It’s a canon event for any game company that achieves moderate success
Kerbal Space Program 2 still hurts me.
deleted by creator
Although Kerbal space program 2 had major issues from the dev team, only for the publisher to pull the plug because of how bad the progress was, and leave the game in permanent early access.
Uh, its more like a new publisher bought the IP, functionally fired almost all of the original dev team, and then hired a bunch of other people who had no idea how their insanely modified version of Unity worked…
And then the idiot in charge just started spamming out extremely grand and difficult to implement new core functionalities… with a team of mostly newbies who had no idea how anything worked.
So, basically, they started out where KSP started out… and would very obviously thus need years and years and years to get it out of Early Access / Alpha state… but it needed to make money NOW, and it didn’t, so everyone got laid off (other than the idiot in charge), and the game was functionally abandoned, but not totally abandoned, because MY IP MINE NO YOU CANT HAVE IT!!!
Or… maybe not? With regard to the IP rights?
Nobody seems to know who actually owns the KSP IP at this point.
https://techdriveplay.com/2025/01/03/kerbal-space-program-2-a-tale-of-corporate-neglect-and-failure/
I never understood the fixation on IPs. For a kick ass universe with amazing lore etc, ok sure.
I mean I love Jeb and the gang as much as the next guy, but they’re not core to my enjoyment of KSP1. The mechanics were.
lol, RIP Jebs 1 - 48395.
But uh yeah, the… the lore is basically:
We made some cute little dudes and dudettes that are… possibly animated, sapient fungi? Or something?
Anyway they are sm0l and live in sm0l solar system.
And they have a space program.
And most of the characters are just obvious cutesy knock offs of famous humans in spaceflight.
Woo!
lol
It’s a canon event for any
gamecompany thatachieves moderate successgets acquired by investorsVery much not exclusive to the game industry
True :3
I just said game to stay on topic tbh
Makes sense, wasn’t untrue and I wasn’t criticizing, just wanted to make sure everyone remembers that the problem goes up the chain due to capitalism.
Various companies/games were mentioned in the comments, but I think a good example is Hello Games. Clearly fumbled their game launch and were over ambitious with No Man’s Sky.
But it’s gotten an incredible amount of things that were promised, and many things that weren’t, all as free updates. Sure, they’re still making money, that’s the point, but instead of Micro-transactions, overpriced DLC, fucking over the devs, shutting things down, they just keep rolling. I’m sure they’ve gotten offers of acquisition that were probably very lucrative, but they didn’t take them, and have continued their slow roll of making gamers happy.
Except ConcernedApe, apparently.
Individual devs seem to generally manage better I think :3. It’s once the companies expand is that stuff starts going awry
Coffee Stain’s another good example on the bigger end.
It does seems like there’s a danger zone behind a certain size threshold. It makes me worry for Warhorse (the KCD2 dev), which plans to expand beyond 250.
Didn’t sell out to a company or publisher with shareholder profit motives. Truly independent (not “indie” as slang for low budget) development teams don’t follow this pattern unless they sell their IP and studio outright.
It would make sense for it to be canon in the subnautica universe. I think they were pretty much the epitome of authors with an anvil with the references to economics and governing.
Rip ZA/UM
And they want to add micro transactions
But they said they wouldn’t!
The three people were replaced with a guy who used to work at EA. And one of their first announcements was an unprompted “we wont put loot boxes in the game”…
Next week: Introducing new “reward containers”
They did all this because they know that the vast majority of the playerbase will never hear about this, and many of those that do will either forget, or simply not care enough to boycott the game. We’re in an age of apathy across the board, with so much bad press that any given scandal just fades into the background noise.
Pop it in your calendars? Maybe I’m using calendars wrong, but mine aren’t filled with things I should avoid doing. But, I’m willing to learn. What date should I put “Don’t Buy Subnautica 2” on?
Everyday up until it releases
What about after it releases? How will I know to keep not buying it?
I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who thought Subnautica was boring and tedious. It was definitely not for me
It’s a popular streamer game, which means long gaps where nothing happens.
I also wasn’t a fan, mainly due to how often you need to resupply to stay alive. You get a very small window of opportunity to do actual exploration before you need to go find more food and water, on top of gathering a bunch of other materials.
I liked parts of it, but ultimately just got frustrated with the tedious parts and bailed.
Nah, that’s valid. I loved it to bits, myself, but what made me love it was how adroitly I felt it curated feelings of dread and sincere awe as I explored deeper and deeper; and that’s highly subjective. I hope you’re finding as much joy in your own fave games as I did in Subnautica!
