TakeTwo has sold Private Division

[PDCWolf]

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

And this brings a new information to the table: Microsoft had bought another niche game in the past, Minecraft!

Ah yes, Minecraft, so niche that it only ever became the most sold indie game in history, in the very niche genre of... open world survival games. Also Microsoft bought it well into its life, after becoming a hit.

That's 2 people that misuse the word niche now.

[Lisias]

13 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Ah yes, Minecraft, so niche that it only ever became the most sold indie game in history, in the very niche genre of... open world survival games. Also Microsoft bought it well into its life, after becoming a hit.

That's 2 people that misuse the word niche now.

I'm afraid you need to complain to more people, you know...

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/1goflh1/anyone_else_wish_minecraft_stayed_a_niche_game/

 

But, taking apart the semantics of the word "niche", what else you have to criticize my argument?

[Kerbart]

On 11/10/2024 at 11:23 AM, Bej Kerman said:

KSA's early access will be free.

Do they realize that it'll result in people whining and complaining that they actually have to pay for DLC 8 years later?

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

I'm afraid you need to complain to more people, you know...

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/1goflh1/anyone_else_wish_minecraft_stayed_a_niche_game/

 

But, taking apart the semantics of the word "niche", what else you have to criticize my argument?

I didn't criticize anything but the word. No need to dig further than that... I seriously doubt Microsoft is involved, if they wanted the franchise they'd have probably bought it as soon as it went up for sale, they're not the kind to shy away from dropping money on the table.

[Lisias]

4 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

I didn't criticize anything but the word. No need to dig further than that... I seriously doubt Microsoft is involved, if they wanted the franchise they'd have probably bought it as soon as it went up for sale, they're not the kind to shy away from dropping money on the table.

You are probably right, but still... I remember Microsoft buyout of Nokia, and... Well... They are tough negotiators...

You are right, they aren't shy on dropping money on the table - but they surely know how to make it worth.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Do they realize that it'll result in people whining and complaining that they actually have to pay for DLC 8 years later?

Naw.

Those people will complain when the game goes from free to paid and they have to pick between the buggy free version with no updates and the less buggy paid version that gets updates.

[PDCWolf]

5 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Naw.

Those people will complain when the game goes from free to paid and they have to pick between the buggy free version with no updates and the less buggy paid version that gets updates.

I'll speculate they're gonna follow KSP's demo model, where every couple of big updates, they update the demo (this free version) to a further point in development that more accurately reflects the state of the game.

[Superfluous J]

19 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

I'll speculate they're gonna follow KSP's demo model, where every couple of big updates, they update the demo (this free version) to a further point in development that more accurately reflects the state of the game.

That would be smart, and so far at least they seem smart so maybe they will.

In that case, people will complain that they "bought" the game for free already and now have to play demos instead of the "real" game they "paid" for.

[purpleivan]

19 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Wait... If someone buys a copy of KSP 1 now, who gets the sweet, juicy ca$$$h from that sale?

I did a publisher transfer of a Steam game in the last couple of weeks and and as part of that process, there is an agreed date, at which revenue from sales goes to the new owner. In our case that date was a couple of weeks after the agreement that triggered the transfer (sale of a game belonging to the company to a publisher) was signed, so that it lined up with the end of a month. So the date at which the sale of the IP occurs might not be the date that sales revenue switches to the new owner, as that depend on the details of the agreement between the two companies involved.

 

 

[chefsbrian]

Man, its been a wild couple weeks for Space Fans, huh? First KSA, now this.

Right out the gate, odds are good that KSP was at least a primary interest of the buyer, alongside the existing infrastructure of a publishing house. The latter is of debatable value, but that most certainly come down to the sale price, as opposed to actual debates about the viability of the business. Indie publishers aren't scarce, but neither are interested indie devs these days, if you've got the backing capital, that's probably good.

However, this also probably means the final death knell of KSP2 as we know it. While the new owners would inherit the KSP games on steam and their future revenue, the existing revenues are already in Take2's pocket. This puts KSP2 in an incredibly awkward position for the new owner where its basically not capable of making them money, at least not for a long time with a significant expense. The entire studio's gone, and judging from what we've heard of the events leading up to it, its exceedingly unlikely that the games in a pristine "throw new bodies at it and refer to the documentation" handoff state. While its not impossible for them to reconstruct a new team or hire on a new team, they'd be sinking massive cost and effort into just refamiliarizing with the project. This is probably a terrible business call just because the majority of the sales have likely already been made, at least until you theoretically finish it and turn it around. Between having already hit EA at near full price and having completely flopped and destroyed its steam scores and perceptions, you'd have to be actually chugging straight copium to hear that there's a new owner and buy it off of that alone. And this isn't even starting on the technical feasibility of just throwing a new team in, or if such a team would even be interested - Especially with many of the core and major names not just fired, but off and working on a competitor and definitely not coming back. You have an incredible uphill climb, with significantly diminished revenue potential to finance it off of. It would be an extreme stretch for it to make any kind of sense.

