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

[Icegrx]

4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Perhaps not critical to you.  But certainly life-altering to the guys who lost their jobs.

Yep, that’s why I stated that it’s sad news. Thankfully those two are more than their roles and hopefully better opportunities come to them. 
 

[AtomicTech]

Just now, RileyHef said:

I have said this quite often on other platforms, but looking back knowing what we know now - it would have been better for the KSP community and IP if KSP2 never even existed.

I just hope that we can still rekindle the passion for KSP1 and breathe some new life into that old game. I truly miss those days.

I'm starting to agree, with everything that's transpired this week. Before KSP 2 began to really materialize and before we heard about the release, we were having a KSP 2 modding renaissance. Things were good.

[Pulstar]

2 hours 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.

There could also be tax reasons. In any case the numbers didn't add up to what the bare minimum target was in some spreadsheet. Hard to dispute if the decision was right or not without seeing the figures from their accounting system.

I think a general problem is how bad the EA launch was. Even if colonies were added with science in december it wouldn't be enough to offset the negative image/reception accrued in feb 2023, pricing, EA roadmap etc. also did not help. Science helped but it was too little to late for T2, over a full fiscal quarter later that's probably what they saw in the figures.

Edited May 3 by Pulstar

[TLTay]

My guess on what happened:

1. The "for science" update underwhelmed in sales and reviews and financial projections for future cost to benefit were poor.

2. The other title intercept was probably spend the bulk of their hours working on probably slipped for the exact same reasons KSP did.

Corporate saw this team as the underlying problem in a way that could not be corrected, and decided on the sum of the evidence to axe a serially nonperformant group of employees, while bringing an end to a hopeless project with minimal future revenue and large future expenses.

Just a guess.

[Lisias]

40 minutes ago, Pulstar said:

There could also be tax reasons. In any case the numbers didn't add up to what the bare minimum target was in some spreadsheet. Hard to dispute if the decision was right or not without seeing the figures from their accounting system.

Are you talking about the changes of the Section 174 on what can be amortized as R&D and what's not?

 

42 minutes ago, TLTay said:

while bringing an end to a hopeless project with minimal future revenue and large future expenses.

IMHO the gross of the expenditures were already made. Music, meshes, textures, animations, all of that costs a ton of money, really, really ton of money.

Development are not cheap neither, but are done in a faster pace (usually) with a relatively small team.

It's the reason corporations like to buy failed project's assets, to save money by grabbing them instead of paying a lot of creatives to do it from scratch.

[Flush Foot]

21 hours ago, NexusHelium said:

But it does mean that something is happening development-wise.

So maybe it can also be considered something.

Still no idea what it means, especially when the %-review drops

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[K^2]

5 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

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

Perhaps, they are rightfully terrified that my review of their implementation of warp would be entirely too scathing.

2 hours ago, Icegrx said:

Yep, that’s why I stated that it’s sad news. Thankfully those two are more than their roles and hopefully better opportunities come to them. 

Right now is an awful time to be looking for jobs in game dev. Engineering will probably do alright, at least these with some experience, but for others it will be rough.

Edited May 3 by K^2

[Tony Tony Chopper]

I'm just dropping an opinion here, but I still think the news is completely hyperbolic until a CM or Nate proofs it otherwise by declaring an end to the development. How often did I read an obvious news hoax and almost everyone would believe that? With all we know 'KSP2 dead' isn't a 100% proof statement at all. It's guesswork. Unfortunately, most beliefs contribute to a self fulfilling prophecy whether it's liked or not. And that's what I actually fear when it comes to negativity in any kind of situation.

Wish you all more positivity on that.

[TLTay]

2 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

I'm just dropping an opinion here, but I still think the news is completely hyperbolic until a CM or Nate proofs it otherwise by declaring an end to the development. How often did I read an obvious news hoax and almost everyone would believe that? With all we know 'KSP2 dead' isn't a 100% proof statement at all. It's guesswork. Unfortunately, most beliefs contribute to a self fulfilling prophecy whether it's liked or not. And that's what I actually fear when it comes to negativity in any kind of situation.

Wish you all more positivity on that.

The WARN notice is not a hoax, neither is the employees saying they are being laid off.

[NexusHelium]

1 minute ago, TLTay said:

The WARN notice is not a hoax, neither is the employees saying they are being laid off.

Ya. Dakota, Mike, Gwen updated their profiles not to long ago to looking for work. And Dakota and Mike posted about it too.

It's honestly so sad to see our CMs and some of the other devs go, but I wish them the best of luck in whatever their future holds

[Tony Tony Chopper]

I understand "Warning" just as literally as it stands. If someone says 'possible' it's not more to interpret. I miss the explicitly.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

4 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

I understand "Warning" just as literally as it stands. If someone says 'possible' it's not more to interpret. I miss the explicitly.

