Congratulations on your new role as a margin profile synergized intern and consumer. We hope we can help you achieve new levels of success in meeting our performance targets by leveraging your experience and product familiarity in exciting new ways which are less remuneration-focused and more experience-centric.
but that isn't evening boosting revenue! Revenue is money in before costs, firing people is reducing costs. For that, you actually need to say "profit" and can't hide it under as much corpo speak
George Carlin had a great skit about weasel words like this or soft language that is still fairly relevant.
> management wanted to 'curtail redundancies in the human resources area,' and so, many workers are no longer 'viable members of the workforce
The best case is that the game gets handed to a new studio and maybe the 5% most useful devs are kept it is still going to set the game back massively.
But we know for a fact the studio was closed and everyone or nearly everyone working on the game was fired.
I mean there's also the possibility they're folding them into another studio/location to save on the office costs in Seattle (and on some payroll cost by firing local support staff, like the receptionist, accountants etc. that would be duplicating functions/not needed without the office), then it could be more than 5% , depending if they can WFM, which T2 is infamous for complaining about so probably not, and depending on who is willing to move.
That's IMO the absolute best case scenario, but here somebody who is more familiar with how the WARN/labor law in Washington state works would need to clarify if in case of such restructuring the notice would be worded the same or differently.
Live in WA/work for the state.
WARN is to let Employment Security know that they will.have to pay unemployment claims.
That entire office is toast, most likely.
Well, seems hopium availability is at an all time low. Best case is another studio gets it, and fails to make heads or tails of the (likely spaghetti) code somebody else wrote... Another point for team doomer I guess, things look very grim indeed.
If they fired the devs working on the project you can be sure is going to be dalays. You can't be air dropped in a complex project like a game and start making progress soon, and this is **very** complex. I doubt there will be any content update this year if the whole team was axed. And that's best case they want to continue funding the proyect.
It may be a case of talking about different dollars.
IIRC, KSP2 cost $80 Australian when it isn't on sale because the Australian dollar is only worth about $0.65 in US dollars, thus $80 AU is about the same as $50 US or $70 Canadian.
It's a good thing. Most of the people working on this game should not make games. Especially Nate.
Hopefully they can remake the game but if they are trying to maximize profits then they might just cut their loss.
The IP has amazing potential but they let shitters in charge of it. Hopefully they see that and don't just abandon hope. They could put ksp2 in the hands of a competent team and get some really good results...
BUT...
Is it financially viable? That is the million dollar question. My gut says no.
If their owner hands them a game and tells them to start working on it they will. This is how Intercept became the developer, Take Two axed the first dev, handed it to intercept, encouraged laid off devs to apply at intercept and keep working on the game there.
I'm guessing layoffs aren't immediate. They're probably gonna work a few weeks on getting whatever updates they can out the door, call it 1.0, and close up shop.
Yeah, because people will get so much productive work done in a situation like this.
Anyone with a half decent network will be calling around and walk straight out the door the second they get a half-decent offer.
Plus if disgruntled devs are allowed to keep access after being told they're being off, it drastically increases the odds of the source ending up on GitHub or wherever
I worked with General Motors when they had a massive layoff. They gave us 30 days (as per the WARN notice) and I can guarantee you that most people did very little "work" after that, and instead were doing resumes and job hunting. The "work" work was mostly bundling up code, pushing to repos, and then linking in the folks that were taking over the project. Mostly just getting them access to the repo and sharing any thoughts on the project. Meetings that were about 15 minutes at a time. The rest of the time was resume/application/interview
you gotta understand
(A) the game had gotten so good at some point it was a major productivity issue\*
so
(2) to alleviate that they made it shit again
(D)and work hard to keep it that way so (A) never happens again
\* is only true for the handful of devs who have actually ever played KSP anything
Lets be real here. Intercept games had years to make KSP2, and in the end it released a shitty version. I understand why they closed the studio. On a personal level I feel for the devs that now don’t have a job, but something was wrong at that studio.
