or without it. I do understand how it's so much easier for Squad to operate without a public roadmap, but I just don't believe it's better for the community in any way.

Squad says they have a vision. I hope it's true, but the development of KSP and lack of roadmap leads me to believe KSP was never planned to be what it is today. I can't help but feel that it could be better if there was a plan.

Whatever happens, I think one thing most of us can agree on is KSP is pretty great.

[dlrk]

@KSK

Players did not reject the traditional subscription MMO. Publishers/developers are insisting on creating terrible F2P/P2W MMOs because it's cheap and they can make money off so-called whales.

[TriggerAu]

On 6/3/2017 at 8:46 PM, RoverDude said:

With all due respect, I had the same or more tenure than half of the names described as the 'old' team

Not the only one either