please realign your mic holding band :( it hurts my ocd to watch...

But muh capitalism

Unless you're going bankrupt and don't have a way of saving yourself.

What do they care? By that point they're laughing their way to the bank, having sold something they never really loved to begin with.

The flip side of that is The Tale of Obsidian. They were independent for almost two decades while sitting on what was probably the largest collection of industry veterans of western RPGs. They just could not get a win. The best version of every franchise they worked on is the one they made. Everything they touched is beloved by someone. Even their failures have a sort of cult classic status for writing and inventiveness of mechanics. And they were constantly in worry of going bankrupt from publisher deals. It was kinda sad. Every publisher hired them to work on a game because they knew it would be a good game and they knew their financial situation was so bad they'd take anything just to keep the doors open. Obsidian got taken advantage of by everyone while trying to stay independent.

Unless exiting completely... then its their problem.

Ain't you special

the last AAA title i bought was cyberpunk at launch and i didnt play it until the 2.0 update. starsector and rimworld take up most of my gaming time nowadays

Well not exactly not for this devs not for these people here in such a bad way. Just remember that Publishers are vampires

yea same. indies fill my library and i havemt touched a big title for the better part of a decade. industry is ripe for new devs and talent to come in and deliver what market wants cause these big players are awful

@@Yinzermakesvids I think you could be a little bit nicer with your counter. And also counter his point. These people are out of a job

My childhood friend is literally studying astrophysics because of that game. I remember him trying to explain KSP to me when we were still both in primary school, and while it was pretty lost on me, he clearly had such a passion and interest for it that it's gone on to literally shape his life. What a shame to hear about Kerbal :(

It really did... :/

its gone, one thing I've learned, when the original devs are gone, the thing is over. we should stop buying thing for their name, and only buy things made by those who know how to make. companies need to learn that IP means nothing, its the people that create the value. which is why everything is a dead carcass when it comes to public companies

@@cmdrlawliet3552 as an actual astrophysicist that's cringe

@@Eltener123 As an actual areospace engineer, get over yourself. Sure, I was intrested in spaceflight and engineering far prior to my discovery of KSP, but I absolutely benifited directly from the hands-on experience I could get with the results of orbital mechanics in a way that absolutely would not have been possible without KSP. Sure, I never learned how to do real engine design from the game, but the intuitions it built for me about rocket engine size, thrust needs in different parts of missions, and the unintuitive nature of orbital manuvers absolutely helped me in university and kept a passion for it alive even when the only part of space I was learning about was locked behind nightmares of partial differential equations.

Wait what? Source?

@@everythingpony Forgot when this happened, but it was before early access release. Bellular even touched on it here.

Let's be fair. This needed to end. It has been a decade of sheer incompetence and greed.

To be fair, the original dev was essentially trying to sell their employees to Take 2 before they were poached

@@everythingpony 2021, the original dev squad was dissolved to make way for the Take-two in house Private Division team, and the royally fucked it up.

This. This is what will happen in the coming years. Many people being laid off are going to make their small studios, and it's only a matter of time until we see a big AA dominace. These big publishers are completely out of touch. It's time for the old guard to pass on.

Oh they will find them, they aren't likely to join them though

i fear that is the point *tin foil hat on* i believe mega corps are trying to destroy the gaming industry

I wish that were the case. Fingers crossed but I'm not getting my hopes up

2 years from now they can hire new, inexperienced staff who grew up dreaming on making games, pay them 1/4 the salary and release KSP 3 where you have DLC for everything and KSP Infinite a mobile free to play game that makes T2 loads more profit

Indie is next AAA.

Let’s hope so. Gaming started with indie studio’s and they grown in the monsters they are now. But they first have to crash to give the indies space to grow.

​@@elzabethtatcher9570The Circle of the Industry I guess.

Yes the largest pie slice year after year after year is imploding. What are you smoking and can I have some?

No, what we are witnessing is a poor economy leading to less people spending money in leisure. Companies, despite what people think, are not comprised of idiots. They are downsizing spending in what will probably be a less profitable set of years.

Bobby says hello. He created their hellhole and reaped the benefits and then dipped out. "cya nerds!" or whatever. Now every CEO is trying to copy that and see where that leads.

My degree is in business admin and I 100% agree. This rewarding of mediocrity must come to an end. Golden parachutes are WILDLY unethical.

