Bloomberg insight article into studio transition from Star Theory to Intercept Games

[ShakeNBake]

Termination For Convenience Clause.

Not the wisest thing to put in a contract, but they definitely do exist.

[Numberyellow]

16 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

So it was not for “no reason at all”. Thanks for clarifying. 

Nope, didn't say that. In fact, we don't know for certain why it they did it. All i said is that they COULD do it for no reason at all, under certain circumstances, provided the contract was worded in such a way as to facilitate it.

But let's not let facts and reality get in the way of "lol, numberyellow's wrong"

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Numberyellow

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

Or, they just got greedy, and decided to cut out the middle man.

That's another assumption, that's my point we don't know, we're just starting from the assumption "publishers bad" and using that to fill every unknown or uncommon thing in the story.

 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

KSP is Take-Two's I.P... they can pull the contract any time they want, for whatever reason they want...or even for no reason at all.

The whole point of making a contract is to avoid that and a huge part of being a talented contractor is estimating times and costs correctly, it's not normal to be in the situation of renegotiating the contract that's keeping you alive with the people you're trying to sell your company to. 

That's either bad management or playing bets with your whole company for a fat cashout.

 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

You don't know that something went wrong...i don't know that either. that's an assumption.

Yep, an assumption, as everything with this story, that's the whole point.

 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

You seem to be unwilling to entertain the idea that Take-Two got greedy, and decided that they would take what they wanted, instead of behaving civilly.

Yep, I'm unwilling to take an assumption for granted just because it resonates well with my gut feeling.

 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

Clearly, you've never watched any of Yong's work before.

That's another assumption, a wrong one.

 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

He reports on industry news. The bloomberg article is really the only thing anyone has to work with. Other articles are based on information from that one, and videos reporting the news, are using that article as their basis, because, let's face it: Gamers don't read bloomberg, anymore than they were reading Kotaku.....so someone's gotta get the word out.

I've watched Yongyea, Jim Sterling, Bellular News and Matt Lowne videos on the matter, none of them is "reporting the news", they're just selling pitchforks and torches to the mob, they don't add anything to the Bloomberg article and often give less informations in a way more biased way.

 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

Also, anyone familiar with KSP, KNOWS it was acquired by Take-Two. So he probably didn't think it was necessary to state things that his viewers probably already know.

Forgetting for a moment the fact that those videos (except for the Matt Lowne one) are not meant for the KSP public you'd be surprised how many people needed this thing explained to them in the KSP Subreddit.

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Guest

[MechBFP]

1 minute ago, Numberyellow said:

Nope, didn't say that. In fact, we don't know for certain why it they did it. All i said is that they COULD do it for no reason at all, under certain circumstances, provided the contract was worded in such a way as to facilitate it.

"no reason at all"... "under certain circumstances".

I love the logical gymnastics you are trying to perform here, but come on, no one is falling for that.

[Numberyellow]

Just now, MechBFP said:

"no reason at all"... "under certain circumstances".

I love the logical gymnastics you are trying to perform here, but come on, no one is falling for that.

What logical gymnasitcs?

 

If the decision maker is having an exceedingly bad day (circumstances), and decides to just pull the contract.....provided the contract is worded correctly, he/she could do that. i'm not saying that's what happened, i'm simply saying it's possible.

[Klapaucius]

48 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

Personally, it could totally be that Take2 was greedy, I'm also willing to believe it wasn't. I am mainly worried that bad stuff has happened, and for what that means for KSP. I am not yet at the point of blame and don't know what the best course of action is personally or for the community as a whole.

The most sensible response to the issue. We don't have enough information to pass judgement either way.

[Numberyellow]

4 minutes ago, Master39 said:

That's another assumption, that's my point we don't know, we're just starting from the assumption "publishers bad" and using that to fill every unknown or uncommon thing in the story.

