IGN reports: T2 wants to get rid of the IP, they want to offload PD completely.

[herbal space program]

1 hour ago, Stephensan said:

at bare, i doubt they want to come out losing on this project so it either sell or not.

Well if they don't sell it and they don't develop it any further either, they are 100% sure to lose a whole lot of money, so I don't think there's any reason to assume they would never sell it at any kind of a loss. The question is just how big of one.

[herbal space program]

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

Not necessarily. Sometimes it's cheaper to just write the entire thing off as losses on the taxes.

Based on their last earnings statement, they already have so many losses on their books that there is no need for any more write offs.

[AtomicTech]

22 hours ago, WelshSteW said:

 

I take this as absolutely brilliant news. The game has a chance of being picked up by someone who actually wants to make something of it, rather than just being mothballed and left to rot.

 

One can only hope.

[Superfluous J]

15 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

That doesn't really answer any of the important questions.

This is all a thought experiment anyway because it'll never ever happen, but to be frank I don't care about answering any of the "important" questions like who's in charge or where will the repository be kept.

If among the 127 forks of the newly open sourced KSP2 (including the inevitable Kaifu fork) there's one that's relatively bug free and has some fun stuff in it I can play, then I'm cool with that.

[m4ti140]

On 5/31/2024 at 11:14 PM, Tony Tony Chopper said:

News in sight: It's even worse. Thanks for Matt Lowne for posting this on X.

https://www.ign.com/articles/take-two-is-quietly-killing-private-division

For KSP this is actually wonderful news, anywhere is better than T2 for the IP.

What I'm afraid of is that this might kill The Outer Worlds 2. Considering this is basically T2 outsourcing to Microsoft, they will probably not sell it, they'll just kill it.

[MechBFP]

9 minutes ago, m4ti140 said:

For KSP this is actually wonderful news, anywhere is better than T2 for the IP.

What I'm afraid of is that this might kill The Outer Worlds 2. Considering this is basically T2 outsourcing to Microsoft, they will probably not sell it, they'll just kill it.

Huh, never met anyone who actually like the first one enough to actually want a sequel.

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, WelshSteW said:

I don't care one bit if they make 20 Kerbal Farm games. I'm not into it, so I won't buy them, but if other people do and that's what they use to fund another crack at KSP2 then happy days.

It will devalue significantly the franchise.

A good part of the value on intangible assets is the public perception. Once you see tour characters being commercially explored in cheap/"shady" products, your IP starts to be associated to the words "cheap" and "shady".

It's usually a one way ticket to the oblivion - but perhaps things can change, let's see how the Metal Gear franchise recovers after the monstrous blunder from Konami.

[Brofessional]

9 hours ago, TLTay said:

Still stuck with the tarnish of KSP2, and that will forever be attached to the little green men. Easier to just not pay the millions at this point and do your own IP.

Possibly, but I think a total change in ownership would heal some of the reputation damage. You can't be mad at the new owner for something the previous owner did.  They would have to show that the IP is in good hands though, which is one reason I think a remaster would be a good start.

I'm not super optimistic that anyone is actually going to buy it though. T2 is probably just asking too much.

[asmi]

12 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

For starters, a boatload of money.  If we semi-use the figures we were given from Shadowzone's video, we're looking at no less than $17.5 million every year for, we'll say, 4 years of development alone.  To recoup that cost alone, Take Two would need to get $70 million.  That's just to recoup development costs for KSP2.  And then they have to take into account future sales of KSP1...which, admittedly, probably aren't going to be all that much.  Most people who want it already have it, and it goes on sale enough on Steam that getting additional cash there isn't going to be much.  But Take Two, being a company, will want some compensation for that.  Once we get beyond the cost of recouping development, Take Two isn't going to part with what is a decently popular game - albeit in a niche genre - for nothing.  They are going to want to be enticed to get rid of the IP, so the group will need to come up with probably - and this is a major spitball here - another $10-30 million dollars.  Someone here in this thread already mentioned $100 million to purchase the IP, so we can easily go with that number and feel like we'd at least be in the ballpark to start negotiations.