@@sodasaintcommentaries4054 exactly, this is not how a merit based system is supposed to work. When a company is failing why shouldn't the CEO be the first to take a pay cut rather than 500 employees at the bottom following orders?

@@stsk7 For my entire life I have never seen "merit based" to ever mean skill based, be it in business or politics it's always been a code for rich white man with well connected rich parents.

@@MiaChillfoxyou nailed it.

And what if they keep working on it like they’ve said they are?

@@Shadowkey392 KSP 2 was a failure at heart and from the very start. The launch was catastrophic and saw over 80% of dowloads get refunded in the hour. Everyone knew the promesses were empty shells but we wanted to believe, because KSP has such a dedicated fanbase, it's a unique game. I'm really sorry for the dev team who lost their job over this but the game was doomed anyway 🤕

Happens each and every time and i don't understand why they never learn.

The only thing that is kept is the title it does not stop a company from using similar concepts to create a new game under a different title just look at pal world for example if anything this leaves a market open for someone to come in with a better product because lets face it KSP 2 was a buggy mess.

@@kaligath6616 My thoughts exactly-that's how we get "spiritual successor from the original creators."

@@kaligath6616 "KSP 2 is still a buggy mess". Fixed that for you.

Take 2 wasted money on buying the IP than even more on hiring devs and didn't make a game and got bad reputation, so that couldn't be a good deal for them.

Its entirely possible that T2 is moving KSP2 ro a different studio that can ACTUALLY get stuff done. KSP2 had an initial release date of 2020, three years after they started development. here we are 4 years after the initial release date and barely have a playable game. No Mans Sky had a similar length of development but got alot more done than the KSP 2 devs

The updates that the now fired people finished before they got kicked out the door.

​@@Sovek86 ksp2 has already sold plenty of copies, what's the punishment for just dropping it?

@@ATSaale EU consumer protection laws forcing them to refund everyone.

@@Sovek86 You hire the people you can afford. As much as a good PR move it may be, the fact that Intercept was hiring fresh devs and modders of the first game instead of industry veterans means that Private Division budget for developing it wasn't that much higher compared to Squad and KSP1, at least not enough to attract better talent. A studio as an entity can't be at fault. It's always the publisher fault, even if you have a problematic lead, you don't close the studio, you fire that person and replace it. This isn't about performance, this is a matter of cutting a certain % of the workforce, and as Rollerdome and Hi-Fi rush devs have proved, performance isn't a concernt in that math.

But that's probably what happened. No other game could outpace that income, so what was the point for a CEO still rolling in bonus checks?

😂😂😂

it was toast with KSP1 no console support and a bunch of lying about it lost me early on.....

@@TokisFishingPlanet lol, console

​@@TokisFishingPlanet lol, console

​@@----.__if it's so lolworthy why cry about Microsoft axing studios

To be fair, if you release a sequel to a game then it should be at least as good as the first game in terms of gameplay and amount of content. KSP 2 was in worse shape than KSP 1 in every single way pretty much.

Or at least make the contract Ironclad. Publishers can help a lot of things with marketing and covering expenses but it's always going to be on their terms unless you have a contract and making sure that everything is squared away the only time you should need a publisher is that there's going to be a mutual benefit

While I agree with the general sentiment, keep in mind that in game development you will work on a title for years before it actually brings on money. So the thought of an affluent company paying the bills is very tempting and makes a lot of sense for many studios.

@@eran3161 until publisher acts as a vampire. You get more money in your pocket if you don't use a publisher and the only people your beholden to is the people that buy the game

​@@eran3161 Not necessarily. Some indies like Sleeper Games make small games in a year that are extremely good. If the dude just had some way to announcements they would make a lot of cash (they have 100% positives). But if you can afford to spend years making an amazing game then that's all the better. So many of the indies Inlove took 5-8 years to make

TT has so much distance to the actual customer, probably less than 1% of them will even know that TT called the shots.

No vampires need the blood. Publishers destroy for greed and gluttony.

Publishers are corporations, so yes

Publishers are decision making companies for the things they publish, as they're making all the marketing campaign and all publishing things about what they will sell. It's a real job and those things cost money too.

The world is a vampire.