Maybe other people are starting from the assumption "publishers bad"...i'm not. It's possible Take-Two are scumbags, and it's equally possible Star Theory royally screwed up. Since Take-Two never made ANY statement about this, we don't have the inside baseball on their end of this. However, since they don't wanna talk about it, that usually means they did a no-no. see my post about Nord.. Additionally, it can be inferred, based on Take-Two's history of doing scummy things, that it is MORE likely that they are the bad guy here. Again, we need more information, but for now, this working theory is sound.

Quote

 

The whole point of making a contract is to avoid that and a huge part of being a talented contractor is estimating times and costs correctly, it's not normal to be in the situation of renegotiating the contract that's keeping you alive with the people you're trying to sell your company to. 

That's either bad management or playing bets with your whole company for a fat cashout.

 

No, the point of making a contract, is to secure work. Obviously a talented contractor is usually good at estimating times and costs, but one thing nobody can accurately plan for is "excrements happens". Sometimes you run into a problem, especially in software development, that ends up costing you a lot of time to program around, or redo, or whatever. Being that i grew up with a programmer, i know this all too well.

Quote

Yep, an assumption, as everything with this story, that's the whole point.

No, not everything with this story is an assumption. There are facts being presented, albeit from only one side of the affair, but still..those facts are not assumptions.

Quote

Yep, I'm unwilling to take an assumption for granted just because it resonates well with my gut feeling.

You'd make a terrible detective.

Quote

That's another assumption, a wrong one.

Ok, so if you watch Yong with any kind of regularity, then you know what he's all about, and how he presents information. He's a commentary/review channel.

Quote

I've watched Yongyea, Jim Sterling, Bellular News and Matt Lowne videos on the matter, none of them is "reporting the news", they're just selling pitchforks and torches to the mob, they don't add anything to the Bloomberg article and often give less informations in a way more biased way.

You also like to harp on the fact that nobody is adding anything to the story... just how in the hell are they supposed to do that? All the information that's available, is already out there... do you honestly think that Take-Two is going to talk to youtubers, when they won't even talk to Bloomberg? What could these people possibly add to the story?

Quote

Forgetting for a moment the fact that those videos (except for the Matt Lowne one) are not meant for the KSP public you'd be surprised how many people needed this thing explained to them in the KSP Subreddit.

It's GAMING NEWS. anyone who's clicking a video about KSP, is probably a player....otherwise, why in the hell would anyone click onto a video about something that isn't relevant to their interests?

[pandaman]

17 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

What logical gymnasitcs?

 

If the decision maker is having an exceedingly bad day (circumstances), and decides to just pull the contract.....provided the contract is worded correctly, he/she could do that. i'm not saying that's what happened, i'm simply saying it's possible.

Ok.  If, in the unlikely event that the contract was worded so that it permitted one, or any, of the parties to pull out at any time without penalties, for absoluely any reason, then yes, I suppose so.  But that's not a contract I would sign (unless I was the only one allowed to do that), and I seriously doubt ST would be that dumb.

Contracts exist to formalise the relationship/deal, and clarify expectations and responsibilites.  If either party fails to deliver, or otherwise breaks the terms, then the others have legitimate cause to take action.  But that's not 'without good reason'.

Edited June 6, 2020 by pandaman

[Kerbart]

I think we’re starting to agree that at this point very little is still known aside from the Bloomberg article.

Most of us have learned through life that the press is hardly as objective as it claims it is. A freelance journalist — or a fresh hire, it’s hard to tell — likely wants to make a big splash and “vendor misses important deadline, gets bought out by customer” isn’t nearly as exciting a headline. Perhaps this really is a bloodthirsty as the article describes, but him being the only one who investigated the case, we don’t know. The incentive is there and all I know about modern journalism is “does it sell?”

So, is T2 a company of boyscouts only doing the right thing? Certainly not.

But is the only alternate view to that “T2 is evil and they’re jumping on the first opportunity to pump the game full of micropayments and lootboxes and they destroyed Star Theory to do so?”

I have a problem with that as well.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

It's possible Take-Two are scumbags, and it's equally possible Star Theory royally screwed up.

