Take Two Interactive (Rockstar, 2K, Private Division) canceling games, ending projects and laying off 5% of its workforce

[Ryaja]

Just now, Infinite Aerospace said:

Unless you bought the game like, an hour ago that's going to be difficult as you won't get a refund.

Ya, but a class action lawsuit is possible if they don't deliver what was promised for the game. A refund for the game will be in their best option.

[Infinite Aerospace]

4 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

Ya, but a class action lawsuit is possible if they don't deliver what was promised for the game. A refund for the game will be in their best option.

You purchased on Steam I assume? There's a little section in the Early Access information that states:

"You (as the customer) should be aware that some developers will be unable to 'finish' their game".

That's a fairly important point to highlight. If a developer is shuttered, and cannot  therefore finish their game, it's essentially not Steam's problem as they gave fair warning at the point of purchase.

I mean if you want to take Take Two interactive to court, I genuinely wish you the best of luck with that.

Edited May 2 by Infinite Aerospace

[NexusHelium]

26 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

I mean if you want to take Take Two interactive to court, I genuinely wish you the best of luck with that.

Let's do it. We have all the chances in the world 

Edited May 2 by NexusHelium
*sigh* do i have to say?

[Flush Foot]

2 minutes ago, NexusHelium said:

Let's do it. We have all the chances in the word 

In which word?

[Infinite Aerospace]

1 minute ago, NexusHelium said:

Let's do it. We have all the chances in the word 

Hell, it'd at least be hitting the people who are actually responsible at the top of the hierarchy. The likes of Nate I doubt are really that involved in the actual running of things, so if this is really happening (Cancellation and shutdown of Intercept) I'd guess he's just as blindsided as anyone on this forum to be honest.

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

8 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Hell, it'd at least be hitting the people who are actually responsible at the top of the hierarchy. The likes of Nate I doubt are really that involved in the actual running of things, so if this is really happening (Cancellation and shutdown of Intercept) I'd guess he's just as blindsided as anyone on this forum to be honest.

You're thinking of suing the effect.

I'm thinking the cause is the real culprit.

 

Any of us here, if we were in charge at T2 with finding out at where the money is being wasted, I'm sure IG would stand out.

And, if it turns out to be true, and every second they choose to have no statement counts (even if it really isn't true), then IG this time was the one that did stand out as the biggest money waste, so they had to take action.

That's how money is being made and how you keep investors happy.

Edited May 2 by GGG-GoodGuyGreg

[NexusHelium]

17 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

In which word?

nooooooooooooooooooooooo 

[Flush Foot]

Just now, NexusHelium said:

nooooooooooooooooooooooo 

 (in these dark times, we have to find humour where we can )

[Infinite Aerospace]

11 minutes ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

You're thinking of suing the effect.

I'm thinking the cause is the real culprit.

 

Any of us here, if we were in charge at T2 with finding out at where the money is being wasted, I'm sure IG would stand out.

And, if it turns out to be true, and every second they choose to have no statement counts (even if it really isn't true), then IG this time was the one that did stand out as the biggest money waste, so they had to take action.

That's how money is being made and how you keep investors happy.

This is all true, and it's the harsh reality of development in any guise. Whether that is software, or hardware. All projects have to operate with revenue generation in mind, or else they don't really have a purpose from a corporate point of view.

[TLTay]

People don't want to hear it, but the early access disclaimer is quite clear.

You willingly and knowingly purchased a licence to an incomplete software. You were distinctly warned by the disclaimer that the software may never be completed.

Did you fail to receive access to the software you paid to access, in the state you paid to access it, on the date you paid to access it? No.

Caveat emptor. 

[PDCWolf]

48 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

You purchased on Steam I assume? There's a little section in the Early Access information that states:

"You (as the customer) should be aware that some developers will be unable to 'finish' their game".

That's a fairly important point to highlight. If a developer is shuttered, and cannot  therefore finish their game, it's essentially not Steam's problem as they gave fair warning at the point of purchase.

