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

[Jaypeg]

11 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

 

This is legitimately an insane assumption. How exactly is the former Uber Entertainment CEO involved in IG, PD or TT ? Be sure to include your sources.

 

It's almost been 7 years since work started on KSP2, but despite the abysmal state of the game, the lack of pace and quality of its development and the unwavering dishonest (at best) communication, a couple of damage control tweets convince you that this time it's gonna be good for realsies?

 

Being optimistic is one thing, but this is something else altogether. The fact that such overt disingenuous positivity isn't getting called out here anymore truly is a testament of the current state of the forums.

There is a lot of misinformation in here, let me try and clarify.

During the ST-IG overtake dev was reset, then the new game dev team was hit by covid. This puts us at approx 4 years of dev, maximum - not counting lowered efficiency during covid.  I think the sate of the game is dire, but not yet entirely over. We should expect everything up to 1.0 to be pushed out in ~ 60 days, and then PD to do bugfixes for a few months after. Not entirely over, but pretty much so.

When it comes to management, the CEO of Uber entertainment was fired, but a lot of the other highups were actually moved across. Thats bad.

One final comment:

We have no knowledge of what is happening. At all.
If we can, lets stay calm until any solid news arises. This may be good or bad for the future

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Jaypeg said:

We should expect everything up to 1.0 to be pushed out in ~ 60 days

Intercept isn't going to be working for the next 60 days. They were already sent home. The notice is a legal formality. In practice, employees are fired on the spot and given 60 days of pay and benefits. Nobody is working on KSP2 right now, and no progress towards 1.0 will be made until a replacement studio is found. We don't know how long that will be, but don't expext anything to happen over the next couple of months at least, and it might take a lot longer. I would be shocked if we get any code updates this year, unless something was basically ready to go and can be pushed out by a skeleton crew of PD devs, and even that would be minor. 1.0 is not coming this year. It probably isn't coming in 2025 either.

[Skorj]

1 hour ago, Flush Foot said:

Even if I set that in the VAB when building my station, running that “Action #3” while in control of the approaching ship wouldn’t (I don’t believe) execute that function on the ‘not commanded station’…

No, no.  In the VAB you set the docking port as "this specific part is the part that any other ship will use as the target when selecting this ship as the target".  Unlike today where from ship A you select a part on ship B, instead the "target part" becomes just a property of a ship, like the root part or control-from-here part.  You'd only need an action of any kind if you wanted to keep changing it around between ports.

1 minute ago, K^2 said:

Intercept isn't going to be working for the next 60 days. They were already sent home. The notice is a legal formality. In practice, employees are fired on the spot and given 60 days of pay and benefits. Nobody is working on KSP2 right now, and no progress towards 1.0 will be made until a replacement studio is found. We don't know how long that will be, but don't expext anything to happen over the next couple of months at least, and it might take a lot longer. I would be shocked if we get any code updates this year, unless something was basically ready to go and can be pushed out by a skeleton crew of PD devs, and even that would be minor. 1.0 is not coming this year. It probably isn't coming in 2025 either.

Given the bug patch release cycle, it looks like they probably did have one ready to go, with the fixes Nate noted in his last post.  Color me skeptical that those fixes actually work, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone at PD pushed them out soon.  After that, though. yeah.  I don't think there will ever be any more feature work, just bugfixes, unless (A) colonies are much closer to done than I imagine, and (B) T2 thinks a console release will make a lot of money.

[K^2]

20 minutes ago, Skorj said:

After that, though. yeah.  I don't think there will ever be any more feature work, just bugfixes, unless (A) colonies are much closer to done than I imagine, and (B) T2 thinks a console release will make a lot of money.

I doubt there's enough to release colonies, or people would have found more than they did in previous releases. There are some core systems in place, and some might even be partially implemented in the form of KSC functionality, but not enough to just patch up. I am extrapolating a bit past the full confidence, though. A completely isolated experimental branch with a lot more progress on it that some MacGyvers from PD can manage to integrate into a functional Frankenstein isn't entirely impossible. Just very unlikely.

