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

[Pulstar]

2 hours ago, Icegrx said:

Yeah, a lot of speculation atm 

This looks very bad and unless you see PR rushing to intervene and set things straight today (within the next 24-ish hours) when it blows up on social and later gaming media, it means unfortunately what the pessimists think it means.

I wish this wasn't the case and I personally don't like having to agree with the pessimists and admit they were right all along, but the state government website is pretty hard to refute and nobody managed to find anything else that convincingly fits that listing. Maybe there is a super secret squirrel T2 studio in Seattle with exactly 70 people working on some very secret thing that is the one getting closed instead of IG, but that seems just very unlikely given what is public knowledge and unfortunately I have to assume the worst here until proven otherwise.

 

Edited May 1 by Pulstar

[Urus28]

I lived several layoffs during my career, the management always have the same speech "it's ok, everything is fine...." before passing to action and then telling the truth (or well, the truth they want you to believe). For the few ones under with knowledge about the actual plan, they have order to not communicate.

The plan is always to avoid bad publicity and avoid any organization of employees against the plan.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I hardly would call "optimism" seeing the IP being sold in a closed door sale as scrap, and then seeing the assets and lore being used on pachinkos or something like that.

Finally we'll get Kerbal Kart Racing, Kerbal Kong, and Flappy Kerbal!

4 hours ago, Jaypeg said:

You can sue if it gets cancelled.

You can sue for a lot of things. You won't win, but you can sue.

Edited May 1 by Superfluous J

[Jak Kerman]

This is so sad...

[Scarecrow71]

9 hours ago, Great Liao said:

Will KSP1 be closed? 

 

 Despite the difficulty, maybe we as a community should pool money to buy the KSP IP.

I'm willing to contribute my skills as a python hobbyist.

While I would be in on this, and while I could invest a decent amount of capital, I'm not sure if this is possible.  I doubt the company would sell, and I don't have the slightest clue regarding the legalities of doing it.

But if someone does the research and this would pan out, I'm in.

[Meecrob]

With how much Take Two told us, I would love to hear the play-by-play of what they told the IG employees. I imagine there are slightly less than 70  extremely surprised individuals right now.

As much as I butted heads with IG, nobody deserves to be "jump-scare-layoffed." That's just cowardly.

This is the final straw, I'm boycotting Take Two.

I know Strauss Zelnick is sleeping on a pile of money and doesn't care, its the principle of it. If you want to make money faster, produce higher quality products faster, don't shovel garbage, then throw your own dev team under the bus so you can do a tax write-off for the failed game.

With regards to obtaining the IP; do we really want to give Take Two MORE of our money? Or do we want to call it something like "KayEssPee" as a middle finger to them? You can't copyright the concept of a spaceflight simulator. We can make the little characters purple and call them "Labreks" or something.

[moeggz]

If there is an official confirmation, if the current plan is just ice the game (with or without refunds) I would absolutely help a community go fund me to at least get the source code so modders have an easier time finishing it.

[Flush Foot]

Devs already gave us the perfect spinoff... Kapybara Space Program 

[moeggz]

2 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

This is the final straw, I'm boycotting Take Two.

If this is confirmed this is the only way the community can make large publishers not make these sort of decisions. Show that breaking the trust has a real and lasting negative effect on the bottom line.

If this is it I’m also never buying a Take Two game again.

[PDCWolf]

Just now, Meecrob said:

With how much Take Two told us, I would love to hear the play-by-play of what they told the IG employees. I imagine there are slightly less than 70  extremely surprised individuals right now.

As much as I butted heads with IG, nobody deserves to be "jump-scare-layoffed." That's just cowardly.

This is the final straw, I'm boycotting Take Two.

I know Strauss Zelnick is sleeping on a pile of money and doesn't care, its the principle of it. If you want to make money faster, produce higher quality products faster, don't shovel garbage, then throw your own dev team under the bus so you can do a tax write-off for the failed game.

With regards to obtaining the IP; do we really want to give Take Two MORE of our money? Or do we want to call it something like "KayEssPee" as a middle finger to them? You can't copyright the concept of a spaceflight simulator. We can make the little characters purple and call them "Labreks" or something.

Management can tell you things are fine again and again, but the people would've definitely seen and know the state of the product, and would've seen Paul Furio go, would've seen the public opinion, and they definitely knew at least they were on a make or break timer. They might've not known how long was that timer...

Just now, moeggz said:

If there is an official confirmation, if the current plan is just ice the game (with or without refunds) I would absolutely help a community go fund me to at least get the source code so modders have an easier time finishing it.

I keep seeing this pop up... and just no dude. Buy the source code for the first game, not the second.

[Scarecrow71]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

I keep seeing this pop up... and just no dude. Buy the source code for the first game, not the second.

Agreed.  Get the source code for KSP1 and start from there to avoid all the issues TT/PD/IG ran into when trying to write this from scratch.