Some: Yes. The good ones tend to get squashed/bought out. But there are a few. Publishers are like every company: Stage 1: You get a passionate person, who wants to help people get their products to market. They themselves have struggled through the process - and wish to make it easier. Stage 2: The original founder is succeeded - this successor typically fully understands the work and effort, and has a huge respect for the creators. He worked with a creator - and see's the passion. This phase is a fair bit of optimizing, making the entire show run a little smoother but it's still very much a great place for the creators to go. Stage 3: The first successor is replaced by a purely business numbers guy. This guy has very little to no understanding of the actual process of creation - R&D is seen as a cost burden they do not understand, and odds are this guy is a marketing guy. This is when things start to go downhill. Optional Stage: The Original founder, or the successor are brought back to reinvigorate the company. Stage 4: The company devolves into profit first, marketing second, creators sometime after if at all. All passion for the craft slowly gets erased, and the ego's that have never created a true thing of value of it's own end up running the show. This is how you end up with DEI initiatives convinced that you just have to appeal to the right people to grow sales, or you get studio's pushed into producing a product that is completely foreign to what they have mastered over the previous decade or two. Stage 5: Profit loss - at this point, the only way to stay profitable is to cut costs. Senior developers, "under performing" studio's, and more get sold off, closed, and terminated. IP might be sold off if desperate enough, but typically that is held as a "It might have value later" despite the very people who understood the property are all gone and what ever new team you build is liable to turn fans against it. Stage 6: Bankruptcy. In a financial state of decline there are basically two options - the first, is bankruptcy and winding down the business. The other, is selling the entire thing off either wholesale (Microsoft buying out Activision sort of falls under this - a bit more nuanced as it was more opportunistic and Activision likely had another decade in it - but the signs of decline were all present), or piecemeal where you auction things off to cover debts. If you want to avoid Stage 3: You need to create a culture of training passionate creators to take over the business aspects and continue the path of being a creator focused enterprise. But sooner or later, someone gets to a point of having enough, or makes a mistake on who the successor is, and you fall to stage 3. If you have a REALLY strong culture, it can be reversed - but few businesses ever achieve that. Especially in today's day and age where companies have made it only feasible to stay ahead with income by changing jobs every 18 months to 3 years.

Yeah same here. I usually play last year's titles or older. Saves a lot of disappointment.

Yeah, I can count the big-studio-games I enjoyed since the witcher 3's release on one hand. (Not counting remasters)

This is not corporate, Intercept was incompetent.

C level executives make good business decisions for their pockets.

@@LarsaXL Also, ignoring reviews, opinions and especially youtube drama around games can save just as much disappointment. There's nothing better than enjoying a great book/game/movie/series and then finding out later from the internet that you were supposed to hate it. Going in after the reviews always ruins the experience.

Well, at least it improved the working conditions within ABK.... we hope...

@@AoiKaze2000 weren't those already better before the take-over? Because they were practically forced too?

​@@keit99 I believe you are right.

Yeah, it's almost comical how exactly what dozens of analysts said would happen is: MSoft is dropping redundant studios now that the company structure is tightening.

​@@AoiKaze2000All MSoft did was recognize what was already being done. ABK was forced by the state of Washington to change multiple things as a result of the lawsuits. And I've heard from some that the changes have addressed some problems, but the company's basically still a giant meat grinder where you walk on egg shells.

Same, never heard of rollerdrome before.

Nah, this is just the bubble bursting and MSoft executing the plan they already had in place. Reality is 2020-2021 were such MASSIVE successes, companies got fat. They started spending dumb and it didn't matter because the cash was flowing. Fast forward two years, the federal reserve is still holding the economy hostage because the only thing less reputable than CEOs are Politicians and Journalists. Loans to make big games are just not there, so, you need to cut projects. After you cut projects, studios end up idle (or fat). That happens enough, studios collapse. Same thing happened to film and tech last year. I don't think people realize a lot of these creative industries are fueled by the pipeline. Doesn't matter if your last game was successful if you don't have something to work on next. The one exception here are the MSoft closures, specifically Tango Gameworks. I believe some of these closures have been planned since the acquisition, and I think the writing was on the wall with the re-org last year.

It already has couple decades ago and I think it will again in some capacity

I believe he said he was going to leave to work on his game, and they counter-offered with "if we pay to you work on it for a few days a week will you stay and keep doing your current job the rest of the week?" And then the game got some traction and they ended up turning it into a real project. Basically ended up having a games developer department almost by accident. Tech industry in general needs more bosses like that. KSP2 story is the polar opposite, it's kinda heart-breaking in contrast.

don't worry, the only thing that can kill the triple a industry is the triple a industry

The biggest shame is that NONE of the features that were promised to make the game stand out from the original have been able to be implemented.