Acquisitions are typically valued based on it's earnings potential over certain period of time (typically 1-3 years depending on the nature of business and how badly seller wants to sell/buyer wants to buy), what happened to the company before is none of buyer's concern. So nobody is going to cover T2 losses incurred over KSP2 development, nor how much it paid for the acquisition in the past. I don't know how much money KSP IP makes now, but I suspect not that much, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if it sells for relatively cheap - I would estimate $5M max, likely it will be quite a bit lower than that.

Edited June 2 by asmi

[Scarecrow71]

8 hours ago, asmi said:

what happened to the company before is none of buyer's concern.

You are correct.  But the seller isn't going to give the IP away, and they are going to want to recoup losses.  So while it may not be any business of the buyer's, it still plays into the negotiations and how much the seller is willing to part with the IP for.

[Devblaze]

boycott GTA6

[Kerbart]

21 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Keep in mind that everything I typed was pure speculation.  I saw earlier in this thread that someone said roughly $100 million for the purchase of the IP, and that's where I went.  Said post:Guess I'm curious why you didn't ask your question when Lisias put that amount out there, but decided to ask when I did?

Because you’re (willfully?) misinterpreting my point. I don’t care what the actual loss is that T2 would “need” to recoup, be it 5, 10, 50, 100 or (why not) 500 million.

I’m just not convinced that they have an absolute minimum price they feel *needs* to be matched in order to make the project in the end profitable, and that they’d rather *not* sell the IP and take their 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever million dollar loss without getting *anything* back.

There’s often complains about beancounters not caring for the game, but this is how beancounting works. You don’t make decisions based on emotions (“oh nooz! We need to get or 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions back!”), you make decisions based on what your calculator tells you. And if your calculator tells you that 5 million is better than the  5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions you’ll never get, than you take those 5, instead of dreaming about the 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions you’ll never get.

For clarity I will not just say “100” but clearly state “5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions” lest no one thinks I’m purposely misquoting you the amount you specified (hence me saying “lets assume it’s correct). So to be clear, when you said 100 million, I never read that as you claiming it was 100 million, but rather an arbritary amount. It might as well be 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever million. I just don’’t think T2 will only sell if it’s profitable to them. That’s not how write-offs (be it 5, 10, 50,  100, 500 or whatever million) work.

 

[PDCWolf]

46 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Because you’re (willfully?) misinterpreting my point. I don’t care what the actual loss is that T2 would “need” to recoup, be it 5, 10, 50, 100 or (why not) 500 million.

I’m just not convinced that they have an absolute minimum price they feel *needs* to be matched in order to make the project in the end profitable, and that they’d rather *not* sell the IP and take their 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever million dollar loss without getting *anything* back.

There’s often complains about beancounters not caring for the game, but this is how beancounting works. You don’t make decisions based on emotions (“oh nooz! We need to get or 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions back!”), you make decisions based on what your calculator tells you. And if your calculator tells you that 5 million is better than the  5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions you’ll never get, than you take those 5, instead of dreaming about the 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions you’ll never get.

For clarity I will not just say “100” but clearly state “5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever millions” lest no one thinks I’m purposely misquoting you the amount you specified (hence me saying “lets assume it’s correct). So to be clear, when you said 100 million, I never read that as you claiming it was 100 million, but rather an arbritary amount. It might as well be 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 or whatever million. I just don’’t think T2 will only sell if it’s profitable to them. That’s not how write-offs (be it 5, 10, 50,  100, 500 or whatever million) work.

 

That's not even considering how somehow even though the project is very probably above 9 digits down in cash, somehow they'd consider the IP "valuable".

It's not that they don't want to sell, it's that nobody wants the burnt body of the IP after T2 torched it with such a subpar project that didn't even break 100k sales on release day with a known customer base of ~5 million people.

