Couldn't ESA buy KSP2 and continue funding and developing it?

[Dinlink]

ESA seemed fond of the game, and it would aling with the objectives to make space industry and technology more visible in Europe and the world, among other things, like inspiring new generations...

[Dinlink]

I don't find this idea especially naive or Far-fetched, given than ESA have partnered with KSP developers in many ocasions in the past like:

https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Branding_and_Partnerships/Kerbal_s_Shared_Horizons_launched_with_real_ESA_missions

 

https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Branding_and_Partnerships/Rocket_science_for_everyone

 

"

Philippe Willekens, the head of ESA’s Communication Department commented: “The ability of games and gaming to really engage and involve people is wonderful. It allows everyone to experience the challenges and excitement of real space exploration for themselves. The work done by the development teams at Private Division really take this to the next level and it’s a great honour for ESA to be part of the KSP story.”

"

[Stevie_D]

Why not write to the man yourself and ask him nicely?

The reason why it's not likely is because ESA is a community space program of European nations. Their budget and goal is to their science and space research and development. They answer to their respective countries, who answer to their respective politicians, who answer to their respective peoples. When people start asking "Why is our taxpayer's money, supposedly allocated to furthering space and science, spending a few ***million*** on a ***video game?***" It is pretty hard for the head of ESA to say "Um... positive advertising?" 
ESA partnered with KSP in the past because it cost them virtually nothing and could easily fall under their advertising budget. A video game costs more. A lot more. More than could be justified when that money at ESA should be going to furthering the real-world spaceflight that KSP aims to replicate.

TRANSCRIPT FROM JULY 2024 ESA MONTHLY OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE

Oversight Committee : "Why didn't our latest Arianne rocket fly?"

Philippe Willekens : "Our budget fell short by 2 million."

Oversight Committee : "How? Why?"

Philippe Willekens : "Um, we helped an indie developer make a video game."

Oversight Committee :  "Is that in our organization's charter?"

Philippe Willekens bolts for the door and flees the building.

Philippe Willekens (shouts): "KSP FOREVEEERRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!"

Edited May 3 by Stevie_D

[Dinlink]

20 minutes ago, Stevie_D said:

Why not write to the man yourself and ask him nicely?

The reason why it's not likely is because ESA is a community space program of European nations. Their budget and goal is to their science and space research and development. They answer to their respective countries, who answer to their respective politicians, who answer to their respective peoples. When people start asking "Why is our taxpayer's money, supposedly allocated to furthering space and science, spending a few ***million*** on a ***video game?***" It is pretty hard for the head of ESA to say "Um... positive advertising?" 
ESA partnered with KSP in the past because it cost them virtually nothing and could easily fall under their advertising budget. A video game costs more. A lot more. More than could be justified when that money at ESA should be going to furthering the real-world spaceflight that KSP aims to replicate.

TRANSCRIPT FROM JULY 2024 ESA MONTHLY OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE

Oversight Committee : "Why didn't our latest Arianne rocket fly?"

Philippe Willekens : "Our budget fell short by 2 million."

Oversight Committee : "How? Why?"

Philippe Willekens : "Um, we helped an indie developer make a video game."

Oversight Committee :  "Is that in our organization's charter?"

Philippe Willekens bolts for the door and flees the building.

Philippe Willekens (shouts): "KSP FOREVEEERRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!"

I was seriously considering just that, to write them, and asking them nicely... But after the dust settles down, and it become certain that KSP2 will be completely cancelled.

By the way, thanks you for the transcript, it was really funny to read

[The Aziz]

Friendly reminder what happens when a space agency tries to make a game

 

[herbal space program]

I don't think there's any way either ESA or NASA would buy the KSP2 IP outright, but I could imagine that one or both agencies might fund a small grant to support its further development by some indie studio that might acquire the IP down the road. Hope springs eternal!

[Infinite Aerospace]

19 hours ago, herbal space program said:

I don't think there's any way either ESA or NASA would buy the KSP2 IP outright, but I could imagine that one or both agencies might fund a small grant to support its further development by some indie studio that might acquire the IP down the road. Hope springs eternal!