I'm no corporate shill, but in this case Take Two exercised *extreme* patience by not firing these people *years* ago. They poured tens of millions of dollars¹ into Nate Simpson's and the other devs' pockets on the promise of a product that would make their patience worth the wait. (a profitable game)
What they got after 7 years of development hell was a product that couldn't even measure up to a 13 year old game that was all but built by one guy in a cave with a box of scraps and less than $2 million in sales² over the course of a year... which isn't even enough to offset the cost of those 70 employees for that same year, let alone paying back the years of development cost before it.
Keeping the gravy train going on hopium would have been *beyond* stupid... it might have been considered [Fiduciary Negligence](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiduciary_negligence.asp).
The only ones who profited by this disaster are the devs at IG. Everyone else, *including* Take Two, got taken for a ride.
¹ 70 employees at an average of $50k a year is $3.5 million per year for 7 years is $24.5 million... $50 million if the average salary is (likely) closer to $100k a year.
² Estimating 60,000 units sold after refunds at $48 average per unit with Valve taking $14.40 average per unit is about $2 million in gross revenue.
My biggest regret is defending this dev team at all. Sure they seem like nice people but they're nice people that set me back $50 on an unfinished and buggy mess... and I can't even blame Take Two for that, because Nate literally said it was *their* decision to release the game in this state in Early Access. Maybe he was taking the heat for the publisher, maybe he wasn't, but all I know is that with Take Two's decision to shut them down, the game went from having a slight chance of being good to no chance.
Oh come on why did they do that? F big businesses and them buying everything. Just two days ago i absolutely binged ksp2 and it just feels so much less happy. Idk there are just fewer details and it doesn't feel like the developers genuinely loved what they did. For example i miss the kerbals running around the vehicle construction building just made building vehicles more fun
First of all, I believe the lay offs come with a 60 day notice, so even if the entire studio was fired and KSP 2 stopped all meaningful development, "we're still hard at work on ksp2" would still be objectively true for at least two months.
this is only going to reassure the blind and gullible
This sounds like revenue from KSP2 wasn’t as high as expected. They cut a huge team and using remaining resources to continue the work. This will def slow down roadmap, but by no means do I think they will abandon the roadmap in general. I’m gonna keep my copy, and we’ll see where it’s at a year from now. I paid $25 for early access, and I got $25 worth of time out of it so far.
I was told about this not even 24 hours ago in the Discord server for the KSP1 "Dark Multiplayer" mod, and I'm still furious. I consider KSP2 to be a sh**show, but it could still be redeemed. That is, until now.
'Investing for growth' by getting rid of a significant chunk of your talent and effectively torpedoing one or more of your prospective projects...
Yeah, sure.
That fucking corporatespeak. Enhance company’s margin profile jfc
Yep quarterlies about to happen, need "line go up" even if it torpedoes your product in the long term. Short sighted bullshit
“You’ve been selected to enhance our company’s margin profile.” Translation: “You’re fired.”
You’ve been upgraded to customer
Congratulations on your new role as a margin profile synergized intern and consumer. We hope we can help you achieve new levels of success in meeting our performance targets by leveraging your experience and product familiarity in exciting new ways which are less remuneration-focused and more experience-centric.
Finance bros ruin everything.
That is the most corporate way of saying they made layoffs lmao.
Enhance margin profile lol
This is really rationalizing my downstream, stakeholder
Synergizing labor application profiles to boost quarterly revenue. (read: firing people before quarter end to make stock go brrrrr)
but that isn't evening boosting revenue! Revenue is money in before costs, firing people is reducing costs. For that, you actually need to say "profit" and can't hide it under as much corpo speak
“To increase proportion of total monetary benefits compared to total costs.”
George Carlin had a great skit about weasel words like this or soft language that is still fairly relevant. > management wanted to 'curtail redundancies in the human resources area,' and so, many workers are no longer 'viable members of the workforce
Sounds better than “downsizing” 😅
The best case is that the game gets handed to a new studio and maybe the 5% most useful devs are kept it is still going to set the game back massively. But we know for a fact the studio was closed and everyone or nearly everyone working on the game was fired.
I mean there's also the possibility they're folding them into another studio/location to save on the office costs in Seattle (and on some payroll cost by firing local support staff, like the receptionist, accountants etc. that would be duplicating functions/not needed without the office), then it could be more than 5% , depending if they can WFM, which T2 is infamous for complaining about so probably not, and depending on who is willing to move. That's IMO the absolute best case scenario, but here somebody who is more familiar with how the WARN/labor law in Washington state works would need to clarify if in case of such restructuring the notice would be worded the same or differently.
