The future of Squad?

[Talavar]

I know we still have more updates to come after 1.0, and we've seen some strange things along the way, but the team definitely has talent. Eventually squad will hit the pinnacle of what they envisioned for KSP, and they will stop.. But hey, modders will continue on, adding more and more content even after it's "finished". As far as I'm concerned, Squad "nailed it" when making the perfect space sim. You can always add to it later with mods.. Hence it's a game with no limits.

Now for my question.. What do you guys think squad should do after KSP? What do you think the next target should be as a gaming company? Where do you think they will go? What type of game would be good for their "style"? Just wondering what your opinions are. I know it's gonna be a while before anything new starts, but still... I wonder... What would people like to see them do next?

How about "Journey to the center of the Earth!"

Edited January 27, 2015 by Talavar

[Janos1986]

It's all in their hands (and heads). If Squad can expand and diversify with other genres or other kinds of simulators, they can go big.

[stargazer1235]

Well its all up to them, we must remember that Squad is still mainly a marketing company who do muti-media and interactive advertising. KSP is small (but most likely profitable) part of Squad. KSP is just one employees dream game that he (thankfully) was given time to develop. It may be possible that other employees have ideas for games after KSP.

[DocLangy]

Kerbal Space Program 2: The Wrath of Bill.

[Streetwind]

Squad is a marketing and public events company. The largest part of their team is not involved with KSP, and that they're developing and publishing a videogame inhouse at all is merely the result of a highly unusual chain of events. If Felipe & Co. completely stopped working on KSP after 1.0, Squad as a whole would still exist and do business as usual.

That said, while Squad never released any hard sales figures, they've not exactly made it a secret either that KSP turned out to be quite profitable for them. So there's the possibility that they might look into expanding the videogame angle. They don't have to, but they might think about it. What it would be, I have no idea... KSP was a happy little accident, and repeating that intentionally will be fairly difficult unless a really good concept is worked out beforehand.

[Pecan]

I actually started a similar thread in the middle of last year. Rowsdower commented that they had long-term plans to keep updating KSP even after release; as we are also hearing now.

As to what else they should produce - given the number of people here who like (space)planes and messing around in the atmosphere I think a build-your-own aircraft simulator would find a market. Yes, there are already a lot of flight simulators but, no, they don't let you design your own vehicles.

[WOODY01]

I am thinking DLC's adding other systems and major parts updates, maybe a simulator more focused on flight starting around Wright brothers tech, or just go back to completely focusing on PR.

[Daze]

Now that they have budget and experience it would be good if they work for a realistic 1:1 simulator which mantain the "lego feel" of KSP

[DocMoriarty]

The future of Squad is .... BRIGHT!

(of course only if they implement my suggestions and stuff)

[r4pt0r]

Every time threads like this come up I want to know sales figures. How many from the store, how many from steam? Sony just hit 18.5 million PS4s sold worldwide. I like reading about the business sides of things, and KSP is no exception. Tell us pretty please?

[Broax]

Well... Like Streetwind said Squad is a marketing company so I figure the first logical step would be to consider making a gaming division. I think KSP proved the talent and vision the development team has. So that's why for me the first step would be to have a spin-off company like Squad-Games (or something like that) still owned by the parent company (squad) but being more focused on game development.

Second step would be to make one more game to establish a good IP base. Since KSP turned out to be such a great space sim maybe focusing on other sim games (although it's a genre a bit overpopulated). But since there are sim games for just about anything (farming sim, train sim, truck driving sim, bus driving sim, goat sim, rock sim, etc.) it could be hard to find a topic worth the time.

I definitely think that having a portfolio with two titles (and subsequent iterations) would be beneficial. The launch schedule could be one game launch every three years which would mean KSP2 would be launched in 2021 but development would be supported by that one other magical title which would be launched in 2018.

What I think would be a step in the wrong direction is to announce a KSP sequel (which seems inevitable) too soon. They could milk this game for a good 5 years (probably longer) before anyone could feel a need for anything new.