No, unfortunately, the best way forward for this business with KSP2 would be to kill it. Even if you wanted to make a KSP game to sell right out the gate, you'd be better served with a new team working from scratch. The only long term consequence of axing KSP2 as it exists today would be a complete inability to launch any near future KSP games into early access without massive backlash. Considering the original hope was to just make a KSP2 as a graphical overhaul of 1 with some modernizations in the technology stack, you could do that and release as a full game in a reasonable budget, as TakeTwo initially wanted. No need to face the Early Access guns then. Maybe you offer a KSP2 owner discount at launch if your struggling to garner community goodwill, but otherwise, we're on our own.

And that'd be the good outcome. The bad outcome is still axing KSP2, and just not making anything new for a while in it at all.

And just to touch on KSA - its extremely unlikely that Rocketwerkz has bought an entire publisher. It doesn't really mesh with their existing properties to bring in the PD contents, and they aren't really in the business of publishing. Its also extremely unlikely that the new IP holders would be able to make a deal with Rocketwerkz to turn KSA into KSP3 or something - Rocketwerkz has already settled on a plan and built a team, they already have the capacity to publish, and its unlikely that the new IP holders would just hand complete creative control of the IP over to Rocketwerkz. The idea of having to compromise on the vision for something they're already executing and fully capable of delivering on (in their eyes) is unlikely to be appetizing, and the new IP holder has a LOT to potentially lose if Rocketwerkz ends up fumbling KSA. This opinion may change as the nature of the new owners reveals itself, but a quiet purchase like this screams some private equity firm looking to do their usual exploit, extract and sell, as opposed to benevolent gaming overlords.

Also on KSA - People, dear god, calm the hype train. They're still in early orbital mechanics and rendering work on a custom engine. I've been following dev, the logs and videos and stuff (as much as I can, some of it is over my coding level for sure) and while they have an extremely promising tech stack and a very good attitude regarding how to best approach it, there's functionally nothing here. Its less than a tech demo, and yet we've already got people speculating about how they're gonna design specific rockets and flights and whether it'll have an integrated Real Scale mode or not. There's nothing wrong with being hopeful, but unless your a programmer or game developer, 95% of what's going right now really isn't gonna be of interest to you. Stick a pin in it, keep your hopes in check, and swing round in a year to see if its actually grown from an engine concept to a game project.

[cocoscacao]

@chefsbrian maybe the code is crap, but graphical assets are there too, plus the overall idea of what was planned. Except the multiplayer part

I'm sure some of those things could be reused for the new game. IF anyone decides to make one. 

[Deddly]

The audio is also fabulous 

[PDCWolf]

6 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

if you've got the backing capital, that's probably good.

This is my utmost worry. Most "backing capital" available to get for almost any indie project is Epic money, or direct Tencent money. I dislike either. Even if the game was good, being an epic exclusive is a no-buy for me... and we've seen that it's the same for many people, with a game as expected as Alan Wake 2 not having broken even yet after a year since launch thanks to being hidden in the chinese store. But hey, from the dev team's own words, accepting that kind of failure is much easier since Epic themselves almost entirely financed the game. However for fans, it means a game they won't purchase, and since the franchise didn't make money, probably a franchise they won't see again.

6 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

This puts KSP2 in an incredibly awkward position for the new owner where its basically not capable of making them money, at least not for a long time with a significant expense. The entire studio's gone, and judging from what we've heard of the events leading up to it, its exceedingly unlikely that the games in a pristine "throw new bodies at it and refer to the documentation" handoff state.

Just finishing it is not gonna bring back the spooked customers. The campaign required for that is probably gonna be more expensive than whatever work they have to put into the game and I doubt it is even possible. Not to mention that the game is most probably internally garbage considering the repeated technical headbutting they were running into.

6 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

 Maybe you offer a KSP2 owner discount at launch if your struggling to garner community goodwill, but otherwise, we're on our own.