And this is my whole point.

10 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

However, since they don't wanna talk about it, that usually means they did a no-no.

That's not how PR works, often times not making every internal shift and story public is just standard and waiting for the excrementsstorm to pass a better strategy than trying to explain yourself, after all in a year and a half from now nobody will remember about this.

13 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

There are facts being presented, albeit from only one side of the affair, but still..those facts are not assumptions.

Facts

There was a hostile and risky takeover after failed negotiations for a new contract/buyout.

End of facts

The rest is more or less an assumption.

16 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

You also like to harp on the fact that nobody is adding anything to the story... just how in the hell are they supposed to do that? All the information that's available, is already out there

I'm focusing on that because I've seen those videos thrown around in here more than they should (which is never, why bother with third hand information?), they are opinion pieces presented as news (a common problem) and used a such, on the other hand Shadowzone video it's a declared opinion piece in which he explains his position and his speculation on the matter (just like our posts here).

 

22 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

otherwise, why in the hell would anyone click onto a video about something that isn't relevant to their interests?

Controversies and new fresh reasons to hate big publishers is what feeds the gaming journalism (one could argue that the problem is not limited to gaming).

[Numberyellow]

22 minutes ago, pandaman said:

Ok.  If, in the unlikely event that the contract was worded so that it permitting one, or any, of the parties to pull out at any time without penalties, for absoluely any reason, then yes, I suppose so.  But that's not a contract I would sign (unless I was the only one allowed to do that), and I seriously doubt ST would be that dumb.

Contracts exist to formalise the relationship/deal, and clarify expectations and responsibilites.  If either party fails to deliver, or otherwise breaks the terms, then the others have legitimate cause to take action.  But that's not 'without good reason'.

sometimes, people will sign less than optimum contracts, in order to get the work. If they need the money bad enough, or want to work on a particular project bad enough, they'll sign on the dotted line.

6 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

I think we’re starting to agree that at this point very little is still known aside from the Bloomberg article.

Most of us have learned through life that the press is hardly as objective as it claims it is. A freelance journalist — or a fresh hire, it’s hard to tell — likely wants to make a big splash and “vendor misses important deadline, gets bought out by customer” isn’t nearly as exciting a headline. Perhaps this really is a bloodthirsty as the article describes, but him being the only one who investigated the case, we don’t know. The incentive is there and all I know about modern journalism is “does it sell?”

So, is T2 a company of boyscouts only doing the right thing? Certainly not.

But is the only alternate view to that “T2 is evil and they’re jumping on the first opportunity to pump the game full of micropayments and lootboxes and they destroyed Star Theory to do so?”

I have a problem with that as well.

Another reason we really should be looking for more information on the matter is Schreier's track record, and his views on objectivity. I have no doubt he'd go for a more salacious approach on the matter, because that's what he's always done. Does he cover things a lot of others don't? Yes, he does. Does he often get good information on these often ignored stories? Yes, he does. I'll give credit, where it's due, despite my professional dislike of Schreier.

We have information....it's probably reliable...but we need more.

[kerbiloid]

If they pay that journalist per comment, he's probably buying the next ferrari because in the current one the ashtray is overfilled.
Have a masterclass for free.

[StrandedonEarth]

13 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

. If they need the money bad enough, or want to work on a particular project bad enough, they'll sign on the dotted line.

And if they don't, someone else will. Pretty much the only exception is someone who has skills/abilities/knowledge that are essential but no one else has (and knows it). Like this urban legend, that has appeared in many forms:

Spoiler

If you can find such a person available for hire, or willing to jump ship. For this situation, it would be someone with a track record of finishing projects on time and budget, probably by giving comfortably padded estimates in the first place, Scotty-style..