Edited June 2 by PDCWolf

[asmi]

8 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

You are correct.  But the seller isn't going to give the IP away, and they are going to want to recoup losses.  So while it may not be any business of the buyer's, it still plays into the negotiations and how much the seller is willing to part with the IP for.

No it doesn't. Seller's losses is seller's problem and seller's fault, no buyer will ever be willing to cover that.

Edited June 2 by asmi

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

It's not that they don't want to sell, it's that nobody wants the burnt body of the IP after T2 torched it with such a subpar project that didn't even break 100k sales on release day with a known customer base of ~5 million people.

You know, I completely failed to consider this.

Dude, I'm a huge fan of the franchise, easily going into "poetry" trying to exemplify the relative importance I perceived from it.

And I didn't realized that, besides a 100K sale on the initial day (what's not exactly a bad performance), when compared to the expected potential user base (KSP¹ sales), this number is... Pathetically bleak...

They failed to reach 99.98% of the intended audience - and I'm not even considering the refunds.

 

6 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Because you’re (willfully?) misinterpreting my point. I don’t care what the actual loss is that T2 would “need” to recoup, be it 5, 10, 50, 100 or (why not) 500 million.

That's the point: this point is meaningless. Being 100, 50, 1.000 M USD, it's just a number someone pulled out from his ass, someone else repeated it as it was a good estimate (in the absence of better information)  and he used it on a pretty decent Thought Experiment about what it would need to someone took over the Franchise.

The price TTI would want for it, no matter how much, it's just the tip of the iceberg and this is the argument we should be debating about.

Again, we are wasting a very decent Food for Thought with details that, when compared to the other expenses, it's just irrelevant.

I wonder if the meetings on P.D. didn't gone to a similar direction - it's virtually impossible that every single P.D.s' employee would be a complete dumbass and would not had realized the vicious cycle the development was entering into.

IMHO we are wasting pretty decent arguments (as yours is not bad neither) on details, and completely missing the real problem to be solved - again, I'm wondering if something similar didn't plagued the (probable) infinite meetings P.D. and I.G. had at the time where nothing were really decided (prompting the devs to play videogames instead of bashing their arses on solving problems, as it was alleged on the video).

 

On 6/1/2024 at 2:54 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

Guess I'm curious why you didn't ask your question when Lisias put that amount out there, but decided to ask when I did?

Probably because he thought I didn't added anything significant to the discussion, while you somehow touched a nerve and he decided to attack the weakest link on your argument - I would be flattered in your place.

 

39 minutes ago, asmi said:

No it doesn't. Seller's losses is seller's problem and seller's fault, no buyer will ever be willing to cover that.

Unless the prospective gains worth it!

Edited June 2 by Lisias
Kraken damned keyboard...

[PDCWolf]

27 minutes ago, Lisias said:

-huge snip-

My only two cents to the thought experiment, besides my belief that it's not them trying to charge too much but that just nobody wants the IP, is that we should pay more attention to Nate.

People think they'll be the devil for blaming him for this or that, but he can definitely be blamed. See, when the ship sinks, it's not just the captain that's at fault, but the involved crew around the point of failure, all the way up to the people in charge to control them and manage problems or communicate them upwards. However, what did Nate get out of sinking a ship? Apparently a promotion by being absorbed into PD (judging by his linkedin).

It is my opinion (by virtue of PA, Human Resources -the game-, Monday Night Combat, SMNC, and now KSP2) that he does not have the talent, but he definitely has the charisma and/or connections to somehow keep sinking games and still land on his feet, now to the point of being hired by PD... that same label his failed project screwed up so bad their owner is looking to shut them down.

Where I'm going with this... there's humans inside! Normally the discourse is to dehumanize corporations with things like "bean counters", "managers", "shareholders", but they're people like you and me, and can be influenced, convinced, or really just trust that their vision or instincts are correct... Do not be surprised to one day learn that KSP2 ended up this way because someone really just kept believing Nate was gonna deliver, to the point they overspent on KSP2 to get nothing in exchange, and even then they somehow now believe Nate was the only one worth salvaging from the wreckage.