On the other hand I think their team is too small to be working on more then two titles. This would work better if, like blizzard for example, they had only a small number of very good titles (Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft). And not like other developers (of the hydraulic regulation variety) that have a ton of games on the second iteration but can't seem to figure how to give half a game a third sequel..... ' *

[skyace65]

(being half serious here) making other games from other genre's using kerbals. a Kerbal FPS, city builder, strategy game.

[Dunbaratu]

Are there Unity ports to consoles like PS4? They might try to get more money by doing a KSP port. Granted the game would have to be stripped down a little bit given the current state of consoles (that divert most of the selling price into paying for high end graphics cards and sound, at the expense of RAM and CPU speed.) RAM is probably the biggest limiting factor to getting KSP onto a console, but who knows what the next gen consoles will be like. It might be doable later.

I'm thinking of something akin to the Minecraft XBOX 360 version. To make it fit in the memory limitations they did have to strip out a few things so Minecraft on console isn't as good as Minecraft on PC, but it still was a success anyway, sales wise, as there were enough people out there willing to play it on console even if it wasn't as good.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Steven Mading

[FishInferno]

(being half serious here) making other games from other genre's using kerbals. a Kerbal FPS, city builder, strategy game.

That is actually a pretty good idea

[sal_vager]

I'm pretty sure Felipe and the others don't want to go back to making event displays out of MDF, so they'll probably think of more games to make, and it'd be silly not to expand on the Kerbal brand.

They could make anything...

Kerbal Ace Program, flight simulator.

Kerbal Bass Program, manage an alien rock band.

Kerbal Case Program, crime scene investigation.

Kerbal Dates Program, relationship simulator.

Kerbal Estates Program, simcity on Kerbin.

Kerbal Face Program, Kerbalizer II.

Kerbal Grace Program, dancing sim.

Kerbal Haste Program, sonic the hedgekerbal.

Kerbal I-Program, program robots made from parts.

Kerbal Juice Program, manage a soft drinks company.

Kerbal Kerbal Program, needs no explanation.

Kerbal Lace Program, run a fabric empire.

Kerbal Mace Program, dungeon crawler.

Kerbal Nice Program, scrupulously accurate and precise.

Kerbal Orange Program, rhyming game.

Kerbal Plaice Program, fishing simulator.

Kerbal Quaff Program, tapper clone.

Kerbal Race program, build and drive your own race cars.

Kerbal Spays Program, veterinary sim.

Kerbal Taste Program, cooking with Kerbals.

Kerbal-U Program, education simulator.

Kerbal Vase Program, pottery.

Kerbal Waste Program, recycling sim.

Kerbal X Program, mutant kerbals with super powers.

Kerbal Yes Program, just agree it was a good idea.

Kerbal Zoo Program, run an alien zoo.

[Endersmens]

Maybe they could just make other kinds of KSP related games. Like the contracts update added some business to the game, the upgradable buildings added a small tycoon feel to it. What if they Actually turned these into seperate games? Kerbal Space Tycoon: All about expanding the space center, maybe even the whole kerbal world through space exploration. You could start colonies on other planets, transport people to and from, set up medical stations to heal the guy with moon madness. Endless possibilities. Instead of actually piloting the launches, you just choose the right launch. whatever has the highest payout and lowest risk. once you've chosen it, a timer starts, counting build time and mission time, and when the timer runs out the mission is "completed" and you gets funds and such. You could have to decide which crew to keep or fire, locations for effective space centers, how many people to have on a base at one time. Kerbals could tycoon their way to inhabbiting every body in the kerbol system. endless possibilities. I would play this game just as much as KSP.

[Voculus]

I actually started a similar thread in the middle of last year. Rowsdower commented that they had long-term plans to keep updating KSP even after release; as we are also hearing now.

As to what else they should produce - given the number of people here who like (space)planes and messing around in the atmosphere I think a build-your-own aircraft simulator would find a market. Yes, there are already a lot of flight simulators but, no, they don't let you design your own vehicles.

