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

[chefsbrian]

8 minutes ago, Xindar said:

Works for me. Probably an issue on your side of the connection.

The forums themselves are being weird about it. I found that if I open the widget source directly, it loads just fine, but completely dead on the forum. Its not deliberate at any rate, that integrations always been janky.

[Pulstar]

3 minutes ago, Flush Foot said:

It's working as well as the one in their Discord, which isn't well... last night something from January was suddenly 're-flagged' for no reason I could figure

The thing from January 2023 that was bumped up yesterday-ish on the dev tracker happens to be oddly fitting current context though... if you know what I mean.

Could be coincidence and just discord being garbage (I'm not a fan of using it for communication instead of forums, call me old and cranky if you wish, I agree I am ;)).

Edited May 1 by Pulstar

[Flush Foot]

1 minute ago, Flush Foot said:

It's working as well as the one in their Discord, which isn't well... last night something from January was suddenly 're-flagged' for no reason I could figure

Just now, chefsbrian said:

The forums themselves are being weird about it. I found that if I open the widget source directly, it loads just fine, but completely dead on the forum. Its not deliberate at any rate, that integrations always been janky.

Sorry @Scarecrow71... I take that back. It was "working" on the KSP 'home page' for me 20-30 minutes ago.

[Xindar]

Just now, Flush Foot said:

Sorry @Scarecrow71... I take that back. It was "working" on the KSP 'home page' for me 20-30 minutes ago.

I can still see it working even if I check (refresh as well as navigation to the home page from a freshly opened browser) right now.

[Westinghouse]

26 minutes ago, K^2 said:

You're likely asking from people who no longer work for the company, and cannot answer any questions under their separation agreements even if they wanted to.

Yes, that means you continue getting your salary for 60 days. It doesn't mean you keep coming to the office for 60 days. Not only would that be cruel, but companies are too afraid of retaliation. So you're "given a notice" that your position will be terminated in 60 days and sent home on "vacation".

See, I think this is a key thing that needs to be communicated - has Intercept Games completely closed down completely and the staff on paid gardening leave for two months? Or will they at least spend until the end of June working to deliver us some sort of version 0.3?

The reason this matters, we deserve to get at least something of what was promised and we paid for. Two months would at least give them time to deliver something along the lines of an orbital VAB and whatever they had planned for colonies.

In addition, maybe they won't have time to implement Interstellar travel, but maybe they could at least put in some sort of Warp Gate orbiting around Eeloo ( à la 2001 or Star Fox 64 ) so we could at least jump to the Debdeb system and visit Glumo, Ovin, Charr, Rask and Rust and whatever other planetary bodies they had planned. Obviously a Warp Gate isn't what we were promised, but right now it seems like the only short term solution. It would be a giant waste to never get to see all those celestial bodies and artwork the artists spent years creating.

[KUAR]

2 minutes ago, Westinghouse said:

See, I think this is a key thing that needs to be communicated - has Intercept Games completely closed down completely and the staff on paid gardening leave for two months? Or will they at least spend until the end of June working to deliver us some sort of version 0.3?

The reason this matters, we deserve to get at least something of what was promised and we paid for. Two months would at least give them time to deliver something along the lines of an orbital VAB and whatever they had planned for colonies.

In addition, maybe they won't have time to implement Interstellar travel, but maybe they could at least put in some sort of Warp Gate orbiting around Eeloo ( à la 2001 or Star Fox 64 ) so we could at least jump to the Debdeb system and visit Glumo, Ovin, Charr, Rask and Rust and whatever other planetary bodies they had planned. Obviously a Warp Gate isn't what we were promised, but right now it seems like the only short term solution. It would be a giant waste to never get to see all those celestial bodies and artwork the artists spent years creating.

Sorry to say, Westinghouse, but if it is cancelled the chance that any of that will happen is next to zero surely.