As for Take Two, they're worth USD 27.500.000.000 right now. Even if we assume KSP2 costed them USD 160.000.000 that's... 0.58% of Take Two. This is why I so staunchly believe (and get this message out of the news) that it's not them overcharging for it, they'll happily sell it "cheap" because they have no further plans with a franchise that put them in the red and now hosts an angry vindictive community that would probably boycott them if they tried again or worse, came out with something like Kerbal Kart.

[cocoscacao]

34 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

It is my opinion (by virtue of PA, Human Resources -the game-, Monday Night Combat, SMNC, and now KSP2) that he does not have the talent, but he definitely has the charisma and/or connections to somehow keep sinking games and still land on his feet, now to the point of being hired by PD... that same label his failed project screwed up so bad their owner is looking to shut them down.

If and only if Shadowzone's investigation was correct, I'd still blame T2 on KSP 2 failure. Nate was working with what he was given, trying to accomplish the best. Did he make mistakes? Sure, but who of us has not?

[PDCWolf]

Just now, cocoscacao said:

If and only if Shadowzone's investigation was correct, I'd still blame T2 on KSP 2 failure. Nate was working with what he was given, trying to accomplish the best. Did he make mistakes? Sure, but who of us has not?

Nah, even if you assume no one was there to stop him, he clearly wasn't realistic with his vision whilst engineers were running around trying to make the game playable. He also outright came out and told us things that turned out to not be true. He's also been accused of micromanaging, and clearly now is a ship jumper that's sunk not one but two game studios.

Not like actively refusing to judge him would make anyone a better person anyways.

 

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

My only two cents to the thought experiment, besides my belief that it's not them trying to charge too much but that just nobody wants the IP, is that we should pay more attention to Nate.

People think they'll be the devil for blaming him for this or that, but he can definitely be blamed. See, when the ship sinks, it's not just the captain that's at fault, but the involved crew around the point of failure, all the way up to the people in charge to control them and manage problems or communicate them upwards. However, what did Nate get out of sinking a ship? Apparently a promotion by being absorbed into PD (judging by his linkedin).

I failed to see the significance of this argument, because:

• Whoever would be buying the IP, would not be buying Nate - these are two different things;
• We are not TTI shareholders, Nate is their problem - not ours (anymore);
• We are not a Court of Law, we aren't going to punish anyone due any misdeeds;
• Nate didn't did all of that by himself - he got a lot of help, really, really lots of help
  • No one is capable to do such a marvelous blunder without lots of help.

 

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

Where I'm going with this... there's humans inside! Normally the discourse is to dehumanize corporations with things like "bean counters", "managers", "shareholders", but they're people like you and me, and can be influenced, convinced, or really just trust that their vision or instincts are correct... Do not be surprised to one day learn that KSP2 ended up this way because someone really just kept believing Nate was gonna deliver, to the point they overspent on KSP2 to get nothing in exchange, and even then they somehow now believe Nate was the only one worth salvaging from the wreckage.

Of course there're humans inside - who else would manage to do such a magnificent blunder for so many years?

Quote

You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
#planetOfTheApesFeelings

 

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

As for Take Two, they're worth USD 27.500.000.000 right now. Even if we assume KSP2 costed them USD 160.000.000 that's... 0.58% of Take Two. This is why I so staunchly believe (and get this message out of the news) that it's not them overcharging for it, they'll happily sell it "cheap" because they have no further plans with a franchise that put them in the red and now hosts an angry vindictive community that would probably boycott them if they tried again or worse, came out with something like Kerbal Kart.

Well, finally something I can connect into. Yes, this is probably what's going to happen - and the reasons are exactly the ones (or pretty near) explained by @Scarecrow71 on their Thought Experiment.

