KSA vs KSP vs PD/TTWO Ramblings.

[Lisias]

  Moved from another thread.

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

I still believe they're vastly different scenarios.

Yes and no. Mobile was bleeding money from Siemens, while PD is... well... just dead in the water. So there's not exactly a urge to get rid of them.

But it's still money being left in the table - selling PD will, at very least, help paying some electrical bills.

The objective will be the same: to make things look better on the Bookkeeping. Really, this is all what matters...

 

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Right here you'd be talking about buying product X to bundle with your brand Y to sell the Z combo.

One possible outcome, but not exactly what I was talking about. HOW they would use the assets was out of the scope from what I was saying.

Siemens didn't cared at all about what BenQ was going to do with Mobile, all that mattered is that they managed to turn that lemon into a lemonade that BenQ was willing to buy.

 

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

That'd be like trying to sell land based on a bushel of rotten apples with a good one on top that's not even from the aforementioned land. Even PD's other titles are really not that attractive. And before someone mentions Roll7, their two games were played by a cumulative total of 1000 people on Steam.

Well... The other games are out of the scope of this Forum, so I didn't bored to think about them - but if you are willing to waste some bandwidth into a brainstorming about how it would be possible to rub some sugar on them...

As much as I value KSP myself, I don't fool myself thinking that it will be by itself the one solution for all PD problems. But since it currently have twice the number of Steam Players than everything else PD has there, it would be a hell of a sugar cube...

Did you ever sold an used car? You don't fix only one problem, neither fix them all - you focus on fixing the problems that the buyer cares about.

[kerbiloid]

  

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

People on PC got burned by KSP2.

But many of them would be excited by KSP3, cuz KSP.

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

The brand got a huge hit from it, that's >60% of KSP1 purchasers giving KSP2 a no confidence vote.

The advantage of a monopolism is that brand doesn't matter, when you have just one brand in the category.

3 hours ago, dsplaisted said:

I wonder how many days after release a mod that changes "kittens" to green big-headed humanoids will appear.

I would be one of the first its adepts.

Because kitties are cuties, while Kerbals are st(a/u)ff.

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

People using it professionally got burned by KSPEdu being abandoned -long- ago.

That, IMHO, was a mistake.

It was not just a mistake, it was a crime against humanity.

As the further events have demonstrated, many space agencies and airspace corporations are using KSP to design their crafts.

[PDCWolf]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

Did you ever sold an used car? You don't fix only one problem, neither fix them all - you focus on fixing the problems that the buyer cares about.

Yes, all of them were sold working, or exchanged for newer cars hand-to-hand with some cash to balance. Never did I sell a car without an engine, or without wheels... and neither did I fix them up for sale because that'd be less money I'd have for a new car versus adding money to a rapidly depreciating asset like a used car. No one buys used cars to get a fresh paintjob and new rims/tyres.

In this case:

• PD is empty, it's only a managerial body with mixed-to-bad results.
• IG and Roll7 are empty, literally just names at this point, a prospective buyer would still have to go through hiring processes and really no one wastes money buying a studio name, the general public care little about which studio is behind what game save for the absolutely biggest franchises.
• The rest of PD's published games are through exactly that: publishing deals, the association of studios to PD ends after the game is published, except for support or updates. So really PD only comes with IG and Roll7 in the package.

The only thing left to give any attractive to PD is their Game Freak partnership and whatever might come off that, and I'm very sure it is also the reason why PD wasn't sold for pennies, because that deal was in the bag already and since the money had already been gambled, might as well stick to your gamble with the developers of the most profitable media franchise's games on earth.

Obviously, the first way to "sweeten" this possible deal is by making PD and its comboed assets cheap. Either they didn't make it cheap enough, or nobody wants it even for cheap. This also means that if this Game Freak game works, it's not gonna get cheaper either.

Now we come to this maybe-license-KSA-as-KSP mess, but that'd also require goodwill from T2 to try and get burned again, and a huge ego-hit from having to buy out one of PD's rejected pitches.

 

[Kerbart]

57 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Now we come to this maybe-license-KSA-as-KSP mess, but that'd also require goodwill from T2 to try and get burned again, and a huge ego-hit from having to buy out one of PD's rejected pitches.

The question for me is, what value does acquiring the KSP(2) or IG have for Rocketwerkz? I don't see it.

• The existing product is so atrocious that there's no value in it.
• There are no assets worth taking over. No office, and if there's hardware, we know how that devaluates by the minute.
• The only  chance they have at  selling "KSP3" is establisgh first that their product (KSA) is built from the ground up without any connections to the existing KSP2 code (as they're doing right now). At that point, where's the money in rebranding KSA as KSP3?  Everyone knows it really is already. Why spend money on it?