It's as if you reached into my brain, and used an ice cream scoop to dig this thought out of my head! I'd love to be able to spawn planes on different locations on different planets, too. Just a dream...

[skyace65]

Are there Unity ports to consoles like PS4? They might try to get more money by doing a KSP port. Granted the game would have to be stripped down a little bit given the current state of consoles (that divert most of the selling price into paying for high end graphics cards and sound, at the expense of RAM and CPU speed.) RAM is probably the biggest limiting factor to getting KSP onto a console, but who knows what the next gen consoles will be like. It might be doable later.

I'm thinking of something akin to the Minecraft XBOX 360 version. To make it fit in the memory limitations they did have to strip out a few things so Minecraft on console isn't as good as Minecraft on PC, but it still was a success anyway, sales wise, as there were enough people out there willing to play it on console even if it wasn't as good.

I don't think KSP can happen on console simply because of control limitations. I can't imagine anyone building a rocket using a PS4 or Xbox controller

[Frozen_Heart]

Still reckon an evolution game would be awesome. I had high hopes for a certain game...

Since then no one else has tried.

[skyace65]

Still reckon an evolution game would be awesome. I had high hopes for a certain game...

Since then no one else has tried.

I'm pretty sure squad doesn't have nearly enough resources to do their own version of spore

[Wanderfound]

I actually started a similar thread in the middle of last year. Rowsdower commented that they had long-term plans to keep updating KSP even after release; as we are also hearing now.

As to what else they should produce - given the number of people here who like (space)planes and messing around in the atmosphere I think a build-your-own aircraft simulator would find a market. Yes, there are already a lot of flight simulators but, no, they don't let you design your own vehicles.

I'd certainly be a customer for that. A multiplayer competitive build-your-own flight sim could be fun; Microsoft Flight Simulator meets Gratuitous Space Battles​.

[Captain Sierra]

I'm pretty sure squad doesn't have nearly enough resources to do their own version of spore

They have the talent, and thats what counts.

I don't think we'll ever see a "KSP II". I think we'll see a "KSP: Remastered" or something to the effect thereof. I don't see how a sandbox game can really have a sequel, but I do expect that at some point in the future, they may come back and redo KSP on say, a better engine, with better memory handling (dynamic texture loading please!), and better modding documentation (not bashing on Unity too hard, but Unity has its limits, and KSP knocks on them regularly).

I'd like to see them have a crack at another sandbox game. I'd LOVE to see their interpretation of something like StarMade or the like. (WAS a big SE fan here but SE is currently failing me.) We here can only fathom a guess as to what the rest of the Squad team outside of HarvesteR have in their heads as games. Maybe HarvesteR won't be creative director on the next game (did they even have one this game or was it just "everyone throw your ideas onto a whiteboard and we'll go from there"?) and we'll get to see the visions of another team member. Maybe we can see DanRosas' dream game next.

I am 90% certain that we'll be seeing more sandbox from them. They have established they can do that well and I'm confident this will not be their last sandbox game.

[Alshain]

I'm pretty sure Felipe and the others don't want to go back to making event displays out of MDF, so they'll probably think of more games to make, and it'd be silly not to expand on the Kerbal brand.

Kerbal Face Program, Kerbalizer II.

How did they not think of that name for the first one?

[dryer_lint]

I can't imagine SQUAD giving up on video games once KSP is done. They've got a what, ten-man team (where it's usually a LOT more) giving them hundreds of purchases, and KSP isn't some cheap mobile game, either.

I'd love to see them expand the space/flight genre. To be honest, it would be a shame if they DID switch to cheap mobile games or Call of Duty once KSP was finished. I don't think they will... hopefully they won't

[Frozen_Heart]

giving them hundreds of purchases

A few more than that...

I'm pretty sure squad doesn't have nearly enough resources to do their own version of spore

If it were just a creature stage that would be much better than everything Spore tried to do. Spore was spread too thin.

Also it suits both the sandbox and educational theme if done right.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Frozen_Heart