There is a distinct difference between a tornado "watch" and a tornado "warning"

Watch indicates conditions are optimal for spinning off a twister. A Warning is when one has been spotted or confirmed as touching down.

 

There was not a lay off watch announced.. no this indicates 70 people have confirmed job losses. Whether or not they are absorbed remains to be seen. The lack of official statement suggests that is not the case.

However, the warn notice is so people get appropriate notice that their job has already been terminated.

 

[TLTay]

18 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

I understand "Warning" just as literally as it stands. If someone says 'possible' it's not more to interpret. I miss the explicitly.

The "WARN Act" is a law. The notice is legally required to be given by employers over a certain size when layoffs are going to occur. 

The employees  ARE being laid off. They ARE losing their jobs.

Edited May 3 by TLTay

[Tony Tony Chopper]

But does it proof KSP2 development has stopped?

[TLTay]

1 minute ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

But does it proof KSP2 development has stopped?

Generally, when you want to work on something, you don't usually fire the people working on it.

[Stevie_D]

4 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

But does it proof KSP2 development has stopped?

 

1 minute ago, TLTay said:

Generally, when you want to work on something, you don't usually fire the people working on it.

And you don't generally close the building they are all working in. And bloomburg and government webpages don't report it as happening.

At best, you can argue development has paused. The likelyhood the game will ever have a 70-person-strong dev team ever again? That is pretty much obviously a hard no.

Edited May 3 by Stevie_D

[Kerbart]

12 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

But does it prove KSP2 development has stopped?

Does it matter? Regardless of the project coming to a full stop, the vigor and sense of urgency we've seen from Intercept will most certainly be gone, and if there is any development, it will be at a snail pace compared to what we've seen so far.

[TLTay]

15 minutes ago, Stevie_D said:

 

And you don't generally close the building they are all working in. And bloomburg and government webpages don't report it as happening.

At best, you can argue development has paused. The likelyhood the game will ever have a 70-person-strong dev team ever again? That is pretty much obviously a hard no.

I think at this point the best it could hope for in the way of continued development would be a small team of (maybe 3 to 5)  teleworkers from a very low income country getting tasked to attempt to work on it as long as sales money keeps covering their meager pay.

That could keep the game on the books as an "asset" and completely avoid hassles until it's forgotten about.

A handfull sales a week from grandparents and 6 years olds bestowed with steam credits who are bedazzled by the trailer on the store page would be enough to fund such a team.

Edited May 3 by TLTay

[Ryaja]

2 hours ago, Stevie_D said:

 

And you don't generally close the building they are all working in. And bloomburg and government webpages don't report it as happening.

At best, you can argue development has paused. The likelyhood the game will ever have a 70-person-strong dev team ever again? That is pretty much obviously a hard no.

A below 70 person dev team could also be a good thing. It'd be less bloated and(hopefully) faster at working. Trim out the inefficient workers and keep the efficient ones. Then you can put more money into assets and marketing.

Edited May 3 by Ryaja

[Kerbart]

22 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

A below 70bperson dev team could also be a good thing. It'd be less bloated and(hopefully) faster at working. Trim out the inefficient workers and keep the efficient ones. Then you can put more money into assets and marketing.

Makes you wish they'd cut down the team to 5 a year ago. The game would have been done by now.

[Stevie_D]

Chris Nertea Adderley could've created all the parts they'd ever need by now, all on his own.

[Scarecrow71]

This situation is getting worse.  The community is now starting to be impacted, including the mods.

 

[DeadJohn]

58 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

But does it proof KSP2 development has stopped?

The absence of a clear statement is enough of a statement. Many huge corporate projects get silently dropped.

They could have said something reassuring like: "We are making corporate changes. KSP2 software development will continue. We will have more information with an updated EA roadmap on or before May 30 2024." Such a statement provides time for them to think about their schedule, and maybe chop the most problematic feature (multiplayer?) from the roadmap. Please don't nitpick this example; there are countless ways to state they are still committed to the game.

Instead, they said something like (and I'm being partly sarcastic here): "We are rationalizing the pipeline to synergistically synergize our synergies so that they are more synergistic."

Edited May 3 by DeadJohn

[K^2]

37 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

A below 70bperson dev team could also be a good thing.

It's not a "below 70 person team" now. It's a zero person team. Or nearly enough - as discussed at length, there might be some PD developers who have previously working on KSP2 that are still able to do some minor fixes. There were 76 names for Intercept listed in KSP2 EA credits. Some of these people already departed earlier or work remotely. We do not know the status of the latter, but this is basically everyone who was working on KSP2 as part of Intercept Games. The entire Intercept dev team is gone.

