Early access games get cancelled; that's why they don't cost $50.

[VlonaldKerman]

First post on here in a while. Wish it was under better circumstances. To be clear: as of the writing of this post, KSP 2 HAS NOT BEEN OFFICIALLY CANCELLED. Mostly, this is a response to a phenomena I've noticed a lot on this forum: people making statements to the effect of "They promised us they would finish the game, isn't this some kind of breach (possibly even legal)?" Some people are talking about lawsuits, others about refunds.

The fact is, early access games are always a risk, both for the publisher as well as the customer, even when they are being developed by a major studio. KSP 2 in particular, is a relatively niche-interest game whose development was seeminly laden with difficult technical problems and other REAL CODING CHALLENGES which have the tendency to make development slower and more expensive than other reliable, mass-market games. Take Two may well decide that KSP 2 will either be unprofitable, or that the money will be better spent somewhere else. They may be right. Unfortunately, there is no known way to design an economic system that both 1) causes companies to waste money on consumers like us and 2) leads to the development of MRI machines, sufficient food to feed the population, etc.

A lot of the initial anger back when the game was released was in this context. The anger boiled down to two main points:

1. The game was way less developed than it ought to have been based on previews and pre-development communications. This could have many causes, among them:
   • There were more engineering challenges than expected, or they were more difficult than anticipated
   • Development was being mismanaged
   • There was dishonesty involved
   • Development was restarted due to some unknown reason, possibly some combination of the other bullets
   • All of which indicate that the game's development was significantly more risky (less guaranteed) than what one might otherwise assume, which was/is upsetting to many fans of the game.
2. Especially in light of (1), the asking price of $50 was extremely steep. Not only was the game not worth $50 at that moment, but the development of the game was full of risks and red flags that reduced the likelyhood of successful development even further below that which one would expect from an early access game, which should reduce the price.

Since the release, which many viewed as already involving several broken promises, more 'promises' or 'goals' have gone unfulfilled, such as:

• Frequent communication
• Updates "on the timescales of weeks, not months"
• "Major content updates coming within months of each other"

And other such conditions which would alleviate risk and speak to a solid development environment.

Take-Two's "cost reduction plan" is not a monumental, rare, or unpredictable occurence. It is exactly the sort of thing we should expect companies to do: look to reallocate funds away from things that either lose money or don't make enough money, and towards things that do. We should have had, and should continue to have, the expectation that KSP 2 will be subject to such pressures, AND THAT EXPECTATION SHOULD BE BAKED INTO THE PRICE OF THE GAME.

It's no surprise, then, that many of the same people who were fine with the price of the game and many other perceived sleights feel like they are owed some sort of recourse if the game fails. You are not owed anything- your "recourse" was had a year ago when you purchased the game for less than it would eventually cost if it made it to release- you got a bargain, which doubled as your consolation were the game to fail. If you are unsatisfied with your recourse, then perhaps we are in agreement that the game should have been, for instance, $30.

All this being said, I hope for the sake of the community, the devs, who I do believe worked hard to make this game succeed and care about the game, and the broader world which stands to benefit from the existence of games like KSP 2, that the worst has not come to pass, and that the game will continue to be developed, and one day release successfully. I mainly wrote this post because it concerns what I believe to be a common flaw in the way people think/talk about "cOrPoRaTiOnS" which irritates me greatly, and I'm not a perfect person. 

 

[Skorj]

The biggest problem IMO was that they put their roadmap on the store page.  The promises for what would come in 1.0 were "on the box", so to speak.  That's against the EA rules, and for good reason. 

Had the release just been KSP1 without the bugs, I would have paid $50 for it despite all the new content being a future promise.  But it wasn't, and I think a lot of people justified the price tag because of the promises on the store page.  If the game is officially put into "support mode", there could be legal trouble in the EU because of this, which may be the reason we're not getting an official announcement.

There's a reason most EA games have the sense to leave their roadmap off the Steam platform.  It shouldn't be part of the sales material for the game.  The game needs to stand on what it has today for today's price.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

8 hours ago, Skorj said:

The biggest problem IMO was that they put their roadmap on the store page.  The promises for what would come in 1.0 were "on the box", so to speak.  That's against the EA rules, and for good reason. 

Had the release just been KSP1 without the bugs, I would have paid $50 for it despite all the new content being a future promise.  But it wasn't, and I think a lot of people justified the price tag because of the promises on the store page.  If the game is officially put into "support mode", there could be legal trouble in the EU because of this, which may be the reason we're not getting an official announcement.