Now I'm just as disappointed as anyone else, but this is the risk with early access games. Taken from the store page right at the top: Early Access Game Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops. Note: *This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further.* If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more Everyone that bought Early Access agreed to those terms so it can not be constituted as fraud or a scam.

By video game industries you mean AAA studios like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Take Two, etc, right? I would assume that indie companies that aren't part of those publishers aren't part of the bubble, because they don't hire by the truck-load on a project they were going to lay off anyways a few months later because management doesn't want to do its job right.

@@shroomer3867 in terms of the historical pattern, indie is an unknown, that side of the industry was new and burgeoning back then. Heck you could say the indie industry really came into being as a result of these upsets in the industry, Fez came out in 2012 and cave story had just begun to reemerge into greater public awareness. I would say the combination of laid off experienced workers and fresh from college inexperienced new blood all competing for the same entry level positions led to the surge of the indie scene. But for the here and now, I would say depends on the Indie. Some have a bit more backing that may dry up. Now I am sure the scene overall will see a greater surge of fresh talent and ideas, but some of the longer lived indie devs that managed to get more investment backing behind them might struggle.

I don't believe they lied. We've seen from other studio closures that this happens suddenly and without notice or warning, even at very high levels. More than likely, their first notice was being locked out of access to their systems that morning.

@@watchm4ker ksp2 is not so fun it is a productivity issue. hence, they lied.

@@watchm4ker They were fired with notice, so they have a bit until it happens. Usually companies put people on paid leave during that time, it wouldn't have been a lockout.

@@watchm4ker I think he means back when it first released, or even when it was announced back in 2020. Allegedly they were having so much fun with the new colonization and everything that they could hardly focus on their work. And then it released and....you know the rest

@@watchm4ker Oh I'm sure they will release that internal multiplayer build that was eating so much into their office productivity. They wouldn't lie about that. Definitely not.

Lol, reminds me of that South Park scene where Stan takes his check to the Bank

That's extremely naive view of what's happening here. Clearly not all has been well at the studio. 5+ years of alpha development to release into EA on a abysmal state. Tbh funding 5 years of KSP2 is a pretty huge investment for the expected return of a niche game like KSP.

@@RpattoYT Who planned for the development, opened the studio, hired the devs? Let me check... Oh, yes, it's the publisher! Still their fault.

Who pouched the employees from the original developer while in negotiations. Take two. Shitty enough that Bloomberg covered it b

Oh, paradox, a tale old as a time. It is even more funny because BASE game isnt cheap (or even free ffs) either.

@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 Yea, Paradox could really do with a Helldiver event. Even when they completely messed up City Skylines, they did not really get much of the anger. It was all directed at the studio.

​@mattijohansen3471 Okay, but colossal orders were not entirely innocent either. They lied about the game massively and tried to gaslight the community.

@@frogking5573 OFC not. its their game. And even though Paradox forced them to release, even though they did not want to do so. And forced them into the DLC nightmare and all that. They still made the deal with Paradox. And did what they where told. So not without fault. But the reason behind their actions where still Paradox.

Intercept is at fault here.

The steps to fixing it are not that hard, the problem is that a huge number of people are convinced that regulations/laws/taxes/bureaucracy are bad and that we should be reducing it instead of increasing it. 1. Add more consumer protection laws/regulations. 2. Hire bureaucrats to enforce the new laws/regulations. 3. Raise taxes to pay the bureaucrats (I suggest getting the taxes from mega corps)

This should be a warning to the Cities skylines 2 devs, and any other developer resting on their laurels. It's time to update your game!

It has been clear for a while now that the people making KSP 2 did not actually want to make a KSP game and did not care about what the community wanted at all.

The "bones" were KSP1. There's nothing in KSP2 to even justify its own existence over KSP1.

@@LordSluggo Maybe you're not grasping the concept of a sequel.

@@grtninja Name on thing KSP2 in its current state does better than KSP1. I'll give you only one: The tutorials, even though they really should have been narrated by Scott Manley instead of a kid.

they do it for the money duh, the owners get paid big bucks, and go retire to a quiet life on the beach somewhere. Happens with all start up companies, not just indie games. A lot of these indie devs probalby planned to do just that since the beginning.