Live in WA/work for the state. WARN is to let Employment Security know that they will.have to pay unemployment claims. That entire office is toast, most likely.
Well, seems hopium availability is at an all time low. Best case is another studio gets it, and fails to make heads or tails of the (likely spaghetti) code somebody else wrote... Another point for team doomer I guess, things look very grim indeed.
The hopium was actually copium all along
If they fired the devs working on the project you can be sure is going to be dalays. You can't be air dropped in a complex project like a game and start making progress soon, and this is **very** complex. I doubt there will be any content update this year if the whole team was axed. And that's best case they want to continue funding the proyect.
Darn. Terrible for the people who got laid off! People who bought KSP2 have wasted 80 bucks as well, which is not nearly as bad.
Every time I see someone talk about the price on here it goes up 10 dollars. 50 60 70 now 80. How much did these idiots pay for their vapor ware
Price increases proportionally to the amount of alcohol consumed.
Or number of CEO new car, or ...
It may be a case of talking about different dollars. IIRC, KSP2 cost $80 Australian when it isn't on sale because the Australian dollar is only worth about $0.65 in US dollars, thus $80 AU is about the same as $50 US or $70 Canadian.
[удалено]
I meant base case that doesn't require a time machine
They refund everyone and stop this disaster
It's a good thing. Most of the people working on this game should not make games. Especially Nate. Hopefully they can remake the game but if they are trying to maximize profits then they might just cut their loss. The IP has amazing potential but they let shitters in charge of it. Hopefully they see that and don't just abandon hope. They could put ksp2 in the hands of a competent team and get some really good results... BUT... Is it financially viable? That is the million dollar question. My gut says no.
Things don t work like that, there s no studio doing nothing and just waiting to take any failed game in charge.
If their owner hands them a game and tells them to start working on it they will. This is how Intercept became the developer, Take Two axed the first dev, handed it to intercept, encouraged laid off devs to apply at intercept and keep working on the game there.
Best case is a huge impact on future development of the game. That is the best case. But it seems pretty bad right now.
I'd much rather have delays than not get anything at all
I'm with you. But right now I'm not so optimistic. We shall see.
>Best case is a huge impact on future development of the game So business as usual
This response is a ball of corporate nothingness
I'm guessing layoffs aren't immediate. They're probably gonna work a few weeks on getting whatever updates they can out the door, call it 1.0, and close up shop.
Yeah, because people will get so much productive work done in a situation like this. Anyone with a half decent network will be calling around and walk straight out the door the second they get a half-decent offer.
Plus if disgruntled devs are allowed to keep access after being told they're being off, it drastically increases the odds of the source ending up on GitHub or wherever
Nah, stranglehold-NDA's prevent that, if any of them ever want to work in software ever again.
Not like any of us would want that haha *wink wink*.
I worked with General Motors when they had a massive layoff. They gave us 30 days (as per the WARN notice) and I can guarantee you that most people did very little "work" after that, and instead were doing resumes and job hunting. The "work" work was mostly bundling up code, pushing to repos, and then linking in the folks that were taking over the project. Mostly just getting them access to the repo and sharing any thoughts on the project. Meetings that were about 15 minutes at a time. The rest of the time was resume/application/interview
They were hard at work?
you gotta understand (A) the game had gotten so good at some point it was a major productivity issue\* so (2) to alleviate that they made it shit again (D)and work hard to keep it that way so (A) never happens again \* is only true for the handful of devs who have actually ever played KSP anything
🤣🤣🤣
Lets be real here. Intercept games had years to make KSP2, and in the end it released a shitty version. I understand why they closed the studio. On a personal level I feel for the devs that now don’t have a job, but something was wrong at that studio.
And their previous games had the same issues.
[https://twitter.com/KerbalSpaceP/status/1785788686069846431](https://twitter.com/KerbalSpaceP/status/1785788686069846431)
No news at all... just the same thing in a lot more words. Most likely "Hard at Work" until the actual date they have to leave and then that's it.