[moeggz]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

keep seeing this pop up... and just no dude. Buy the source code for the first game, not the second.

It depends on how fleshed out the orbital and surface VAB programming is. Which yeah. Probably not worth it. Man this sucks. I guess that just boycotting Take Two (and a certain hype man with a history of not finishing his projects) is all that’s left.

Maybe it’s time I try the colony mods and stuff on KSP1. I usually only ran visual and QOL.

[Flush Foot]

4 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

I keep seeing this pop up... and just no dude. Buy the source code for the first game, not the second.

1 minute ago, moeggz said:

It depends on how fleshed out the orbital and surface VAB programming is. Which yeah. Probably not worth it. Man this sucks. I guess that just boycotting Take Two (and a certain hype man with a history of not finishing his projects) is all that’s left.

I also would like to see that "we can't stop playing and are laughing so hard" version that was "advertised"

[moeggz]

Yeah I’m holding my tongue until official confirmation, but there is for sure some criticism that I will be sharing if confirmed.

[NexusHelium]

8 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

Dakota is listed as open to work on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakotacx/

Just so you know.

This is false.

[Meecrob]

1 minute ago, moeggz said:

If this is confirmed this is the only way the community can make large publishers not make these sort of decisions. Show that breaking the trust has a real and lasting negative effect on the bottom line.

If this is it I’m also never buying a Take Two game again.

Thank you!

I predict we will be getting a lot of solidarity once GTA6 drops, and everyone finds out why the Houser Bros., et al left Rockstar.

 

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

Management can tell you things are fine again and again, but the people would've definitely seen and know the state of the product, and would've seen Paul Furio go, would've seen the public opinion, and they definitely knew at least they were on a make or break timer. They might've not known how long was that timer...

When scummy companies know they are axing a whole division, they love to have rumours going around that its only one or two underperformers getting let go, or something similar. They get extra performance out of everyone for free because everyone fears for their position.

[NexusHelium]

7 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

also would like to see that "we can't stop playing and are laughing so hard" version that was "advertised"

That's called the game I have right now in my steam library: Kerbal Space Program 2

[Flush Foot]

1 minute ago, NexusHelium said:

That's called the game I have right now in my steam library: Kerbal Space Program 2

You already have multiplayer and colonies?!

[Meecrob]

Edit: @NexusHelium correctly told me my joke was bad

Edited May 1 by Meecrob

[NexusHelium]

2 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

You already have multiplayer and colonies?!

Sure do 

2 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

This statement is false. The devs are actually really chill people, and the game is fantastic.

FTFY (seriously tho. that's just rude)

Edited May 1 by NexusHelium

[PDCWolf]

9 minutes ago, moeggz said:

It depends on how fleshed out the orbital and surface VAB programming is. Which yeah. Probably not worth it. Man this sucks. I guess that just boycotting Take Two (and a certain hype man with a history of not finishing his projects) is all that’s left.

Maybe it’s time I try the colony mods and stuff on KSP1. I usually only ran visual and QOL.

I'd much rather get the multi-root workspace system working on KSP1 (even though it wasn't that useful in my opinion or rather for the way I work the VAB).

As for boycotting T2, don't bother. Whilst T2 would be behind this, they are also the ones that let the devs delay for four years, that got another studio after the first one failed, and then let their own product and brand be devalued into an Early Access. Any other publisher would've cut their losses back in 2020. This is not to say "T2 is good" as much as to say "T2 definitely gave more chances to this project than anyone else would". If you wanna boycott them, there's much better reasons than KSP2.

5 minutes ago, NexusHelium said:

Just so you know.

This is false.

Source?

Just now, Meecrob said:

When scummy companies know they are axing a whole division, they love to have rumours going around that its only one or two underperformers getting let go, or something similar. They get extra performance out of everyone for free because everyone fears for their position.

Yeah, that one is not just a gamedev thing. Still, I'll err on the side of hiding everything from employees being impossible.

[NexusHelium]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

Source?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakotacx/

Do you see anywhere "Looking for work"?

[Meecrob]

9 minutes ago, NexusHelium said:

Sure do 

FTFY (seriously tho. that's just rude)

I meant no offense to the devs, it was more of a "Family Guy-cutaway" joke.

 

I want to be clear that I have nothing against the Devs. They made KSP2 a bit differently than I would have, but that's it. They don't deserve to be laid off.

Edited May 1 by Meecrob

[Flush Foot]

5 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Source?

3 minutes ago, NexusHelium said:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakotacx/

As much as I disagree with much of what NexusHopium says, when I checked Dakota's LinkedIn page (on mobile, anyways), I also did not see that '#OpenForWork' banner / flag that was circulating overnight

Edit: added photo from Reddit, but again, I do not see that myself...

Edited May 1 by Flush Foot

[DVQuill]

That's a lot of people who's money just went up in smoke. And with absolutely zero accountability. 

It must be something to have the legacy you leave be one that takes and destroys what so many loved.

Edited May 1 by DVQuill