Cant wait for the T2 ceo to get a 30mil bonus at the end of the year after GTA6 released

KSP 1 was an indi game with a lot of love put into the game. KSP 2 was just another "investement" on a corporate spead sheet somewhere. and it shows...

The overlords at head office must be saying, "It's a niche product."

Open source the game. The community will fix it over time.

The player numbers are bad because nothing is happening. There is no communication, no updates, that means no players. Everything was to be expected from the beginning about what happened with KSP2.

So early access now means: Give us money and maybe we'll try and make a game. It might be good or it might not even happen. Who knows and who cares as long as you give us money.

Hate to say I’m not really shocked. With the way this game flopped and the slow development process bringing it to a state that could even match KSP1, it was very likely Take2 was gonna can it as a failed release.

Wow, if Matt is pissed, things are really really bad.

I’ve learned to not buy games until they’re in good shape. Case in point.

I wish I'd been wrong on this one. I would have liked a proper sequel to my beloved Kerbal.

"Are you still alive?" *cricket noises * Well... that tells us all we need to know, right?

So releasing an alpha as an early acces game also doesn’t help sales? I keep learning everyday 👍

So a couple of enthusiasts form an Indy company and launch a successful product. The professionals take over and run it into the ground, but they do so very professionally. Am I the only one who sees a pattern here?

I'm really bitter about this one. I put well over 2,000 hours into ksp 1, definitely top 3 favourite games. I refunded ksp 2 within 20 minutes, it didn't have the love. It was broken and buggy sure, but it didn't have the love. Knew it was a corporate cash grab but maybe.. maaaaybe they'd make a go of it.. Ever since part of me has been kind of hoping it would fall over, just as a middle finger to those bastards for trying to ruin one of my favourite things.. but god I'll never be hyped for anything like I was after that first trailer.. Bring back squad!!

Anatomie of a disaster: 1. A well established, mid-sized game studio with on of the largest publishers on this planet had the audacity to release an early access title 2. They intentially blown up the hype about the game beginning years before the early access release 3. The price was almost three times higher then the original game 4. They released a bug ridden mess, even for early access standards 5. Absolutely no communication with their fanbase Well, who could've thought that this is going to tank hard? I bought it, "played" it for ~2 hours and refunded it. This is just a disgrace and pure disrespect for every KSP fan out there. Well, Take Two was involved, but somehow that fact escaped my better judgement, as I love KSP1 and simply ignored the massive red flags. Now here we are. And for the lay offs, well corpos doing what corpos are always doing, burning the dev and granting boni to the bosses. But if you worked on KSP2 as a dev and didn't hear the bell 6 months ago, not even god can help your lack of foresight ...

In space, no one can hear you scream.

If they don't outright cancel the game, this will be the SECOND time that this game has been reassigned to another studio. Its downright shameful the development cycle this game has been through, and worse the previous lead devs NOT listening and outright lying to the community that anticipated it. I doubt we will ever see the game completely fleshed out, we'll probably get what we have now and no more.

I still maintain that the biggest reason KSP2 was met with such negative reviews and has struggled to recover ever since is due largely to the exorbitant price they put on it from day one. If it had been priced at a level that matched its very early-development state, then players who bought it at launch would have been far more likely to accept the many issues it had.

Take two has over 11.5k employees, I don't know what they are doing with all of them but NOT ONE can bother giving a good answer. Also a good cost reduction strategy is not doubling your executive pay in 2023, seriously no single person can actually make use of that much pay.

The gaming industry is facing turbulent times. The days of "We've always done it this way!" seem to be numbered.

the situation is trash. A triple A Publisher abuses the early access system to make off with backers money and ruins a very good IP. Steam should D-list them so they can't make any more money off of this, that is the only positive outcome that is available at this point. Might send a message for people to stop abusing early access. I personally might have felt different if this was just a group of Independent guys and they just ran out of money, but no, Take 2 has the resources, but they rather cut their losses, and lose what little trust they had with another group of gamers, so it is what it is

"Take-Two announced a cost reduction program to identify efficiencies across its business and to enhance the Company's profile... investing for growth... rationalizing its pipeline... eliminating several projects... streamlining its organizational structure... eliminate headcount" The corpo speak is strong here. That they don't view the employees of these studios as people is peak capatalism. The executives have gotta get their bonuses though.

Even in alpha, KSP1 felt and played like a game that was a passion project for its developers. The sense I've had from the KSP2 product and team, is that for them, it's just another job.