I am certain, however, that no way they're getting a console release out. Not without a dev team, at least contractors, coming in, learning the code base and making all the missing stuff. What we have in EA doesn't have a snowball's to pass console cert, and it doesn't sound like Intercept was working on it.

 

Edit: It might be relatively easy for PD to push out another star system. It's mostly asset work, and it's ok if some of it is broken, as it'd be mostly graphical glitches. I don't know how you'd get to it, unless they move it way closer to Kerbol and maybe beef up NTRs? But it's technically on the table. If PD really wants to make it look like real feature work is happening, that's probably the lowest branch.

Edited May 3 by K^2

[Superpluto126]

Alright here are possible scenarios I have gathered.

Sc.A:T2 either has a Office in Seattle not tied to Game Development or it simply isn't listed that is getting the cut, and also has 70 Employees, and the KSP2 Devs have some NDA For some reason. VERY VERY UNLIKELY, hope its this but we all know deep down its not.

SC.B:Intercept has more employees than we thought, and its their other unannounced game that is getting canned. Some Layoffs from the KSP2 dev team but not a world ending scenario.  Also Unlikely but somewhat more possible.

SC.C:Take2 is closing an office floor, and consolidating workspaces. IG Staff not tied to KSP2 are being laid off along with probably half the Dev Team.  I have little idea about this one since its an Idea I saw on the IG Discord Server. Potentially Possible, but since I have no idea about it I really don't know.

SC.D:Intercept is closing, but the Dev Team will be rehired at another Studio owned by PD/T2, or simply Private Division itself. Development stalls for a bit as the team readjust but gets back on track. Not unlikely but also not the most probable.

SC.E:Basically the Same as Scenario D but the Dev Team gets shrunk by a lot, perhaps down to 15 people. More Possible and could see it happening

SC.F:KSP2s Dev Team is taken off except for bare bones personnel, replaced by new dev team. Skeleton Original Crew pushes out a few patches, perhaps colonies, while teaching the new team the inns and outs of the games before being taken off to be replaced entirely.  Possible.

SC.G:KSP2 is on Life Support, the Dev Teams works for 2 months and gets out 0.2.2 and perhaps 0.2.3.0, followed by a very buggy and limited release of 1.0 containing Bare Bones versions of roadmap features, before development ends. Possible.

SC.H: KSP2 is no longer developed at all, only support is the Fact it is on Steam.

SC.I: T2 cans ksp2, but someone else for some reason purchases the game IP and restarts development (Pls Elon, or anyone really). Near-Impossible.

(Note, I have never had a Job nor know anything about economics, this is just potential things I am throwing out there)

[Skorj]

26 minutes ago, K^2 said:

I am certain, however, that no way they're getting a console release out. Not without a dev team, at least contractors, coming in, learning the code base and making all the missing stuff. What we have in EA doesn't have a snowball's to pass console cert, and it doesn't sound like Intercept was working on it.

I don't think they'd need to finish the game for a console release, just colonies would be enough as that's something KSP1 doesn't have.  IMO the blocker is crash bugs, as consoles have actual standards when it comes to crash bugs (if little else), and it's not like the Sonic3D secret level select trick is going to work for them.  I have a suspicion the long-standing major bugs in KSP2 aren't actually all that difficult to fix, just needs a different team to fix them, but obviously I'm just guessing.

[Icegrx]

59 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Intercept isn't going to be working for the next 60 days. They were already sent home. 

The steam build tracker does not reflect this. Someone is in a studio doing something. 

it might not be meaningful development, but there are actions taking place. Wendsday and Thursday had build changes. 

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

1 hour ago, Icegrx said:

The steam build tracker does not reflect this. Someone is in a studio doing something. 

it might not be meaningful development, but there are actions taking place. Wendsday and Thursday had build changes. 