To be fair if the likes of ESA, NASA, SpaceX and the likes even voiced their support for the game. That could make a big difference, organisations like NASA and companies like SpaceX are kinda hard to ignore. It cements your game in the realms of actual space flight and exploration. The fact Tory Bruno, United Launch Alliance CEO talks about Kerbal Space Program over on Twitter (Sorry Elon but X is just stupid) speaks volumes, given that he's the head of a real life launch provider. 

In-fact, a genuine, not insane thing to do, would be to draft a collective letter, to the likes of NASA, Elon Musk, Peter Beck (Rocket Lab USA), Tory Bruno and just ask them to tweet something in solidarity with Kerbal Space Program. It sounds ridiculous, but I honestly think Tory at least might actually be willing to do it, I'd genuinely not be surprised if Elon did as well. Same goes for ESA.

 

#SaveKerbalSpaceProgram could be our proposed hashtag on Twitter (X is a crap name, come on Elon)

[ILikeIke]

Given the rate of progress with Ariane 6, I think I'd rather hear that they're killing the game outright rather than transferring it to ESA...

[Flush Foot]

9 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

#SaveKerbalSpaceProgram could be our proposed hashtag on Twitter

Maybe we could convince some government agency to declare Kerbals an endangered species and force TT to ‘protect their habitat’?

[Iapetus7342]

13 hours ago, Flush Foot said:

Maybe we could convince some government agency to declare Kerbals an endangered species and force TT to ‘protect their habitat’?

nice idea xb

[blorgon]

On 5/3/2024 at 1:58 PM, Stevie_D said:

ESA partnered with KSP in the past because it cost them virtually nothing and could easily fall under their advertising budget. A video game costs more. A lot more. More than could be justified when that money at ESA should be going to furthering the real-world spaceflight that KSP aims to replicate.

What kind of educational outreach does ESA do? I could easily see a space agency funding KSP as an educational tool to help train kids in STEM.

[Dakitess]

Haha ESA won't ever do something like this, nor the very majority of the space-related companies and institutions in Europe.

[Bej Kerman]

On 5/3/2024 at 7:33 PM, Dinlink said:

ESA seemed fond of the game, and it would aling with the objectives to make space industry and technology more visible in Europe and the world, among other things, like inspiring new generations...

Pretty sure the European Space Agency is a... space agency, not a software development firm. Likely more busy doing space things and paying actual astronauts than servicing a fandom they have nothing to do with.

Edited May 7 by Bej Kerman

[FloppyRocket]

On 5/3/2024 at 1:23 PM, Dinlink said:

The reason why it's not likely is because ESA is a community space program of European nations. ... When people start asking "Why is our taxpayer's money, supposedly allocated to furthering space and science, spending a few ***million*** on a ***video game?***"

Indeed. No way that ESA could cover the politics of this, even if they thought it was a good idea.

[Darmok]

Out of all of the things that will never happen with KSP2, this one will never happen the most. 

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Stick to the topic of the thread, please. 

[Siska]

Why should anyone buy a title on which was spent millions already, has 404.7 avg players, and overwhelmingly negative reviews on steam.

From my POV it is not a good investment unfortunatelly.

PD and IG blew it all.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Siska said:

From my POV it is not a good investment unfortunatelly.

Sort of? It would probably not be a wise investment to buy KSP IP from T2 just to try and make KSP2 again. Consider what you are buying. You don't buy a concept of a space sandbox. You buy cute little green merchandising opportunities. If anybody buys KSP IP from T2 the smart thing is to make Kerbal Kart, or something. You get the Kerbals, you get them doing something fun, and you don't weigh yourself with baggage and expectations. And maybe, if it pans out, 2-3 games down the line you take another crack at a space sandbox.

Likewise, there is nothing stopping someone from saying, "We're going to make our own Kerbal Space Program. With moons. And rockets. In fact, forget the Kerbals," and just make it a spiritual successor. In fact, we already have Juno and whatever Rocketwerkz is cooking. And maybe that's how we all get a KSP2 game that we all wanted all along, minus the Kerbals.