Intercept was incompetent.

@@doltBmB That would be a great excuse if it wasn't that, a first party studio being incompetent is still the Publisher's fault for not funding it properly. If you can only hire fresh devs and modders are the only veterans you can afford... You have what you pay for.

@@mastah39 They've been funded for 5+ years past the original release date. Safe to say Take 2 threw a mountain of money after this. It's 100% on Intercept.

@@mastah39 they funded over 5 years of delays for the game, it's 100% on intercept not delivering within that time.

Intercept was incompetent. Take 2 gave them over 5 years of extra time, they were extremely lenient. We were supposed to be playing the FULL RELEASE in 2020, a date set by Intercept themselves.

A paper corp bought the local paper mill to close it to increase the price of glossy magazine paper. Same story over and over.

And all of that happened because some bald dude archived "impossible" "company growth" few decades ago by ripping guts out of major company and selling them, and then dipping with billions in his (and shareholders) pockets, which was then made into mf RELIGION, that every CEO and manager is being taught nowadays because "your job is to maxsimize shareholders value, nothing more".

This is what happens when the devs are incompetent. Take 2 gave them over 5 years of extra time, no doubt representing a mountain of money, because they believed in the brand and the project. This is not a corporate issue.

Same thing at another company a friend worked at. They had two bad years so management cut staff 30%. All the people who knew how to get things done. Lower managers with so little left their only choice is to leave. Just a big company desperately trying to go out of business, aka Sears, DEC (digital equipment corp), SGI (silicon graphics inc), World Com, Arthur Anderson (accounting), Enron.

KSP1 is very unfinished too.

You have to stay positive, maybe they will release a small version of KSP on mobile filed with ads and microtransactions! That would be cool no?

KSP 2 is not a good game, it's not even a game. They deserved to lose their jobs. Seven years and they did basically nothing.

@@OutsiderLabs You seem like a nice hang at a party... There is consequences and decisions. I don't know KSP2 at all. But if the consequence of their lack of output is the shutdown that is sad as there is decisions that led to that. "Deserve" I'm sorry they insulted you personally to have such hate for your fellow humans for (check's notes) not making another game...

Someone didn't read the contract then.

@@informitas0117 It was a trap contract. Take2 is infamous for making the, with what looks like good conditions and being fair, only to steel the workers, to trigger the trap.

@@informitas0117 It was a trap contract. Take2 is infamous for making trap contract that seem all above board, only to nab the tallent making the studio miss deadlines triggering the trap.

Slightly incorrect, they pouched the employees and backed the studio into a corner.

It was originally 3 years, aiming for a complete game release in 2020. Obviously that didn't happen and now we've had a rolling early access... totaling about 7 years. And STILL not able to even match the original features, while reusing large amounts of the original code in order to get anything shipped at all. Which defeats the whole reason to make the sequel in a more robust engine... and then on top of it all the early access is more than twice what the original sold for and very high for an EA game.

An internal publisher owned studio. They gave them a box of scrap and a cave and told them to make an IronMan suit. It's 100% the publisher fault. Always. They hired the leads, and allocated the budget to hire the devs. They can also fire problematic people before it becomes an unfixable situation. But that wasn't the problem here, Hi-Fi rush and Rollerdome studios prove that nothing here was about the performance of said studios, just reaching a % layoff quota.

Take Two undermined the original developer and took over KSP2 in a series of moves that were barely legal. Read Bloomberg story on it.

Except, it's not successful enough to be viable.

@@RpattoYT viability of an artistic venture is entirely subjective.

My reply to your comment is absolutely useless and says nothing meaningful

Both my sons did. Both had the skills but knew better.

I'd be shocked if that actually happened. I'm mean, they still have an obligation to fulfill customers expectations based on long planned features but it's just not working at the current studio. Not that I believe they're likely to stick to their commitments in favor of just abandoning them; I think they cut and run.

CEO of EA got fired and hired by unity and fired again. Sure he made a lot of money.

Yeah, look at how many car companies are owned by Volkswagon. No shame just greed.

Making slop the only option won't make us buy slop, it will only make the market itself crash.

😂 Funny if KSP2 were a viable product. It's been in hell for too long. Viable or not now, too little too late.

What were you going for with this analogy?

Take Two backstabbed the original developer in a series of barely legal moves. Read the Bloomberg story.