Cancelling KSP2 without proper mass refunds is gonna trigger another backlash, and now whoever bought the thing has that backpack on themselves: The game is out there, if they cancel they'd have to refund out of their pocket, not T2s. That was a masterplay from T2, they dropped one last excrement on every customer's plate one last time before saying goodbye, because whoever bought it is not gonna take that economic hit for free and T2 ran away with the money.

From my own anecdotal, I would not be buying another KSP without them giving me back my money for KSP2, unless the loyalty discount is something like 90% or some other stupidly low number for a final price. If this was the KSA guys, they got themselves that same problem, and that's me potentially knowing the whole picture of how things came to be this way. What are they gonna tell customers when they launch a KSP3 after the scam that was KSP2? How do you sweeten someone that's at -$50 on KSP2 to potentially spend that number again, more, or even less, on the same franchise?

 

[GobboKirk]

On 11/11/2024 at 2:39 PM, Superfluous J said:

Which one? Get mad at each other or wait?

Or maybe it's BOTH!

Take your pick and we'll see who ends up in a rubber room

[Kerbart]

15 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

However, this also probably means the final death knell of KSP2 as we know it.

That has been clear for a long long time. Pretty sure that the recent forum outage convinced even the most hopeful ones that the lights are really out.

 

15 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

And just to touch on KSA - its extremely unlikely that Rocketwerkz has bought an entire publisher. It doesn't really mesh with their existing properties to bring in the PD contents, and they aren't really in the business of publishing.

I doubt anyone thinks that. It's pretty clear someone--not RW--bought PD with the intent of selling the rights to individual titles to interested parties. RW might be one of those parties

15 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

Its also extremely unlikely that the new IP holders would be able to make a deal with Rocketwerkz to turn KSA into KSP3 or something - Rocketwerkz has already settled on a plan and built a team, they already have the capacity to publish, and its unlikely that the new IP holders would just hand complete creative control of the IP over to Rocketwerkz.

Well, RW would be the IP holder if they buy the rights of whoever bought PD. That's the whole point of selling it to them. Also, they would primarily be interested in the rights and not the code. I doubt they'd be touching that although the soundtracks are things that could be transferred. Maybe. But their primary reasoning would be to be able to position them,selves as the "rightful" (literally) heir to KSP and have the "official" KSP2-replacement (whether it's called KSA or KSP3 will be up to them). Surely there's some marketing value in it. If they feel it's enough to cover the cost for buying the KSP IP they will do that. If they feel it doesn't, they won't. Time will tell.

Whoever bought PD sits with an otherwise worthless KSP title if they don't find a buyer, so RW can hold off and negotiate a lower price if they're confident no one else wants it. Or maybe they already have a deal with the buyer. Time will tell.

15 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

Also on KSA - People, dear god, calm the hype train.

I find it hard to imagine anyone on this forum is not soured by the KSP2 experience. Few people will be impressed by "Nate-style" pre-production videos and 10s animations and certainly not count on KSA turning out to be the KSP2 we hoped, or were promised, to get.

 

 

 

[Lisias]

9 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

This is my utmost worry. Most "backing capital" available to get for almost any indie project is Epic money, or direct Tencent money. I dislike either.

You are making Microsoft looking good, did you know?

Anyway, Microsoft scored some serious points in my book on gaming (and this from a guy who last MS product he did really enjoyed was the Win16 compatibility layer on OS/2 Warp... uh... never mind... ).

Anyway... from Flight Simulator 2.0 to Space Simulator (yes, they did that. Years before Orbiter), and mentioning Crimsom Skies and Freelancer, just to mention the ones I still play now and then... (and, yeah, I'm a retro-computer enthusiast, I play them on the original hardware!!)...

And given what they made to Minecraft (and the original one, in Java, is still available too), I must say... They are way worst things for a game than being acquired by Microsoft Games.

Spoiler

Hummm... Tempted to replace the astronauts in this game with Kerbals...

 

9 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Cancelling KSP2 without proper mass refunds is gonna trigger another backlash, and now whoever bought the thing has that backpack on themselves: The game is out there, if they cancel they'd have to refund out of their pocket, not T2s. That was a masterplay from T2, they dropped one last excrement on every customer's plate one last time before saying goodbye, because whoever bought it is not gonna take that economic hit for free and T2 ran away with the money.

And that's the reason I think the buyer is someone big like Tencent, Embracer et all. There must be someone big enough to hire their own legal department as salaried and, so, be able to litigate the problem in secula seculorum for cheap.