Unless someone manages to find someone with pockets deeper than their Common Sense , willing to outright grant some money to the project - without expectations to even recover it, what to say get some interest.

In a way or another, IMHO the time to try finding such a...  uh... angel   is now. A few more years (perhaps not even that, months!) and things will start to crumble due a lot of other mistakes that are happening since some years already.

And, by then, not even Pachinkos would want it.

This ship is captainless - and adrift near reefs. And a storm is coming.

Edited June 2 by Lisias
Kraken damned keyboard...

[dprostock]

12 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I failed to see the significance of this argument, because:

• Whoever would be buying the IP, would not be buying Nate - these are two different things;
• We are not TTI shareholders, Nate is their problem - not ours (anymore);
• We are not a Court of Law, we aren't going to punish anyone due any misdeeds;
• Nate didn't did all of that by himself - he got a lot of help, really, really lots of help
  • No one is capable to do such a marvelous blunder without lots of help.

 

Nate's next job must be in a socialist context, meaning he must have a political commissar keeping an eye on him all the time.

Bah, we all know he wasn't the ONLY one, but I suspect he knew in March that it was going to happen on May 1st, and I don't know if about six months before.

Those things cook slowly and there are always signs to spare. 

[Bej Kerman]

46 minutes ago, dprostock said:

Nate's next job must be in a socialist context, meaning he must have a political commissar keeping an eye on him all the time.

Bah, we all know he wasn't the ONLY one, but I suspect he knew in March that it was going to happen on May 1st, and I don't know if about six months before.

Those things cook slowly and there are always signs to spare. 

Word salad.

[Scarecrow71]

3 hours ago, asmi said:

No it doesn't. Seller's losses is seller's problem and seller's fault, no buyer will ever be willing to cover that.

And no seller in history doesn't at least ask for it.  I've already stated it isn't the buyer's issue...but that doesn't stop the seller from.starting there.

1 hour ago, cocoscacao said:

If and only if Shadowzone's investigation was correct, I'd still blame T2 on KSP 2 failure. Nate was working with what he was given, trying to accomplish the best. Did he make mistakes? Sure, but who of us has not?

There is no "if" here.  Everything in his video is backed up with facts and corroborated by individuals close to what happened.

[LittleBitMore]

On 5/31/2024 at 8:12 PM, MARL_Mk1 said:

Honestly I couldn't give more of a crap about the Discord. But if the KSP forums were to be closed tomorrow (hypothetical scenario), the game itself would be done for.

Every piece of material, discussion, mod pages, custom configurations, guides, a literal decade of ongoing resources about Kerbal Space Program as we know it. Gone. 
Yes, I know the mods and most files and resources aren't hosted through the forums. They are on Github, Spacedock, etc. But these forums are a fundamental piece of the game. 

@Dakota @Nerdy_Mike I know the whole deal about not being able to say anything about the ongoing events because of NDAs, but could you guys comment on if there are any guarantees about these forums staying online for the foreseeable future? I know Dakota has said so in the past, after knowing about the Take-Two WARN notice, and I quote: "this server isn't going anywhere any time soon. same with the forums.".

But what certainty do we have about this statement? We also were told "We're funded, KSP2 isn't going anywhere"  yet here we stand today. If the KSP IP were to be sold to god knows who, I'm supposing they'd be on their absolute right to just cut the plug completely at will (Or am I wrong? I really hope I am).

KSP2's fate hurts, but losing these forums in any way in the future would be even more devastating to Kerbal Space Program as a whole.

 

i think there are ways to facilitate a backup of the forums, and that's by scraping the entire thing, storing it somewhere, and uploading it again using a third party provider, which would be a good idea if money wasn't required to maintain a forum. it has happened in the past though with other communities

[dprostock]

42 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Word salad.

Don't you have fun? I did, they didn't get $50 out of me. 

[Bej Kerman]

9 minutes ago, dprostock said:

Don't you have fun? I did, they didn't get $50 out of me.