More importantly in the short run, remove it from your wishlists so that Krafton can see your choice! At the moment, they are super proud of the game being the most wishlisted on Steam.
Isnt every other new game “the most wish listed on steam”? Do any of them ever prove this with numbers?
Well… Piracy it is, then.
Probably not really feasible - it will require constant connection to a back-end server to play or some bullshit like that.
But even if you can, that’s not the answer. The proper action is to deny them entirely. Don’t play the game, don’t play PUBG, don’t do anything that expands their reach, money or not.
They need to suffer with NOBODY playing this game. They need to suffer by people deleting their Battlegrounds accounts. Software piracy is what makes games legendary.
Or do the boycott right and don’t play the game at all.
I’ll just watch some let’s plays on YouTube
I mean, does anyone above age 18 even have any evergy at all?
I’ve watched more gameplay than my total gametime combined, its more relaxing and for horror games, its less stress on the heart.
Seems like there is a plot twist to this story no one is mentioning https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3ltmyjaecpc2w
It sucks that this is going around too. Because no matter what the “right” choice is the devs are still gonna have to see what should have just been their fun project get thrown around in gaming politic hell
Best comment. Trust the publisher bro !Oh. Huh. That seems important. I wonder what they have to say in response.
Is this definitely what those devs are asking for? Sure this isn’t just cutting them twice?
I’m at least willing to wait until it gets reviews to make a sound judgement.
I don’t think the bonus would have been a big enough reason to delay the game. Delaying a game like this relatively last-minute and giving it an extra year of development is waaaay more expensive than the bonuses would have been. That’s a gigantic revenue spike they were expecting to get this year and now have to push out to next year, and they may well end up paying out similar bonuses next year too.
My suspicion, from the history of Steve Papoutsis, is that Kraftom wanted to add in anti-player elements and the original founders refused. Probably micro transactions, or maybe even having a bigger multiplayer focus to make it closer to a live-service game. Some mechanism to get money from customers beyond the original purchase. I suspect crap like that will be reason enough not to buy the game when it comes out.
Delaying a game like this relatively last-minute and giving it an extra year of development is waaaay more expensive than the bonuses would have been.
Is it still more expensive if they just shelve it and pretend to give it extra development? I haven’t seen any details on why it wasn’t ready for release or what they are changing or adding? A quarter billion dollars in savings seems like pretty good motivation for a company to park a project for 6 to 12 months.
Agreed. Subnautica 1 steam revenue breakdown offers a bit of perspective on why they might want to play pretend.
“How much money did Subnautica make? We estimate that Subnautica made $274,113,745.92 in gross revenue since its release. Out of this, the developer had an estimated net revenue of $80,863,555.05. Refer to the revenue table for a full breakdown of these numbers.”
$274,113,746
GROSS REVENUEADJ. REGIONAL PRICING
$24,670,237.13DISCOUNTS
$54,822,749.18REFUNDS
$32,893,649.51STEAM CUT
$48,518,133.03VAT / SALES TAX
$32,345,422.02NET REVENUE
$80,863,555.05Bloomberg reported that the bonus was tied to revenue targets. So the $250,000 estimate must be estimating significantly higher revenues for them in 2025.
What you posted is just the sales on 1 platform for 1 game, whixh came out in 2018 when games were cheaper.
It’s far and away their most profitable game to date, so it would make sense to get some perspective from it. Can you offer anything concrete about their other platform sales? I’m not familiar with any tools for that
According to one of the articles above the publishers operating profit last year was “only” $300m so that bonus would make the shareholders mad I guess.
Is it still more expensive if they just shelve it
Yes. Like, it’s not even a question it’s more expensive to delay it. First of all, they are choosing to pay for 6-12 months of extra development, which alone is probably several times more money than the bonus that they would have paid out. I don’t know what their payroll is, but we don’t need to know because math.
If the bonus was for 1/2 annual salary per person (which would be insanely high), then the cost of the bonus would be the same as 6 months of additional payroll. Meaning that with any longer delay than 6 months or smaller bonus structure than 1/2 of annual salary, it becomes more expensive to delay the game. Both of which are incredibly likely in my opinion.
And that’s just salary. It’s possible the studio was planning on laying people off after release, but more likely that they would have moved to a other project that is currently wrapping up pre-production. So this is causing a cascading effect unless they hire additional staff to catch up.