[TLTay]

4 minutes ago, Westinghouse said:

See, I think this is a key thing that needs to be communicated - has Intercept Games completely closed down completely and the staff on paid gardening leave for two months? Or will they at least spend until the end of June working to deliver us some sort of version 0.3?

The reason this matters, we deserve to get at least something of what was promised and we paid for. Two months would at least give them time to deliver something along the lines of an orbital VAB and whatever they had planned for colonies.

In addition, maybe they won't have time to implement Interstellar travel, but maybe they could at least put in some sort of Warp Gate orbiting around Eeloo ( à la 2001 or Star Fox 64 ) so we could at least jump to the Debdeb system and visit Glumo, Ovin, Charr, Rask and Rust and whatever other planetary bodies they had planned. Obviously a Warp Gate isn't what we were promised, but right now it seems like the only short term solution. It would be a giant waste to never get to see all those celestial bodies and artwork the artists spent years creating.

Money spent on past development is a moot point. It's not factored into financial decisions.

They'll be solely focused on cutting expenses and maximising revenue. Best way to do that now is to slap a "1.0" label on it as-is and release it from EA to sell as many copies as it can.

[Pulstar]

20 minutes ago, Westinghouse said:

See, I think this is a key thing that needs to be communicated - has Intercept Games completely closed down completely and the staff on paid gardening leave for two months? Or will they at least spend until the end of June working to deliver us some sort of version 0.3?

My hope if they aren't on gardening leave would be they push mod tools out or something (this is what Space Base DF-9 did years ago when Double Fine pulled the plug and rushed a 1.0 out of early access suddenly), But even if there was no gardening leave they would still need to do what T2 tells/allows them to do and I doubt it would be that or something like Deb-Deb or another "extra" thing from the dev builds getting added in fast. It just doesn't fit typical corporate MO and sadly is not a matter of merely what the devs want to do.

Edited May 1 by Pulstar

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Announcement dropped.. Dev Team still hard at work "Talk More when we Can"

 

Not in a position to upload to imgur.. check intercept discord or X

[Scarecrow71]

17 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Announcement dropped.. Dev Team still hard at work "Talk More when we Can"

 

Not in a position to upload to imgur.. check intercept discord or X

that ain't much of anything, tbh

[PDCWolf]

13 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Announcement dropped.. Dev Team still hard at work "Talk More when we Can"

 

Not in a position to upload to imgur.. check intercept discord or X

Full statement is below that:

"T2 is firing people left and right but PD continues to update KSP2".

It's joever.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

2 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

that ain't much of anything, tbh

Nope. I have zero hope this will ever make anything worth a damn. was just trying to let people know i had caught a notification

[K^2]

19 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Announcement dropped.. Dev Team still hard at work "Talk More when we Can"

The Twitter post says that KSP2 is still not a canceled project. We don't know anything about the dev team, and the Intercept Games Twitter account is radio silent.

I don't think the odds that KSP2 is still being developed by Intercept or that Intercept still exists are high. We'll see who gets KSP2 next, and maybe that will be fine, but at a minimum, expect a huge delay before any significant updates.

I know some people will say that it's good for the game in the long run, and I don't agree based on what I've seen so far, but we'll see, I guess.

1 hour ago, Skorj said:

I remember one particularly cruel layoff, where managers had to tell most members of their teams that they were being layed off (the worst part of the job for anyone not a sociopath), and then those managers found out they were being layed off.  Just brutal.

Firing people is the worst part about being a manager, and honestly, I'd be a little relieved if I got the boot too. The guilt would be eating me, even if I know it's not my fault.

[Scarecrow71]

4 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Full statement is below that:

That "full statement" was reported in multiple online news stories yesterday and today.  That's not news.

[TLTay]

3 minutes ago, K^2 said:

The Twitter post says that KSP2 is still not a canceled project. We don't know anything about the dev team, and the Intercept Games Twitter account is radio silent.