[PDCWolf]

26 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

The question for me is, what value does acquiring the KSP(2) or IG have for Rocketwerkz? I don't see it.

• The existing product is so atrocious that there's no value in it.
• There are no assets worth taking over. No office, and if there's hardware, we know how that devaluates by the minute.
• The only  chance they have at  selling "KSP3" is establisgh first that their product (KSA) is built from the ground up without any connections to the existing KSP2 code (as they're doing right now). At that point, where's the money in rebranding KSA as KSP3?  Everyone knows it really is already. Why spend money on it?

We were discussing about the opposite scenario: T2 buying KSA to rebrand it, to "sweeten" the sale of PD, which my opinion is pretty clear on. Now on what you propose... yeah no, I definitely don't see why would the KSA guys lump their hard work under a franchise that's burnt and crashed. Like yeah, there's people who worked in both KSPs working with them, but the saving grace is that they don't have T2 on top to make dumb decisions (which is a double edged sword but hey). So I really don't see why would they try and acquire the brand other than some fans wanting to see the product carry the official naming and the little green men.

[kerbiloid]

I believe, the KSA developers, due to their previous KSP background, have so many drafts of KSP things, that the problem for them is not starting from a ground, but to choose the ground to start from among other grounds they have.

Edited 12 hours ago by kerbiloid

[Lisias]

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Yes, all of them were sold working, or exchanged for newer cars hand-to-hand with some cash to balance. Never did I sell a car without an engine, or without wheels... and neither did I fix them up for sale because that'd be less money I'd have for a new car versus adding money to a rapidly depreciating asset like a used car. No one buys used cars to get a fresh paintjob and new rims/tyres.

You will probably not believe me , but the most successful car sellers I ever know do exactly that: buy cars exactly like you are describing it, fix, rebuilt, whatever, them and then sell the things working. Obviously, they usually do that for older cars that are still desirable nowadays, but sometimes they do it for cars still in production.

I totaled a car once (stupid kid, I was). The Insurance declared a total loss and paid the full premium to my dad. Later, one of that car sellers I told you that knew my father told him that the Insurance company sold him that car pretty cheap and he managed to fix the car (he owned a hydraulic machine used to realign bent chassis) and sold the car to a good price after replacing what was irremediably broken (not that much, glasses and mirrors essentially).

Interesting enough, its also a viable business model for Companies - I know entrepreneurs that buy crippled companies for cheap, sanitize them, make them profitable, and then sell them to anyone willing to keep the business ongoing.

 

2 hours ago, Kerbart said:

The only  chance they have at  selling "KSP3" is establisgh first that their product (KSA) is built from the ground up without any connections to the existing KSP2 code (as they're doing right now). At that point, where's the money in rebranding KSA as KSP3?  Everyone knows it really is already. Why spend money on it?

Only the people that effectively bought KSP2 is mad. Everybody else or don't know KSP yet, or are still willing to get a proper sequel.

Besides, buying famous trademarks to pimp up your products is a good deal. Branding is the name of the game - do you know that a lot of famous brands of the past, like Telefunken, is now owned by Chinese manufacturers?

As a matter of fact, I was one of the "victims" of them bought a "nice" Telefunken headset because, as a Kid, I remember the high quality ones my dad bought from them. This damned thing is on my head right now, it's not bad.  But it's not excellent neither, I could had bought something so good as, but somewhat cheaper, from the same manufacturer but sold without the Telefunken name.

I didn't knew what happened to Telefunken in Europe, just realized the trick after buying this head set.

And this happens all the time - people are draft by brands they respect (or respected in the past).

Edited 10 hours ago by Lisias
(sigh) Moar tyops...

[kerbiloid]

40 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Only the people that effectively bought KSP2 is mad. Everybody else or don't know KSP yet, or are still willing to get a proper sequel.

Sequel?!

It was under development long ago, since Harvester had quit the KSP right before it was predated by the premature so-called "KSP-2" project, which was just a false step from the proper path!

But happily now the never-stopped development of the KSP ancestor is accelerated, so it's not a post-KSP2 or KSP2 replacement, it's what the proper KSP is and always was, regardless of third-party failed spinoffs, known for their overpriced early-access demo-alphas!

As a small part of its rebranding, the "Kerman" brand is rebranded into "Kerbrand" brand.

Der Oberraumpilot Jebediah Kerbrand from Raketenwerke GmbH will guide you through the tutorial.

[PDCWolf]

Well, I'll eat some of my words.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/zelnick-on-private-division-sale-those-projects-were-smaller-were-in-the-business-of-big-hits

[Kerbart]

43 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Well, I'll eat some of my words.

Meh, you're just showing your excellent timing skills

[Lisias]

Well... Looks like TTWO is going to pay some Electrical Bills after all!