Venturing more off-topic, I once had a new distribution warehouse manager come in with a neat trick to get around the limitations placed on him. The bean counters would only allow so many labor hours to be scheduled (never enough), and inevitably railed when overtime was needed to finish the day's work. Previous managers scheduled part-time-status employees (who usually ended up with full-time hours scheduled anyways) for 8-hour shifts, and had to pay overtime when the days ran long. The new manager scheduled them for six hours, with the understanding they they should expect to be there for eight hours. The result was we had more bodies on the floor (which occasionally caused a minor traffic jam; the price one pays...), and if they had to stay past their scheduled six hour shift, the company didn't have to pay time-and-a-half. Win-win!

 

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

I just want to make sure you understand that KSP2 wasn't Star Theory's first project. They have developed other games.

I know they done some others Planetary Annihilation was probably their major one. As I understand it was crowdfunded and lacked out plenty of features, was some stuff about it 3-4 years ago. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Theory_Games
Their problem was that they was not Squad who could tinker away for years,  now it was an schedule and obvious an budget who Squad had too but as long as KSP made money Squad was probably happy. 
Now add corona, Star Theory sounds like an small and agile team who should be be well adapted to work from home but take two might demand more as lots of their major titles took an hit.
And KSP 2 was sold as an fast way to make lots of money of an established franchise. 

[nikokespprfan]

  

3 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

then they were clearly at the end of the time allotted in the contract for production of the software

waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait

This pulling of the contract happened in December, per the Bloomberg article

Quote

One Friday evening last December, employees of game designer Star Theory Games each received the same unusual recruitment message over LinkedIn.

...

Late last year, Take-Two agreed to extend Star Theory’s development deadline by six months to add new content to the game. That kicked off a new round of contract negotiations. All seemed well, said the people who worked on the game, until Dec. 6, when the project was pulled and the LinkedIn messages went out. At the hastily called staff meeting a few days later, the founders said in addition to sale talks, they had been trying to clarify royalty terms, which were unclear in their contract, they told employees.

...

On March 4, Star Theory shut down. Each worker received a month’s pay and two months of health insurance, said three former employees. 

-Bloomberg Article

The game was to be shipped in spring 2020 at that time. If what you are saying is true, why in the world would a contract end 4 months before a deadline? (thinking emoji)

It could be that the negotiations where started early, and failed, ending in the foresight of what would happen. But then the question is, how quickly did star.theorys' financial situation deteriorate. Surely just waiting for the contract to expire would leave you with some money in the bank to survive past March 4th. Although it could be the case that S.T knew in advance that the leftover savings weren't going to make the studio survive for long, and they decided to pull the plug sooner rather than later. I'm not sure how likely this all is, but it is a plausible scenario.

Edited June 6, 2020 by nikokespprfan

[Kerbart]

13 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

This pulling of the contract happened in December, per the Bloomberg article

The game was to be shipped in spring 2020 at that time. If what you are saying is true, why in the world would a contract end 4 months before a deadline? (thinking emoji)

I’m not privy to the contract but projects like these usually have milestones with dates on them. It’s not inconceivable that medio December multiple milestones were missed and some tough discussions had taken place on where the project actually was, where it was going to end up and when.
Given the size of T2 it’s safe to assume the contract is ironclad and has clauses for cases like these.what we might learn in due time—or not—is wether the rug got yanked from underneath Star Theory or that T2 tried to salvage the project.

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

There doesn't hafta be some special event, that "allows" them to decide to not let a studio work on their I.P. anymore.

Yet everyone's up in arms about their doing so.

[nikokespprfan]

10 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Yet everyone's up in arms about their doing so.

Well, maybe I am naive (Im probably naive), but if your client is completely dependenton you, in a moral world, that client is at least somewhat protected against, erm, you being a [bleep] and destroying their livelyhoods on a dime.

"I am always able to trow you into a ravine whenever I like" is not a very fun condition to work under.

So yes, up until some point I do find it weird that this can happen.