I mean if you want to take Take Two interactive to court, I genuinely wish you the best of luck with that.

The rules give them the legal grounds to, through inaction or pushing for an 1.0, be completely relieved from having to offer refunds.

Steam will only offer refunds based on the elimination of a game from the store, not from a publisher just saying "game is done" and releasing it.

Quote

Q: What happens if I don't complete my Early Access game?

A: Sometimes things don't work out as you planned, and you may need to discontinue development of your Early Access game before you are ready for a V1.0 release. If this happens, you can contact Valve to figure out the next steps. There are two options:

If your Early Access game is playable and well received, but you're unable to develop it to the point where you feel it warrants a full V1.0 release, then we can keep your game on the Store, but otherwise remove it from Early Access. This will remove the Early Access tag and Early Access Q&A displayed on your game’s Store Page, but not start the launch visibility that comes with definitively releasing your game out of Early Access. This would be a permanent change; we aren’t able to reenable Early Access again later, so please consider this option carefully before contacting us with the details. In this case, you should let your community know about your decision to leave Early Access via a forum post or news event.

Alternatively, we can remove your Early Access game from Steam. Before reaching out, you should read about the process of removing a game from Steam and take a moment to carefully consider whether or not pulling your game down is actually the right choice. Are you acting based on an emotional response to negative feedback, or is retiring your game the appropriate next step? We take our relationship with customers seriously, so if you choose to cancel development of a game and retire it from the store, we will not republish it again later and we may offer refunds to any users who purchased it. Treating customers fairly is the most important thing to us.

 

[Lisias]

On 5/2/2024 at 9:30 AM, PDCWolf said:

Can you give us a full-ish writeup of your theory but with safe names?

Would be unwise, as I'm obviously emotionally attached to the subject and I'm pretty sure I going to miss a lot of shots until getting near the target. You see, slandering is a bad thing - and being targeted by it in the past doesn't means I'm entitled to do the same.

And if I'm the only one able to see the links, perhaps there's no real links at all - I love a "Conspiracy.Theory" as the any other guy, but this doesn't necessary means I like seeing people unjustifiably getting screwed by it.

There's something smelling funny around here, probably for some years already - but some wind may be masking the source. All I can say is that I checked my shoes, and there's nothing stuck on the sole.

Forum is too big of an elevator to be able to pinpoint someone farting with certainty!

Edited May 3 by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made slightely less entertaining...

[Shammyofwar]

Dodged a bullet not buying KSP 2 , I hope another studio will pick it up if it it is indeed canceled. On the bright side KSP 1 is awesome and with mods we are  able to create many of the features of ksp 2

Edited May 2 by Shammyofwar

[Icegrx]

5 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Can you give us a full-ish writeup of your theory but with safe names?

No, they have no real information and they are making this up as they go. 

[Yakuzi]

1 hour ago, Flush Foot said:

Yakuzi, maybe I misunderstood the conversation before my message, (I did not see 'of take two' in Great Liao's message, stopping at "Nate will wind up CEO") but I was responding as if Nate was going 'all the way to the top'... I was not saying TT CEO is to blame for this/anything... In fact, either in this convo or another, I 'credited' TT for giving IG as much time as they did!

 

No worries, I wasn't calling you out. I included your response for context.

[Scarecrow71]

51 minutes ago, TLTay said:

You willingly and knowingly purchased a licence to an incomplete software. You were distinctly warned by the disclaimer that the software may never be completed.

I think the thing people are going after with talk of a class-action would be the promises the company made regardless of the product being in EA.  All the hype, all the talk about how they'll finish and everything is good.  All the tidbits about velocity being good, and timelines are being met.  I think this is where people are aiming.  And that's a damned hard thing to prove outside of court, let alone inside of one.  While there are laws that protect consumers from outright fraud, it's gonna be pretty hard for anyone to prove the company - TT, PD, IG, or some other entity in the umbrella - was intentional in deceiving the community.