I guess I need to review the early access license agreements. I feel that I paid full price for a game in good faith that it would eventually be what I thought I was paying for... mainly, KSP with colonies and interstellar exploration. The multiplayer was a nice bonus. If it gets cut off and "Released" without at least 2 of the 3 major new features, I think I will be investigating what legal recourse I have. I would like my money back. I already have a game that is essentially the same as KSP2 in it's current state... it's called KSP1

I'm extending an extra special, heartfelt "eat gravel" to all the apologists who said this wasn't happening.

I could understand if there is only a handful of passionate people that actually know what they're doing so management decided to let everyone else go. ... I can dream. Rip KSP2, may you get Nomansskied one day.

The acquisition of the KSP IP by Take Two Interactive is akin to The Death Star exploding Alderaan for us space gamers.

Never put money down on a game that "might" be good one day. Wait until its actually good.

I'm glad I didn't buy KSP2.. I had a bad feeling about it from the start. If some other developer/publisher takes over, it might be resurrected?

Nate Simpson has been doing Kerbal Fyre Festival Program for more than 5 years now... It had to end at some point. No amount of tenderloin dinning of KSP content creators at ESA's headquarters can forever delay the inevitable reality that lies and/or overhyping eventually catches up with the lack of hability to manage a game's development.

RIP KSP2 and Fuck greedy Take 2 Interactive overlords. Never ever preorder or buy day 1

I saw that coming when they launched a skeleton of a game for a ludicrous price tag after news of a troubled development (they switched dev team iirc?).

Welp, that sucks. First we got a buggy alpha called "Early Access" and now this.. Back to KSP 1.

70 is a lot of employees, judging by the state of the game, I can’t imagine more than 10 actually ever working on KSP2.

Keep putting out that space content Obsidian Ant! We love it!

Wonder what the odds are on pushing out 1 final update and slapping a 1.0 on it before the clock runs out.

It doesnt matter if they officially cancel thr game or not because even with 70 people they were still YEARS from finishing this game. Now, With a reduced dev team half the size (at best) coupled with the cataclysmic history and awful reputation this game has, it will never last long enough to be completed. KSP2 officially died today. It was half-assed from its conception and botched at every stage since. Best thing Take 2 can do is sell the rights to another company that might see the value in it

I knew it was bad news when Take Two bought Squad's game division or however that deal worked. I knew Take Two would ruin everything given enough time. Sometimes, it sucks to be right.

I do love that they didn't even get to the one big feature they kept advertising. Colonies.

I hope they leave the game in a mode where modding can continue to update the game to a certain degree.

Thats really sad I never got into KSP, but I appreciated what it was doing

Last time i ordered early access. It is stupid anyway.

Very low player numbers. Well yes, it’s not a finished game. Who would have thought.

i knew the moment i heard TakeTwo was in charge, this project was on thin ice. putting the game in the hands of such a careless publisher is just guaranteed to kill it unless its GTA levels of successful

Long live KSP 1. The community is taking it with mods further than KSP 2 would ever be.

Dead Kerbal Walking!

Well at least Intercept Games got 2 months notice of the closure from Take 2 even though it sounds like a number of KSP2 developers have already been laid off.

what a shame. I tried Juno but that game doesn't have that special something that KSP has... such a shame...

I had so much hope in KSP 2 but when I've seen Take 2 was involved I decided to wait and see... Well thats one more reason to never trust Take 2 ever again

"Jason Shreier, who has an excellent reputation in the industry" lol, the excellent humor is part of why I love this channel

I love the original KSP and was thrilled to see they were adding multi-player. If multi-player was in the game as soon as it was available for purchase, I would have bought multiple copies for myself and friends. But since it wasn't a feature in the game, I have been holding off until it is. Now it looks like it never will be. Multiplayer on KSP 1 is all I would have needed to buy KSP 2.

"support" is most likely, IMHO to be just to fulfill a contractual/legal requirement and by a skeleton staff.

the amount of concurrent players shouldn't mean anything as i for one own the game and am waiting for it to develop. i already paid full price for the bloody game...

They should learn to code...

I really wanted to get into this game but never even played the first, I love space games and had been waiting to see if this one turns around. Sad to see that I probably wont ever get to experience it the way it was intended, and I probably wont ever bother now.

Alan Lewis's released statement along with the silence across the board from Intercept execs (e.g., Nate Simpson) suggests the company is in a "quiet period" prior to a sale or merger. This explains why developers are not leaking... they don't want to spoil the deal. Look for an announcement in June, when the layoffs take effect. Fingers crossed that the acquirer will re-hire the Intercept devs.

Kerbal space program with the RP-1 modpack makes regular ksp feel like a tutorial, and ksp2 feel like a failed side project.