You see... Mental asylum internees rarely have money enough to buy a Game Studio (besides sometimes I wonder if they can vote for CEOs...), so it's pretty unlikely that a smaller Publisher/Studio would had the one that bought them.

 

10 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

From my own anecdotal, I would not be buying another KSP without them giving me back my money for KSP2, unless the loyalty discount is something like 90% or some other stupidly low number for a final price.

Even by trying to make amends and giving enormous discounts, it's still a liability (some - most? -  countries have consumer rights demanding the choice of getting the money back!).

Well, anecdote for anecdote, Microsoft is, indeed, the ideal buyer: I'm still waiting for my Windows 95 Refund I'm (supposedly) entitled by buying a computer pre-installed with it, besides intending to install OS/2 Warp 4.0.

 

33 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

That has been clear for a long long time. Pretty sure that the recent forum outage convinced even the most hopeful ones that the lights are really out.

You see... It may be exactly the other way around.

There're too many outages for KSP related content at the same time around. Looks like someone is being funded by a different entity, and are changing service providers accordingly.

Ok, it may be only wishful thinking, but still... Forum is back, no? (well, most of the time at least...)

 

36 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

I doubt anyone thinks that. It's pretty clear someone--not RW--bought PD with the intent of selling the rights to individual titles to interested parties. RW might be one of those parties

I don't think RW can withhold the KSP2 legal nightmare, unless being supported by someone big - and since Tencent funds them, it's almost impossible that anyone else would do it for them. So, it's Tencent or dust for them.

 

38 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Also, they would primarily be interested in the rights and not the code.

I agree that the current KSP2 worth as much as used toilet paper at this point, but the soundwork, soundtrack, meshes and animations, tutorials, etc, I beg to differ.

Some serious money was spent on these artifacts, and it will not be remotely feasible to reproduce them from scratch without footing some serious amount of money.

Grabbing them may worth the price paid if the intention is, indeed, to deliver a product based on the Franchise.

Hell, perhaps an animation series? Animaniacs on Space? TTWO's CEO said that, besides Borderland (the movie) flopped, it helped to sell the game.

[cocoscacao]

12 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

What are they gonna tell customers when they launch a KSP3 after the scam that was KSP2? How do you sweeten someone that's at -$50 on KSP2 to potentially spend that number again, more, or even less, on the same franchise?

Assuming KSP 3 turns out to be a good game (no EA), why not? Different developer/publisher/whatever. The game is what's important.

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Few people will be impressed by "Nate-style" pre-production videos and 10s animations and certainly not count on KSA turning out to be the KSP2 we hoped, or were promised, to get.

This sets up a nice thought experiment actually. Imagine all this rights thingamajig goes as imagined, and suddenly RW owns the franchise... and they decide to send an update that completely replaces the existent KSP2 with a KSA build (a future build, that works and is actually playable)... Would anybody complain? In some cynic part of my mind, I'm sure someone would.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

You are making Microsoft looking good, did you know?

Anyway, Microsoft scored some serious points in my book on gaming (and this from a guy who last MS product he did really enjoyed was the Win16 compatibility layer on OS/2 Warp... uh... never mind... ).

Anyway... from Flight Simulator 2.0 to Space Simulator (yes, they did that. Years before Orbiter), and mentioning Crimsom Skies and Freelancer, just to mention the ones I still play now and then... (and, yeah, I'm a retro-computer enthusiast, I play them on the original hardware!!)...

And given what they made to Minecraft (and the original one, in Java, is still available too), I must say... They are way worst things for a game than being acquired by Microsoft Games.

In my defense, I was ONE when that came out... and wouldn't dive into PC games until a whole year later when my dad would C:\>cd princeofpersia  | princeofpersia.exe for me. And from there, it'd take... 5 more years for me to first try a flight simulator (FS98)... and then about 10 more to discover Orbiter. There's tons of late 90s and early 2000s titles I never got to experience... and from Microsoft I only ever played Age of Empires 2 and then Dungeon Siege 2 until after the 2010s where I'd get full on into PC gaming.

I don't see Microsoft as negatively as others... though they do and have done pull off some stuff I don't like. I'd rather have them than... a long list of others.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Even by trying to make amends and giving enormous discounts, it's still a liability (some - most? -  countries have consumer rights demanding the choice of getting the money back!).

Well, anecdote for anecdote, Microsoft is, indeed, the ideal buyer: I'm still waiting for my Windows 95 Refund I'm (supposedly) entitled by buying a computer pre-installed with it, besides intending to install OS/2 Warp 4.0.