I don't think the odds that KSP2 is still being developed by Intercept or that Intercept still exists are high. We'll see who gets KSP2 next, and maybe that will be fine, but at a minimum, expect a huge delay before any significant updates.

I know some people will say that it's good for the game in the long run, and I don't agree based on what I've seen so far, but we'll see, I guess.

Firing people is the worst part about being a manager, and honestly, I'd be a little relieved if I got the boot too. The guilt would be eating me, even if I know it's not my fault.

Do you think they'll crap it out to "1.0" and plaster it on the front of the steam store?

[K^2]

55 minutes ago, Westinghouse said:

See, I think this is a key thing that needs to be communicated - has Intercept Games completely closed down completely and the staff on paid gardening leave for two months? Or will they at least spend until the end of June working to deliver us some sort of version 0.3?

Say you were told that your job ends in two months. You're already effectively terminated, but you can keep working. Are you going to get a lot done? Or are you more likely going to spend your time sending job applications and going to interviews?

There's a reason companies prefer to just send everybody home. Some people might move the needle on the project out of sheer dedication, but for each productive person, you'll get one troublemaker who'll want to sabotage it. It's not worth a security risk.

 

If the 70 employees in the notice are Intercept Games, which again, I am struggling imagining a scenario where they're not, then Intercept has ceased to exist as of today, and KSP2 is on ice until it's picked up by another studio, whether internal or under contract.

We have seen very similar announcements and notices when Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 got "delayed," with the studio disbanded and the project going on ice until it got passed to The Chinese Room. We got the identical, "Development on Bloodlines 2 is still ongoing," message from the publisher.

2 minutes ago, TLTay said:

Do you think they'll crap it out to "1.0" and plaster it on the front of the steam store?

Another studio? No idea. Not even going to try to guess. That'd be a financial decision made by T2, and that's far outside of my expertise.

Edited May 1 by K^2

[TLTay]

4 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Say you were told that your job ends in two months. You're already effectively terminated, but you can keep working. Are you going to get a lot done? Or are you more likely going to spend your time sending job applications and going to interviews?

There's a reason companies prefer to just send everybody home. Some people might move the needle on the project out of sheer dedication, but for each productive person, you'll get one troublemaker who'll want to sabotage it. It's not worth a security risk.

 

If the 70 employees in the notice are Intercept Games, which again, I am struggling imagining a scenario where they're not, then Intercept has ceased to exist as of today, and KSP2 is on ice until it's picked up by another studio, whether internal or under contract.

We have seen very similar announcements and notices when Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 got "delayed," with the studio disbanded and the project going on ice until it got passed to The Chinese Room. We got the identical, "Development on Bloodlines 2 is still ongoing," message from the publisher.

Another studio? No idea. Not even going to try to guess. That'd be a financial decision made by T2, and that's far outside of my expertise.

No, I don't mean giving it to another studio, I just mean putting out the current build as "complete" and marketing it as a finished product.

As a finance person, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. My going theory is tgey had the bulk of the team working on that unannounced title they were working on while throwing scraps of hours at KSP2 to keep it alive. Mgt probably saw the other title as a flop and cut it all. I don't expect KSP2 to be transitioned to anywhere but the waste bin or the steam front page for a full release. I'm betting on the latter. No reason to skip sales for fear of devaluing goodwill on a now-tattered IP.

[K^2]

Just now, TLTay said:

No, I don't mean giving it to another studio, I just mean putting out the current build as "complete" and marketing it as a finished product.

They'd get pressured into refunds this way, since there is enough marketing for features that clearly aren't there yet. I don't know if T2 would want to do that, especially when they can just continue saying it's in development and do nothing for now. Even from, "it's the next year's T2 problem," that would make more sense.

Would they eventually? Hard to say. I still think it'd be cheaper for them to hire a contractor to just wedge things in and call it good enough, even if it will be less stable and worse performing than it is now. Then call it a 1.0, and put it up on the storefront under some deep discount. So I think it's between that option and finishing it for real. And they don't have to decide right now.