1 hour ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

I understand "Warning" just as literally as it stands. If someone says 'possible' it's not more to interpret. I miss the explicitly.

This isn't a warning. It's a notice of termination compliant with the WARN act. Washington state laws prohibit firing a significant number of employees without providing them with a 60 day notice. Now, imagine that you were told that 60 days from now you're going to get fired. How much work are you going to do? Are there guarantees you won't intentionally try to break something as revenge? No.

This is why companies don't just tell you that you'll be fired 60 days from now. They post a WARN notice at the end of the day on Monday, and then you're told Tuesday morning to collect your things and go home. You still get payed for the next 60 days, and your health benefits are still running for that time, but you no longer do any work for the company. You have basically been fired with severance, and the whole song-and-dance with it being a "warning" is just to comply with a state law.

So we know for a fact that a PD studio in Seattle has let go of 70 people. The only Seattle studio with that many people is Intercept Games, and 70 people is basically everybody there. There could have been a handful of transfers to PD. In fact, a few people have been reported to have their Linkedin info change from Intercept Games to Private Division. But it's still very nearly everyone at a minimum. Intercept Games no longer exists, and there is no KSP2 dev team at present. These are known facts. The rest we're still waiting to find out.

[Codraroll]

9 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

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.

Okay, wild speculation time:

I must admit I haven't followed development that closely, but some whispers and snippets (probably not the best news sources, but what have you) makes me suspect they had run into some major difficulties.

KSP2, it appears, if I've understood it correctly, has essentially been developed to the point of feature parity with KSP1, plus prettier graphics, plus a whole lot of bugs.

The additional features people expected from the sequel - and indeed, its trailer - still seem to be missing entirely. Colonies? Work in progress at best, with scant news about how they plan for them to work. Other star systems? Nope. Game mechanics that would allow you to travel to other star systems? Nope again. Multiplayer? They don't even appear to have fleshed out how it could work on a conceptual level. Like, how would time warp work?

In my moment of darkly despairing speculation, I'm starting to wonder whether they've had any clue at all how to deliver on the promised features. With access to the KSP1 code, they managed to make KSP2 work sort-of-like KSP1, except a few aspects of the "work" part. But rewriting the code and readying it for the new features seems to have been hopelessly far beyond their means.

Instead, they've spent the time picking low-hanging fruit. Making exhaust plumes look prettier, adding new rocket parts, re-doing ground textures, researching the theoretical ISP of metallic Hydrogen engines, squashing a few bugs, prettifying the graphics ... but not making any serious progress on the serious features. They kept polishing the features that were in KSP1, but those features that were supposed to be the whole point of the sequel have been remarkably absent from any dev updates. Instead of confronting the difficult challenges, development seems to have been churning around the comparatively easy ones.

In this gloomy and befuddled state of nearly unfounded speculation, I can almost understand Take-two. Might there have been internal audits before? Did some company accountant ask them when the promised new features could be expected, possibly multiple times, and always get the answer "maybe in a year from now"? Did the internal presentations always show "Look how pretty these new coastlines are" or "we figured out how to transfer thermal loads between parts", and ignore the questions about "Yes, very nice, but how about travelling to new planetary systems, which is what the fence-sitting fans have been waiting on for the past four years?" Or did they not ignore, but mumblingly admit that getting anywhere close to those features would require a re-write of the game's code or even doing stuff the game engine doesn't support? If so, I can understand that the higher-ups shut off the money faucet.

It might be that I didn't pay enough attention to development, but to me it seems like they've spent all their energy/time/money trying to make KSP2 work like KSP1 did, or improve on features KSP1 had, but without any progress whatsoever on the features that would give KSP2 a unique selling point beyond "KSP1, but with prettier graphics that you need a better PC to enjoy." It suggests that the dev team have been enthusiastic about new ideas for features, but lacked the means to actually implement them.

Because those features - as seen in the trailer, Jeb speeding a rover off a ramp and wrecking a colony base on a moon orbiting a ringed planet in a system orbiting a star light-years away from Kerbin - those features would have driven sales. It's what half of us were waiting for. Something that isn't possible in KSP1, that you'd have to buy the sequel to experience. Heck, even KSP2-exclusive planets in the Kerbol system would have been a unique selling point. But those rock-solid reasons to buy the sequel never manifested.

And I don't think the developers were unaware of their potential impact on sales. So that leaves me asking: why? How come there was no progress on the promised features after so many years in development? Granted, I know it's important to get the basics finished before adding more features to an already bug-troubled game, but this focus on re-creating a working copy of KSP1 first before getting to KSP2, while a large portion of the fan base hold back their purchase until they see something worthy of a sequel, strikes me as odd. Implementation troubles seems to be a depressingly likely explanation.