 

The only ones for whom it makes sense to keep working on KSP2 is T2 and PD. And I'm sure they're rethinking it right now, and checking the numbers, and probably even watching the forums, not that they'd ever admit, and they're well aware of what a sunk costs fallacy is and all the good ways to avoid it. And yet, they do now have a collection of good, modern assets. They do know where a lot of rakes are. They'll be cautious, they'll want to minimize the risk, but I think the only thing stopping KSP2 dev from resuming is them finding a dev team. A very cost-effective team.

And here's the thing. The market's HOT right now if you're looking to hire a studio. The money available to start new development is very short, so a lot of exceptional indy studios are sitting without work inching closer to declaring bankruptcy. It's really bad out there. If PD wants to find a stellar team that knows Unity like the back of their hands and will work for just enough money to keep the lights on, now's the time. Compared to expenses of running an internal team in Seattle, contracting a dev team from somewhere in Europe can be done for less than half of the cost right now.

And while I don't have nearly enough data to speak with certainty, I would argue that if KSP2 is not worth finishing now for half of the cost, it wasn't worth continuing development with Intercept over a year ago, before EA dropped. The fact that the cut wasn't made then makes me think that whatever charts the analysts are showing the leadership, they're close.

So that's what I expect. PD will send off KSP2 to an external dev or do internal work using external studio as co-dev. Likely rescoped. Once again, I wouldn't be surprised if MP is dropped or heavily pushed back, and we're probably talking about just finishing the two star systems that were in flight. But the rest should remain pretty close to the roadmap. And at the same time, I expect someone will take a crack at making KSP2 without the Kerbals. Probably Rocketwerkz, but maybe someone else will show up. And who knows, maybe one of these games will be good. Maybe even both.

[Jacke]

12 hours ago, K^2 said:

If anybody buys KSP IP from T2 the smart thing is to make Kerbal Kart, or something. You get the Kerbals, you get them doing something fun, and you don't weigh yourself with baggage and expectations. And maybe, if it pans out, 2-3 games down the line you take another crack at a space sandbox.

I think this is a brilliant plan!  The only problem there is that I think Take-Two will never sell the Kerbal IP to any buyer for fear of that buyer making a success of it and making the whole Take-Two project--including selling off the IP--look like a complete failure, especially selling the IP.

The way that a Take-Two KSP could be restarted also sounds very plausible.  Maybe they should get another for-hire studio working on that Kerbal Kart idea too.  Hey, if the Kerbals go crazy for rocketry and space exploration, imagine how they'll handle high-speed auto design and operation. 

Edited May 9 by Jacke

[K^2]

18 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Maybe they should get another for-hire studio working on that Kerbal Kart idea too.

I am unironically upset that it's not a thing. Kerbals, karts flying at unsafe speeds, and more ways to attach a muffler than you thought were possible. It's a perfect combination. I've considered making a prototype and pitching it more than once. But life and the work that pays bills.

[Yakuzi]

I think the current KSP2 game is more suited for ARCA Space, lots of overlapping values etc.

 

Now if TT were to donate the IP to ESA and provide some seed capital to start from scratch, I'd be all for it.

Edited May 9 by Yakuzi

[kerbiloid]

Kerbals already have performed by orders of magnitude more successful launches than any human space agency had, founded colonies on other planets (and not once), developed a whole space industry, and even reached other stars.

Will any space agency look pale against Kerbal background?
They are natural competitors.

[Biggen]

No way a space agency would pay millions of dollars to acquire the IP rights to KSP2. Then they would have to dump in several extra millions to finish development. They are not a software dev company.

If we are throwing silly ideas around maybe I should email my local garbage pickup company see if there are interested in acquiring ksp2. What about my corner gas station too? Local supermarket?

Edited May 9 by Biggen

[anis]

This seems like impossible.

Even if KSP is a realistic game that teach you a lot of things, a gouvernmantal agency like ESA robably can't buy a game.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, Biggen said:

maybe I should email my local garbage pickup company see if there are interested in acquiring ksp2. What about my corner gas station too? Local supermarket?

Even better. It would begin a great story.

Spoiler