Edited June 6, 2020 by nikokespprfan

[Numberyellow]

12 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Yet everyone's up in arms about their doing so.

no, that's NOT what everyone's "up in arms" about. if Take-Two had simply pulled the contract, and hired another studio, or taken the project in-house, yeah it would have sucked, but it wouldn't be a controversy. hell, people probably wouldn't have cared if people from Star Theory had sought out positions at the new studio. what everyone who has a problem with this are bothered by, is Take-Two mass-messaging the whole company, gutting it, and leaving it to die. surely you can see how scummy that is..

51 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

  

waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait

This pulling of the contract happened in December, per the Bloomberg article

The game was to be shipped in spring 2020 at that time. If what you are saying is true, why in the world would a contract end 4 months before a deadline? (thinking emoji)

It could be that the negotiations where started early, and failed, ending in the foresight of what would happen. But then the question is, how quickly did star.theorys' financial situation deteriorate. Surely just waiting for the contract to expire would leave you with some money in the bank to survive past March 4th. Although it could be the case that S.T knew in advance that the leftover savings weren't going to make the studio survive for long, and they decided to pull the plug sooner rather than later. I'm not sure how likely this all is, but it is a plausible scenario.

now that you point that out... something does seem off about the timing.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Numberyellow
spelling

[MechBFP]

18 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

Take-Two mass-messaging the whole company, gutting it, and leaving it to die. surely you can see how scummy that is..

Technically the employees that left are the ones that gutted Star Theory, which was entirely their own choice.

You are basically saying that people are mad because T2 offered people jobs, and salary increases and/or bonuses.

Pretty strange world we live in where both offering people work, AND an increased salary and/or bonus is somehow considered bad? *shrug*

[Superfluous J]

52 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

if Take-Two had simply pulled the contract, and hired another studio, or taken the project in-house, yeah it would have sucked, but it wouldn't be a controversy.

No people would be saying how TT killed ST because they were their only client. And those programmers would be out of work. Or TT would hire them after ST collapsed. Which probably would have been cheaper for TT.

 

[Numberyellow]

1 hour ago, MechBFP said:

Technically the employees that left are the ones that gutted Star Theory, which was entirely their own choice.

You are basically saying that people are mad because T2 offered people jobs, and salary increases and/or bonuses.

Pretty strange world we live in where both offering people work, AND an increased salary and/or bonus is somehow considered bad? *shrug*

And how do you know that they were offered "an increased salary and/or bonus"?

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

No people would be saying how TT killed ST because they were their only client. And those programmers would be out of work. Or TT would hire them after ST collapsed. Which probably would have been cheaper for TT.

 

No, we wouldn't be saying that. Why are you so focused on going to bat for Take-Two? What did they ever do for you?

[Pthigrivi]

5 hours ago, nikokespprfan said:

But then the question is, how quickly did star.theorys' financial situation deteriorate. Surely just waiting for the contract to expire would leave you with some money in the bank to survive past March 4th.

Companies typically keep 3-6mo worth of expenses cash on hand for events like this. More than that (should you be so lucky) is a waste and should be reinvested in retaining staff and growth. Assuming the spigot turned off abruptly in Dec its not surprising star theory didn’t last long. They may have made it if they were able to quickly land new projects, but COVID closed off most hope of that. 
 

That said, we really have no idea what really happened so this is all conjecture. 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Pthigrivi

[pandaman]

39 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

And how do you know that they were offered "an increased salary and/or bonus"?

Did you actually read the bloomberg artical?  (I copied this from the quote in the OP of this thread)...

“We are offering a compensation package that includes a cash sign-on bonus, an excellent salary, bonus eligibility and other benefits,”

Ok, before you point it out, the words 'increased salary' are not specifically mentioned here, but I think 'excellent' could be assumed to imply at least equal to their current salaries.  Oh, look.... it mentions  'cash sign-on bonus', 'bonus eligibility' and 'other benefits' too.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

And how do you know that they were offered "an increased salary and/or bonus"?

No, we wouldn't be saying that. Why are you so focused on going to bat for Take-Two? What did they ever do for you?

I am not going to bat for anybody.

I'm explaining why freaking out and tossing wild accusations around is not and never will be productive.