New pictures of clouds along with trust us we know what we’re but we just can’t tell you yet. 

[K^2]

2 hours ago, Skorj said:

I don't think they'd need to finish the game for a console release, just colonies would be enough as that's something KSP1 doesn't have.

It's not about finishing the game. It's about passing console cert. It's an amount of work that may surprise you, and may surprise you even more to learn how little it has to do with a working/finished game. There are just all these hoops you have to jump through.

2 hours ago, Icegrx said:

The steam build tracker does not reflect this. Someone is in a studio doing something. 

it might not be meaningful development, but there are actions taking place. Wendsday and Thursday had build changes. 

Even just looking at KSP2 EA credits you can see that a number of engineers are listed who are part of PD and not IG. If there are changes being made, I would be heavily on these people being involved, as they are still part of PD.

We might have also seen a handful of people transferred from IG to PD. Very far from entire team, not enough to add features, but enough to get the build released if it was nearly ready, for example.

[Infinite Aerospace]

28 minutes ago, K^2 said:

It's not about finishing the game. It's about passing console cert. It's an amount of work that may surprise you, and may surprise you even more to learn how little it has to do with a working/finished game. There are just all these hoops you have to jump through.

Even just looking at KSP2 EA credits you can see that a number of engineers are listed who are part of PD and not IG. If there are changes being made, I would be heavily on these people being involved, as they are still part of PD.

We might have also seen a handful of people transferred from IG to PD. Very far from entire team, not enough to add features, but enough to get the build released if it was nearly ready, for example.

Very good points. I think what we need is an actual update, from someone within the team as to what is going on right now. The longer the silence remains the more deafening it becomes, and the more it points to a significant, and immediate termination of activities. Could be wrong though.

[sturmhauke]

3 hours ago, K^2 said:

Intercept isn't going to be working for the next 60 days. They were already sent home.

32 minutes ago, K^2 said:

It's not about finishing the game. It's about passing console cert. It's an amount of work that may surprise you, and may surprise you even more to learn how little it has to do with a working/finished game. There are just all these hoops you have to jump through.

These are both correct. I used to work at EA and some other game companies (not Take Two or any of its studios though).  I've been through many layoffs; it's an unfortunate aspect of the game industry that needs to change. And yeah, console certification is primarily about making sure the game doesn't brick the console, corrupt local files, stuff like that.  They don't care if the game is actually good, or has weird bugs that only affect gameplay.

[K^2]

Just now, Infinite Aerospace said:

I think what we need is an actual update, from someone within the team as to what is going on right now. The longer the silence remains the more deafening it becomes, and the more it points to a significant, and immediate termination of activities.

You're not wrong. It's just that if the entire team is gone, there's nobody left to speak for the team from the team. And people might not want to speak unofficially out of fear of losing these 60 days of pay and benefits.

Washington is an at-will state. Until June, these 70 people on WARN list are still, legally speaking, employees, and are receiving their normal pay, insurance, and other benefits. And the company can't cut all of them at once, because that would be violation of the WARN act. But because all of the employment is at-will, employer can cut any one employee at any time for any reason. In practice, the company always wants to have a reason, so that there is no wrongful termination lawsuit, because there are a lot of reasons for which you explicitly can't fire people, especially when WARN is in effect, and the burden of proof can fall on the company. If they instantly terminate, say, ten people, that will stink. But if one or two people break silence, they can be unceremoniously fired.

If this is what we're looking at, we might either get some indirect hints from social media, or something a bit more concrete in about two months.

 

That said, I do repeat, I think you're right, and I think this silence is hurting PD, so it would be very helpful for them to make a more concrete announcement of what exactly is happening with KSP2 in the nearest future. I just think that communication can only come from PD at this point, and we are all likely to be very skeptical of what it says.

[MechBFP]

I can’t see a cobbled together console release happening without more development. It will get destroyed by reviews given how buggy it is, among a dozen other reasons. Maybe that doesn’t actually matter to T2 though and they just want to recoup what they can in costs.
 