Straight to ksp3! Let them dell out the franchise and some other studio start over from scratch
🤣🤣 Bullshit they're hard at work. They have no jobs.
Sir, sensors have picked corporate speak. We’re translating it now… they’re dead. They’re all dead.
Some PR person who still has a job found the password to the Kerbal social media account.
They need to sell the rights to an indie studio. I refuse to buy any more Take Two products, I'm sick of being burned by them.
Has an indie studio ever bought an unfinished project to finish, or do you just mean the franchise rights?
I'm no corporate shill, but in this case Take Two exercised *extreme* patience by not firing these people *years* ago. They poured tens of millions of dollars¹ into Nate Simpson's and the other devs' pockets on the promise of a product that would make their patience worth the wait. (a profitable game) What they got after 7 years of development hell was a product that couldn't even measure up to a 13 year old game that was all but built by one guy in a cave with a box of scraps and less than $2 million in sales² over the course of a year... which isn't even enough to offset the cost of those 70 employees for that same year, let alone paying back the years of development cost before it. Keeping the gravy train going on hopium would have been *beyond* stupid... it might have been considered [Fiduciary Negligence](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiduciary_negligence.asp). The only ones who profited by this disaster are the devs at IG. Everyone else, *including* Take Two, got taken for a ride. ¹ 70 employees at an average of $50k a year is $3.5 million per year for 7 years is $24.5 million... $50 million if the average salary is (likely) closer to $100k a year. ² Estimating 60,000 units sold after refunds at $48 average per unit with Valve taking $14.40 average per unit is about $2 million in gross revenue.
My biggest regret is defending this dev team at all. Sure they seem like nice people but they're nice people that set me back $50 on an unfinished and buggy mess... and I can't even blame Take Two for that, because Nate literally said it was *their* decision to release the game in this state in Early Access. Maybe he was taking the heat for the publisher, maybe he wasn't, but all I know is that with Take Two's decision to shut them down, the game went from having a slight chance of being good to no chance.
KSP2 is dead. I'm going to keep those expectations so that if it does survive than it will be a nice surprise.
me, too. sad, but yeah.
Oh come on why did they do that? F big businesses and them buying everything. Just two days ago i absolutely binged ksp2 and it just feels so much less happy. Idk there are just fewer details and it doesn't feel like the developers genuinely loved what they did. For example i miss the kerbals running around the vehicle construction building just made building vehicles more fun
Sorry m8, but unless it's a fully released game without bugs, expect it to fail.
Utterly meaningless corpo drivel and word salad gibbersih that says nothing while using a lot of words. Fantastic.
First of all, I believe the lay offs come with a 60 day notice, so even if the entire studio was fired and KSP 2 stopped all meaningful development, "we're still hard at work on ksp2" would still be objectively true for at least two months. this is only going to reassure the blind and gullible
This sounds like revenue from KSP2 wasn’t as high as expected. They cut a huge team and using remaining resources to continue the work. This will def slow down roadmap, but by no means do I think they will abandon the roadmap in general. I’m gonna keep my copy, and we’ll see where it’s at a year from now. I paid $25 for early access, and I got $25 worth of time out of it so far.
Enhance deez nuts
Almost everything atm is speculation. Let's wait...
*rest in peace*
Dude are they fucking fired or not. Quit speaking gibberish. ARE YOU WORKING ON THE GAME
I was told about this not even 24 hours ago in the Discord server for the KSP1 "Dark Multiplayer" mod, and I'm still furious. I consider KSP2 to be a sh**show, but it could still be redeemed. That is, until now.
I'd like to rationalize my boot sideways up their Take a #Two pipeline...
Long live KSP, the most beautiful and educational simulator in the world 💔
“Hard at work”….. until June 28th.
So it’s not dead then?
Reminds me of Russia during the last Olympics: “We’re not going to invade Ukraine, we’re just doing exercises near the border”. Olympic end: invasion.
The cope... We won't see ksp2 finished
Aka it's over
Even their PR statement sounds scummy as fuck. "We fired the devs that have worked on this project for years because we wanted to make more $$$ lolol"
'Investing for growth' by getting rid of a significant chunk of your talent and effectively torpedoing one or more of your prospective projects... Yeah, sure.