But, if they want to pursue it...I say good luck, and I hope they have enough cash to see it through.

[Infinite Aerospace]

26 minutes ago, Shammyofwar said:

Dodged a bullet not buying KSP 2 , I hope another studio will pick it up if it it is indeed canceled. On the bright side KSP 1 is awesome and with mods we are  able to create many of the features of ksp 2

Problem is, KSP2 is at its core superior to KSP1 in all areas that matter, all in a much nicer put together package. It's kinda hard to go back to KSP1 and be greeted with the awful interface, the ham fisted 'click on part' system, the lack of any real 'event' in the games sound design. That'll all be a huge loss to the franchise, and even now as a mere 0.2.2 it's improved on a number of areas in KSP1.

[NexusHelium]

4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I think the thing people are going after with talk of a class-action would be the promises the company made regardless of the product being in EA. 

With talk of class action, I'm going after a joke  

[chefsbrian]

8 hours ago, Codraroll said:

So, a question I haven't heard anybody make yet: Will this forum remain up? Hosting it is an expense presumably paid for by the now-defunct developer.

To add to the prior statement from Dakota saying it'll stay up - on the scale of any corporate endeavor, a volunteer moderated forum is the next best thing to free. The long tail from KSP1 certainly still covers the forum costs, not to mention the value of retaining a core audience of the IP if they ever decide to move forward with it again - I'm sure all of us would be extremely doubtful of a KSP reboot again after this excrementsshow, but we'd be doubtful about it here, and that's still useful.

[NexusHelium]

4 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

That'll all be a huge loss to the franchise, and even now as a mere 0.2.2 it's improved on a number of areas in KSP1.

Alas, you speak the truth  

[Acvila]

9 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Problem is, KSP2 is at its core superior to KSP1 in all areas that matter, all in a much nicer put together package. It's kinda hard to go back to KSP1 and be greeted with the awful interface, the ham fisted 'click on part' system, the lack of any real 'event' in the games sound design. That'll all be a huge loss to the franchise, and even now as a mere 0.2.2 it's improved on a number of areas in KSP1.

KSP is better in everything for me, maybe you like shiny things...

[Flush Foot]

Just now, Acvila said:

KSP is better in everything for me

I won't disagree with you on most things, but the music in 2 was pretty sweet!

[NexusHelium]

3 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

I won't disagree with you on most things, but the music in 2 was pretty sweet!

And you gotta admit, most of the planets from orbit will never beat anything KSP 1 has to offer.

[Infinite Aerospace]

1 minute ago, NexusHelium said:

Alas, you speak the truth  

I reinstalled KSP1 the other week, when I have some time off work. Even with mods, it just feels basic in comparison, the UI is big leap backwards. When I launched a rocket, even though the texture quality (modded) is a bit better in the original, and it looks a little bit less glossy, and a bit more natural then experience was a bit 'meh' as the dramatic, enthusiastic score is missing, the sense of adventure it brings, the low, deep rumble of the engines is replaced with a generic 'rocket sound'.

Got to orbit and was greeted with the generic music of space, and when I looked down on modded Kerbin, the terrain is flat and featureless, just 'painted' green, the clouds appear the same, like a layer just painted over the ground and I think of what we're losing. People can criticise Kerbal Space Program II, and Intercept Games but maaaan they got some things so on the money. It feels almost fitting that the final time I played KSP2 (before this all kicked off) was my big nuclear transfer stage powering down it's engines, set to depart Kerbin and head out to Jool, and just before I saved and quit, the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and the beautiful lighting (and BlackRack's magic) faded into darkness.

I personally think, after a lot of mixed feelings over the past year and a bit, we're losing something that *could* have turned into something truly special in the gaming world, a true stand-alone title, in a class of one, truly unique in every sense of the word.

[Acvila]

1 minute ago, Flush Foot said:

I won't disagree with you on most things, but the music in 2 was pretty sweet!

I always turn off the music in every single game.