Will be interesting to see what happens. 

[Ryaja]

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

That said, I do repeat, I think you're right, and I think this silence is hurting PD, so it would be very helpful for them to make a more concrete announcement of what exactly is happening with KSP2 in the nearest future. I just think that communication can only come from PD at this point, and we are all likely to be very skeptical of what it says

I'm guessing they had to sign NDAs and we won't here anything for a bit. I guess we can see if there's a weekly challenge on Monday.

[Stevie_D]

Weekly Challenge #55 from Dakota :

"HELP FIND US A NEW OFFICE!"

Do you:

• Have experience in real estate?
• Know how to find a bargain?
• Understand game development logistical needs in an office environment?

We need a space for less than 10 employees closer to Private Division's HQ. Google, Bing,...hell, even Yahoo away if you can. Crack to it and let's see what you come up with!"

[Bej Kerman]

8 hours ago, K^2 said:

I don't know how you'd get to it, unless they move it way closer to Kerbol and maybe beef up NTRs?

Might as well add warp drives and airplanes in space if realism can be completely disregarded.

[Infinite Aerospace]

2 hours ago, MechBFP said:

I can’t see a cobbled together console release happening without more development. It will get destroyed by reviews given how buggy it is, among a dozen other reasons. Maybe that doesn’t actually matter to T2 though and they just want to recoup what they can in costs.
 

Will be interesting to see what happens. 

At this stage Take Two are recouping nothing, it's more akin to a 'write off' than a saving. They're at the stage where they've already funded something which is going to lead to (if it is indeed cancelled) a financial dead end. For someone of the financial power of Take Two you're left with one of two choices:

 

1) Axe the game, write it off and accept the losses.

 

2) Continue development, and therefore funding with the chance that it may still turn out to be a success and then in turn recuperate it's development costs.

 

Herein lies the main reason I don't understand bringing the axe down, they're going to lose money regardless but only one of the options has a chance of generating revenue at some point.

[AtomicTech]

8 hours ago, Superpluto126 said:

Alright here are possible scenarios I have gathered.

Sc.A:T2 either has a Office in Seattle not tied to Game Development or it simply isn't listed that is getting the cut, and also has 70 Employees, and the KSP2 Devs have some NDA For some reason. VERY VERY UNLIKELY, hope its this but we all know deep down its not.

SC.B:Intercept has more employees than we thought, and its their other unannounced game that is getting canned. Some Layoffs from the KSP2 dev team but not a world ending scenario.  Also Unlikely but somewhat more possible.

SC.C:Take2 is closing an office floor, and consolidating workspaces. IG Staff not tied to KSP2 are being laid off along with probably half the Dev Team.  I have little idea about this one since its an Idea I saw on the IG Discord Server. Potentially Possible, but since I have no idea about it I really don't know.

SC.D:Intercept is closing, but the Dev Team will be rehired at another Studio owned by PD/T2, or simply Private Division itself. Development stalls for a bit as the team readjust but gets back on track. Not unlikely but also not the most probable.

SC.E:Basically the Same as Scenario D but the Dev Team gets shrunk by a lot, perhaps down to 15 people. More Possible and could see it happening

SC.F:KSP2s Dev Team is taken off except for bare bones personnel, replaced by new dev team. Skeleton Original Crew pushes out a few patches, perhaps colonies, while teaching the new team the inns and outs of the games before being taken off to be replaced entirely.  Possible.

SC.G:KSP2 is on Life Support, the Dev Teams works for 2 months and gets out 0.2.2 and perhaps 0.2.3.0, followed by a very buggy and limited release of 1.0 containing Bare Bones versions of roadmap features, before development ends. Possible.

SC.H: KSP2 is no longer developed at all, only support is the Fact it is on Steam.

SC.I: T2 cans ksp2, but someone else for some reason purchases the game IP and restarts development (Pls Elon, or anyone really). Near-Impossible.