Technically I could go full baddie and get consumer defense involved in my country and mail Steam a court order for them to refund me, but I value my time and Steam much more than the little money I spent on KSP2. That does nto mean, however, I'm gonna let whoever owns the IP off, after all they're the new owners of the scam and what I firmly believe to be an obligation to ensure the continued development of KSP2 or refund me should still be upheld.

4 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Assuming KSP 3 turns out to be a good game (no EA), why not? Different developer/publisher/whatever. The game is what's important.

If it worked like that, we'd have a million ghost enterprises passing IPs around to clean the slate after producing scam after scam because hey, it's a new developer/publisher/whatever, let's give em a chance!

The reality is someone new owns KSP2, a game that either needs to get back onto development (even if just to slap a 1.0 tag on it as per steam requirements), or be cancelled and refund its players. That they'd do anything without first fixing that would be a huge vote of no-confidence.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

If it worked like that, we'd have a million ghost enterprises passing IPs around to clean the slate after producing scam after scam because hey, it's a new developer/publisher/whatever, let's give em a chance!

Only when customers buy games without knowing what they're buying.

And if (when) that happens nothing will help them. The best you can do is make sure you're personally doing it and be happy with the good games you end up finding.

[cocoscacao]

8 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

, a game that either needs to get back onto development (even if just to slap a 1.0 tag on it as per steam requirements), or be cancelled and refund its players. That they'd do anything without first fixing that would be a huge vote of no-confidence.

Why? I mean, the forum already went through this discussion. There are no obligations for anything when it comes to EA (according to steam).

I'd happy if the new owners produced a new (good) game, rather than hold them at gun point for the failed project they bought alongside. It enabled them to do something. 

[PDCWolf]

3 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Why? I mean, the forum already went through this discussion. There are no obligations for anything when it comes to EA (according to steam).

There is a clear obligation to develop or cancel, and Steam does take action (at no warranted time, which is why people really get confused about this) against perpetual EA games that don't get updates, specially if refund pressure or flagging pressure gets higher. Of course, Steam is not going to mass-refund automatically because that money needs to come out of the publisher, but they'll definitely kick a game off the store and have done so plenty of times in the past.

3 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

I'd happy if the new owners produced a new (good) game, rather than hold them at gun point for the failed project they bought alongside. It enabled them to do something. 

Good luck getting that view across the general KSP audience. In fact, as it always ends up being the argument at this point, why don't you go anywhere where the most hard-headed fans don't hang out at, like the subreddit, steam forums, twitter, and so on... and have a check at what the general attitude towards KSP2 is?

Not saying you can't be happy at anything... just that you shouldn't expect your mindset to be echoed by all the people who lost $50 to a glorified tech demo that got soft-cancelled.

[cocoscacao]

@PDCWolf That's fair. One last question. Now that the IP is in the hands of others, will (can) they remove previously imposed NDA, so we can at least get some closure on what KSP 2 was supposed to be. I'd be interested to see what was developed thus far. Even in terms of graphical assets, parts, etc. They stopped short just a few months away from probably buggy colony update. The biggest next step.

[Deddly]

35 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

will (can) they remove previously imposed NDA

They would have the power to reveal any information they want to about how things were planned. 

Power and will are, however, two different things.

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, cocoscacao said:

@PDCWolf That's fair. One last question. Now that the IP is in the hands of others, will (can) they remove previously imposed NDA, so we can at least get some closure on what KSP 2 was supposed to be. I'd be interested to see what was developed thus far. Even in terms of graphical assets, parts, etc. They stopped short just a few months away from probably buggy colony update. The biggest next step.

I couldn't tell you... in fact probably no one but them can. NDAs can be independent from contract or have a period that extend past employment. Generally an NDA is set for a period of x amount of years... If I had to bet, that includes all the way until their planned launch date (4, 5 years since launch) and then some.

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

They would have the power to reveal any information they want to about how things were planned. 

Power and will are, however, two different things.

I'd love to believe there's a good five or six people eager to throw T2 and whoever set them up for failure and even their own coworkers (maybe not with names), under a bus. Remember that most of the final breakup of news came from "sources" and "friend of a friend" but it ended up being all correct so there's clearly some people up for talking once it doesn't mean losing their careers.

[Deddly]

28 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

there's clearly some people up for talking once it doesn't mean losing their careers.

My NDAs have all been with Squad or Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. I would be surprised if any of the developers' NDAs are different.