Good riddance. And before anyone blames TakeTwo, the only reason they're being painted as the villain here is that people can't accept they were betrayed and lied to by the actual dev team for years. This game had delay after delay granted and the dev team were clearly going in circles with it. TakeTwo had to read them the riot act and demand they release something before it turned into Duke Nukem all over again. "They should've just delayed it again for years!" For how many years can a publisher tolerate losses like that when no clear progress is being made? Go look at Star Citizen. You just have to watch 10 minutes of dev video blogs to know this game was going nowhere. And all the while, technical standards increase and march on, whether you release your game or not. How long till large sections needed rewriting to work with new standards or hardware? Remember that one devblog where they spent weeks of time emailing university professors back and forth to establish that the interplanetary drive should have a pink flame? But at the same time if you actually read their notes, the game is STILL single threaded! No wonder it runs so badly.

I had very high hopes for KSP2, so much so that I bought the game on the day it was released, not with hopes of playing but with the knowledge that it would need work. The purchase was my way to show support for the developers. I do hope KSP2 will see further development. The original KSP is, in my opinion, one of the best game/simulations ever released. I can honestly say I have a better knowledge of orbital mechanics than I did before I started playing KSP. When I was growing up back in the dark ages of the 1960's I would play with my plastic models of space ships. I created my own Apollo missions in my grandparent's basement at a time when all the visuals were generated in my head. Jump to the present day and I find myself marveling at where we are now, with computer graphics and at the wizened age of 64 years of age I am still flying those missions that once existed only in my mind. With any luck KSP2 will continue to be developed. In the meantime I will continue playing KSP while doggedly refusing to let go of my childhood wonder of space. My thoughts are with those people who make a living creating KSP2. I wish all of them a positive outcome.

i lost faith in them when the console update didnt include the manuver node update the first time they said it would be there its just slid further down hill ever since

Steam numbers may not be quite accurate - I bypassed the launcher - so I play it, but not through Steam.

Can we stop prettending that the main concern is people losing their jobs? I hate to play devils advocate here but after 7 years looking at what they delivered... im just saying: i understand

For those who don't know. Take-Two has to notify and give a period due to the WARN notice. What tends to happen with something like this and why no one has gotten in contact with the KSP team is how it normally works is they kick everyone out just before the WARN notice goes live. This is to prevent workplace violence and corporate sabotage. When its 90% of the building being laid off, its very likely that everyone was let go the day before the WARN notice posted. They're "laid off", but left on payroll for the WARN notice period so they can still keep you under their corporate thumb - and then they're made to sign a non disclosure agreement if they want a severance package. And then on top of that, there likely is already a NDA in place so anyone kept to wrap this up can't talk about it. And I suspect this is why there was no communication or trust building prior. What many are seeing is Dakota is still there, but it appears most of the rest of the staff is gone. Likely they are going to push out another patch or 2, and then that will be that.

It's really hard to develop a performant game of this style in unity. I'm really not surprised about this.

Given that KSP 1 was created by a grand total of 6 people, I never understood how KSP 2 ended up with a team where you could lay off 70 people. Hopefully this isn't a cancelation, but instead just getting rid of the asset creation team that are basically finished. It seems like the assets for the colony stuff are already created, so what were those people going to be doing?

NASA should buy the license

Thanks, been waiting for a decent summary of what is known.

I really did love ksp 2's charm even looking past the bugs 😢 i hope it will continue in some form

Completely unfinished and rushed to EA game - only content I was extremely excited about "colonies" now potentially being binned off? I'd never buy another Take2 product if this is the case.

2:40 "We are worried the stockholders and executives are at risk of getting wheelbarrows full of money instead of dump trucks full, so we will be sacrificing the long term viability of our company in order to maximize profits and manipulate the next earning call in the style of Jack Welch"

I tend to believe that development of the game will continue after the current developing studio is closed. The layoffs are purportedly to cut costs, and continuing development up to the layoff, if they intend to stop developing the game, is just a waste of money. So, when they say they are still working on it, and will continue supporting it, I think that is a strong hint the game is going to be completed, at least for now. However, the lack of a clearer statement on the fate of the game, especially considering the community reaction to the news, is troubling. I think they need to make that statement, one way or another. I also think they will need to refund anyone who bought the game if they discontinue development, since one of the terms of sale is that the buyer would eventually get the completed product.

the one game I finally broke my golden rule of "dont pay full price for an early access"..... "These guys actually will make this good so no worries" what a disaster

People blaming Take Two... why? When images of the Dev team at Intercept clearly has "other" priorities than making a good game. The state the game was delivered to us after being delayed for 2 years is absolutely unacceptable. What happened during those 2 years? What would the product have looked like if they had delivered it to us and DIDNT have Covid as an excuse to delay?? KSP2 is simply another victim of community managers posing as developers who are pushing messaging to gamers instead of pushing games to gamers. Everyone knows it everyone can see it, I am sure many wont want to acknowledge it. KSP2 belongs on DEI Detected. I loved KSP and it got me passionate about space. My current steam playtimes KSP: 1846.8 hours KSP2: 39.2 hours

Saying that there is low player numbers on a game STILL in early access with a 50€ price tag is beyond stupid. I've been burned out from games because of early access due to bugs and resets, so I was just waiting for the full release and I bet alot of people were on the same boat.