(Note, I have never had a Job nor know anything about economics, this is just potential things I am throwing out there)

I'd be happy with D, E, F, and C because all of those have a better future than the rest

[DeadJohn]

10 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Herein lies the main reason I don't understand bringing the axe down, they're going to lose money regardless but only one of the options has a chance of generating revenue at some point.

Yes Option #2 generates revenue but also incurs expenses. Maybe the estimated expenses are costlier than expected revenue? Maybe someone evaluated the code and thinks it's too much effort to fix?

[Infinite Aerospace]

8 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:

Yes Option #2 generates revenue but also incurs expenses. Maybe the estimated expenses are costlier than expected revenue? Maybe someone evaluated the code and thinks it's too much effort to fix?

The bizarre thing is, whilst option #2 comes with funding the studio, the game was generally in a bit of an upward trajectory since December. They funded it for an entire calendar year, let development reach a point where the game was there or there about for ramping up features and then what, cancel it? You've gotta see that as the most sensible option at this point. I find it hard to believe they would have funded it at all if the expected revenue was so low.

[steveman0]

13 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:

Yes Option #2 generates revenue but also incurs expenses. Maybe the estimated expenses are costlier than expected revenue? Maybe someone evaluated the code and thinks it's too much effort to fix?

This is the crux of it. The past year has been apparently a lot of time fixing foundational issues. They've had an upward trajectory as of late, but we can't know how much more work there is to be done to get to 1.0. It could be they are nearly out of the woods and colonies will be a big turning point with many on the fence ready to commit to purchase... but it's also possible the remaining milestones could still be mired with a ton of work.

There is a ton of potential untapped revenue, but if it will take 4+ years to realize it, I couldn't blame them for not taking the risk. It could just be the timing is coincidental that T2 needs to make cuts and they are restructuring to cut costs and hopefully streamline the remaining development work to 1.0 with the full expectation that despite the turmoil the restructuring will cause that they are still lined up for a big success by 1.0.

[Stevie_D]

2 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

I find it hard to believe they would have funded it at all if the expected revenue was so low.

But that's why it fell under Private Division.

Private Division was specifically designed and created to be Take 2's "let's see if we cant find the next Minecraft or Among Us with ***minimal investment***" division. 

It's sole reason for existence is to fund promising indie projects, to see if one of them becomes the next big breakout hit. KSP1 being what it was obviously made KSP2 a prime reason for investment.
If that investment doesn't produce the breakout hit they wanted then it never cost the larger company too much and doesn't cost them much to axe it with minimal impact to Take 2's overall finances. 

It also meant that if Take 2 hit hard times or things take a downturn, then the first things that get culled are the small-time "test" projects in Private Division... which is exactly what's happened.

[PDCWolf]

Allegedly, Blackrack confirmed he's been fired.

 

[Infinite Aerospace]

3 minutes ago, Stevie_D said:

But that's why it fell under Private Division.

Private Division was specifically designed and created to be Take 2's "let's see if we cant find the next Minecraft or Among Us with ***minimal investment***" division. 

It's sole reason for existence is to fund promising indie projects, to see if one of them becomes the next big breakout hit. KSP1 being what it was obviously made KSP2 a prime reason for investment.
If that investment doesn't produce the breakout hit they wanted then it never cost the larger company too much and doesn't cost them much to axe it with minimal impact to Take 2's overall finances. 

It also meant that if Take 2 hit hard times or things take a downturn, then the first things that get culled are the small-time "test" projects in Private Division... which is exactly what's happened.

And now they'll never know if Kerbal Space Program II was their 'Next Minecraft' as a complete version is in all likelihood never going to see the light of day. Who knows how close the next major milestone was from completion, hell Colonies in itself could have changed the fortune of the game as it's the first real divergence from the original.

[Flush Foot]

3 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Allegedly, Blackrack confirmed he's been fired.