[Pulstar]

20 minutes ago, K^2 said:

If the 70 employees in the notice are Intercept Games, which again, I am struggling imagining a scenario where they're not, then Intercept has ceased to exist as of today, and KSP2 is on ice until it's picked up by another studio, whether internal or under contract.

There's also a hypothetical possibility that IG stopped existing because it got restructured/folded into some other studio (this is how IIRC EA closed Westwood 20-ish years ago, some staff moved to EALA). Cutting down on offices is one way to cut cost and T2 does have something in the suburbs as people mentioned, an option of consolidating locations/studios would be at least considered by upper management at some point unless they were dead set to write off the whole project and cut their losses. People still would get fired outside of the dev team in such a case, the redundant back office functions like accountants, facility manager etc.

Not sure if the same notice on the state website would apply in such a case though. And finally I would imagine the communication would be more transparent and pre-emptive from T2 if that was the case "don't panic, we're just merging offices to optimize cost" rather than let rumors about full closure run around freely. Just food for thought.

Edited May 1 by Pulstar

[TLTay]

8 minutes ago, K^2 said:

They'd get pressured into refunds this way, since there is enough marketing for features that clearly aren't there yet. I don't know if T2 would want to do that, especially when they can just continue saying it's in development and do nothing for now. Even from, "it's the next year's T2 problem," that would make more sense.

Would they eventually? Hard to say. I still think it'd be cheaper for them to hire a contractor to just wedge things in and call it good enough, even if it will be less stable and worse performing than it is now. Then call it a 1.0, and put it up on the storefront under some deep discount. So I think it's between that option and finishing it for real. And they don't have to decide right now.

Steam EA titles are clearly labeled with a disclaimer. I doubt they're actually obligated to follow through with development or they wouldn't have canned everyone.

5 minutes ago, Pulstar said:

There's also a hypothetical possibility that IG stopped existing because it got restructured/folded into some other studio (this is how IIRC EA closed Westwood 20-ish years ago, some staff moved to EALA). Cutting down on offices is one way to cut cost and T2 does have something in the suburbs as people mentioned, an option of consolidating locations/studios would be at least considered by upper management at some point unless they were dead set to write off the whole project and cut their losses. People still would get fired outside of the dev team in such a case, the redundant back office functions like accountants, facility manager etc.

Not sure if the same notice on the state website would apply in such a case though. And finally I would imagine the communication would be more transparent and per-emptive from T2 if that was the case "don't panic, we're just merging offices to optimize cost" rather than let rumors about full closure run around freely. Just food for thought.

They wouldn't post a layoff notice for a merger...

 

I guess the "we're working on it" post is designed to arrest the steam review flood in the meantime.

Edited May 1 by TLTay

[Icegrx]

3 minutes ago, TLTay said:

They wouldn't post a layoff notice for a merger..

Yes they would, especially when merging if there becomes two people occupying a single job because of said merger. You only need one person for that role, you lay off one of them. 

[K^2]

10 minutes ago, Pulstar said:

There's also a hypothetical possibility that IG stopped existing because it got restructured/folded into some other studio (this is how IIRC EA closed Westwood 20-ish years ago, some staff moved to EALA).

70 people are getting let go. Restructuring doesn't require WARN notice. That's everybody at the studio. There's nobody left to fold in.

[Userguy1]

This is starting to feel like most of IG has been canned, and a few people are being transitioned in to the larger PD umbrella directly. 

[Vl3d]

Keep calm and carry on.

[AtomicTech]

Just now, Vl3d said:

Keep calm and carry on.

44 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Full statement is below that:

"T2 is firing people left and right but PD continues to update KSP2".

It's joever.

There's still a small shred of hope in my bucket though I don't expect to see anything close to the KSP 2 trailer until like 2030.