There's a reason most EA games have the sense to leave their roadmap off the Steam platform.  It shouldn't be part of the sales material for the game.  The game needs to stand on what it has today for today's price.

That not against EA standards of practice. There is a somewhat length account of what EA is supposed entail.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/earlyaccess

Notice the first two line items under the heading *Best Practices*

Your store page should ALWAYS reflect:

1. The current state of your early access game.

2. Most up-to-date planes for the eventual release of 1.0

I cannot think of an EA game that does not discuss roadmap plans with the consumer. Do not do so would violate the spirit of steam early access. The majority of the page discussed publisher / developer responsibility to maintain accurate communication throughout all steps of the EA.

That is the primary reason (I feel) KSP2 has had such a rocky EA experience.

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/marketings-dead-and-i-can-back-this-sht-up-larians-publishing-director-says-players-just-want-to-be-spoken-to-and-they-dont-want-to-be-bamboozled/

This was an interesting article discussing the current paradigm shift about marketing tactics angering the gamer. Apparently we just want an open line of communication.

[MechBFP]

People are allowed to set whatever price they want on their products. The consumers will ultimately decide if that was the right price or not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Please avoid making the arguments personal. 

[VlonaldKerman]

Just saw this video and I think this guy really nails it, especially when he talks about the "business side" and why development may have gone so wrong. 

I feel like so many of the things I and several others were complaining about at the start were vindicated, and it's really dissapointing. I would rather have been wrong. I guess you could call this my "defeat lap".

• https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/217217-what-happened-to-the-reworked-core-systems/
  • This thread, from May of last year, talks about the startling lack of substantive gameplay improvements, compared to the stylistic upgrades. This is addressed in the video towards the end.
• https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/212504-fps-isnt-the-issue-interested-in-discussion/
  • This thread, from February just after the release, is about how there are much worse issues with the EA build than bad performance, which speak to core aspects of the game and bode poorly for the game's future. Even back then, I speculated
    • " I can think of two scenarios, which dictate two different actions:

      1) T2 is looking for high EA sales to justify continue funding the project. In this case, we should NOT refund the game, and try to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt that they haven't lost faith in the project.

      2) T2 is looking to cut KSP 2 loose after finding themselves many years, and millions of dollars deeper into KSP 2 than they ever thought they would have to be, and with a product that is still sub-par and far from finished, and high EA sales will allow them to justify doing this. In this case, we ought to REFUND the game in order to force T2 to fund the dev team and finish the game, or accept a massive loss, likely at least on the order of tens, to even a couple hundred million dollars (reasonable estimate for what the game has cost them so far, including marketing, etc.). "

• https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/212173-reading-into-ksp-2-ea-featuresnon-features/

  • This post, from before the EA released, speculated that the most likely reason for the impending sorry state of the game was that T2 forced them to release into EA early because they were considering pulling the plug.

• Finally, this post: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/217291-actual-quotes-for-substantiated-arguments-thread/

  • This thread contains discussion about actual statements made by Nate Simpson and others, which, at the time (May 2023) had been shown to be false, misleading, or otherwise concerning with regards to the prospects of the games development.

9 hours ago, MechBFP said:

People are allowed to set whatever price they want on their products. The consumers will ultimately decide if that was the right price or not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think, judging by https://steamdb.info/app/954850/charts/ , the consumers have decided it was not the right price.

 

Of course, the irony is, while they likely set the price of the game at $50 to show big daddy T2 a proof-of-market revenue stream, the pricepoint, in conjunction with the poor quality of the game, lousy communication, etc. may have been one of the most significant contributing factors to the game's financial underperformance.

Devs: If I'm wrong, prove it! I would love to get dunked on in a post saying the game isn't cancelled, and colonies is coming soon.

[Skorj]

14 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

That not against EA standards of practice. There is a somewhat length account of what EA is supposed entail.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/earlyaccess

Notice the first two line items under the heading *Best Practices*

You skipped over the actual rules.  In particular:

2. Do not make specific promises about future events. For example, there is no way you can know exactly when the game will be finished, that the game will be finished, or that planned future additions will definitely happen. Do not ask your customers to bet on the future of your game. Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized.

Almost no EA games have their roadmap on the Steam platform.  You don't want it as part of your sales materials, because in some countries it can be considered a promise when it's part of the description of the product.

 

[Tony Tony Chopper]

Having various roadmap goals is not specific. There are no further details on what is included like planets, certain parts or how multiplayer will be exactly realized. Those are still big question marks, even for us in the forum. Yes sneakpeeks, but it isn't promised on the front page god beware.