I hope they at least give it to another dev team to take over or sell the IP to another publisher. KSP is still a very popular franchise so I guess we all have to just wait and see.

The thumbnail is brutal.

That's what you get when you're in the jaws of bad publishers.

Im so glad I didnt buy this steaming pile.

It's such a scary industry, big shout out to all the devs out there just trying to keep afloat doing what they love amongst the sharks

Hell, if the road map looks like that but they optimise it further and get mod support working well. I'd be fine with that. Just get it to KSP1 parity but with less jank and slight QOL. If they throw their hands up, and give up but just open source everything then that would be another acceptable outcome. I have very low hopes it will ever complete the road map though. I dont need interstellar (hell, i cant even get to Duna, never mind another star system), i just want a nice looking and optimised ksp1 that i don't need to install a million mods for.

I think that we need to talk more about the elephant in the room. Seattle is a ultra progressive environment and all business are feeling the side effects. DEI for the win? 😢

Thank you for the report.

I still wonder where it all went so wrong. KSP1 went so well and everyone was on board. The game was niche, but the community strong and paid. There are not that many of this super suprise hits. KSP Subnautica and some more and every time a second game kill it all I wonder how the same ppl couldl forget what made it work.

KSP2 came out prematurely and I was sad that it didn't come out in a decent enough state

Hey, idk if you are doing your thumbnails or outsourcing them but whoever does them deserves a massive raise!

Seen this coming miles away.

Colonies and Multiplayer was the two milestones that was going to set KSP2 apart from (unmodded) KSP1. Without those milestones, KSP2 is just a polished KSP1 that burns system resources.

I'm very glad that No Man's Sky's story turned out so well, but I hate that it gives hope to so many people that the same can happen with their favorite early-access corpoware.

maybe if they had included joystick support

This is very sad. I was so looking forward to future content updates :-(

Shame, met some really nice people at the Seattle office while working on it. They even got my kids on early access the KSP2 and shirts.

The most baffling thing about ksp2 is that the kraken still exists. I cant imagine a higher priority when making a new ksp than fixing the engine so large ships don't randomly tear themselves apart. They didn't even do that so I don't see any reason for ksp2 to exist.

I've got KSP and with the huge mod support I never saw the need to get KSP2.

😢 this is truly sad, even if ksp2 survoves this period of uncertainty, this event will inevitably delay the process of delivering the promised features. Im probably not the only person who has been waiting for the multiplayer and colonies features, only to see this and hang up the hat on kerbal space program. What a shame to end up like this. Im not optimistic, especially with escape from tarkov, helldivers 2 and sony controversy and ARk2's switcheroo with Ark SA.

I feel like there are 3 options here for KSP 2: 1) They move development to a new studio. This in of itself will have a lot of problems, especially if most or all of the original team is laid off. Any new team is going to need quite a bit of time to just assess what is there. They may decide to make different decisions about where to go in the future, possibly pull it from early access, etc. We'd probably expect a significant delay on any further development if this happened, and this is probably the "best" option. 2) Take 2 just cancels the game. This is probably the odds-on likely scenario given what we know and the state of the game. They could have decided they just aren't going to get out of the game what they would need to put into it in the future and are just going to cut their losses. 3) Option 2 opens up a possible third option: another outside studio purchases the IP and assets from Take 2 in order to continue development themselves. If T2 decides to cut their losses, there isn't much disadvantage to them selling it to someone else who may be interested in continuing development. Of course, the biggest question here would be "who would that be?" Also you run into most of the same issues as option 1 regarding a new team having to evaluate what they actually have, etc. However, this option also opens up the possibility of hiring some of the old devs, which could ease some of those problems.

Any word on refunds?

thanks for the update. KSP1 🚀

This reminds me of The Simpsons. When someone leaves the room in an unpleasant situation and all you can hear off-screen is the squealing of car tires...

KSP1 at the end already had some kerfuffle with the hostile buyout if I remember right. I guess that's it then.

Been a lot of layoffs in tech after the plunge in market liquidity. Now that KSP2 is done, it's likely going to another team to maintain it. Not uncommon in the game industry. Personally, I wish indie studios would just remain like that instead of always selling out to big publishers who need to feed a massive corporate beast. RIP Squad and the amazing concept they gave us.