Then you have marketing costs. The rule of thumb in the industry is that half the overall budget is marketing. There are all sorts of contracts they probably had- digital stuff like banner ads on websites, on the console digital storefronts, partnerships with twitch streamers and YouTubers and review websites, physical stuff like cardboard cutouts and fliers. They may have started printing for boxes for physical releases (though I’m not sure whether this game would have had one or not). They may have started acquiring merch inventory: shirts and stickers and backpacks and flashlights and more perhaps. Some of these contracts they may be able to postpone or cancel, but they certainly aren’t getting back 100% of what they paid.
And in all of this time they aren’t getting the huge revenue spike they were expecting. The vast, vast majority of a game’s revenue comes at launch (excluding live services, which this hopefully will not have). They need to survive another year on the trickle of revenue coming in from the sales of their other games, or Krafton may need to pump more of their own money into Unknown Worlds. Or debt.
Oooh, there’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
$250M PLUS legal costs PLUS $250M in punitive fees. That should hurt them a bit.
You can’t typically get punitive damages for contract disputes. Also, there is a very real possibility that the contract hasn’t been breached by the new owners’ actions. It sounds like they used their superior bargaining power to put a lot of questionable yet enforceable provisions in the contract.
Die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain
This looks less like heroes becoming villains and more like villains (who were always villains) tricking the hero and murdering them. Unknown World’s founders and developers of the first game all got fired by the company that acquired them.
The founders are the villains of this piece as much as Krafton. They sold out for a big payday. This was all very predictable.
You’d have to really dense to think that Krafton is going to come along with half a billion dollars and just let things carry on as usual.
They didn’t sell out. That’s a childish view.
They made one and a half games (Subnautica and the dlc turned full release), never made the direct sequel, cut thier losses and cashed thier checks.If they sold out they’d still be on the dev team, making micro transactions for the corpo.
They literally sold out. They sold the company. And, they sold it to a corporation whose portfolio is littered with microtransactions.
cut their losses
What losses? Were they not profitable?
and cashed their checks
Yeah, that’s the selling out part.
I will support this by continuing to be apathetic toward (and in fact ignorant of) the game known as Subnautica 2.
I’m not ignorant of it, just uninterested. I’ve watched gameplay footage of the first one, and it didn’t look like my kind of game.
First one was a cool premise but really annoying in some ways. The game sort of assumes you get certain fragments of blue prints by certain points but doesn’t actually make them easy to find nor really give you any hints to find them.
For people who’ve played it was for the sea moth and and later the moon well.
That’s the point of the game - it doesn’t tell you where to go and what to do because you’re meant to explore the environment yourself. And the debris you scan, the screenshots you take, and the thrills that you get - are the real reward here, and not some goal that game artificially imposes on you. So I think you were just playing it wrong.
So I think you were just playing it wrong.
Look, I genuinely get your point, and I was tracking with you until you said this. Fuck off. Fuck for with this stupid bullshit. I was not playing wrong. I was playing it the same way everyone else does. I was exploring. I was collecting. I was finding new things. It was getting very clear that the distances the game expected me to travel were meant to be done much faster than what I was capable of. I was getting multiple upgrades for things that I couldn’t use because I didn’t have the thing that lets me install them. It’s been ages since I’ve played and I’m not psychic so I’ll never know what the actual devs’ intent was, but something was off. I’d definitely missed something. What’s more annoying is that I was finding multiple blueprints I already had or something? I don’t remember the context. Like you needed 3 fragments or something. And I’d find more like “ah surely this is the third for the thing I need” only to get the 5th of something I already had. It was give years ago when I played, at least, so I’m probably explaining wrong.
But don’t fucking say I was playing wrong. That’s such a condescending, brain dead thing to say to someone who is critiquing a game.
“Hey, based on what’s going on and getting tons of upgrades and not unlocking the thing to install the upgrades, I think I’ve missed something and I have no idea where to find it. It would be nice if there was a way to unlock this without scouring every inch of the ocean I’ve been through multiple times and without looking it up online.” No, you’re just playing wrong! It’s a game about exploration and discovery!
🙄
Natural Selection and then Natural Selection 2 - no games or communities like it. Before there time both of them and very much under appreciated. Felt like NS2 never really found it’s rhythm but Unknown World kept it going longer than most games.
Let me preface by saying NS/NS2 are my all-time favorite games
NS2 had a terrible launch.* It was unstable, terrible performance, limited to no tutorials, and no match matching system. The game has an intense learning curve, and players who had thousands of hours from NS1 / Early Access. It’s also a game where cooperative play was imperative, so the matches really stink for everyone when teams are unbalanced / one guy curbstomps the other team.
It did eventually address those things, but much of it came too late. I so desperately want NS3 to bring it new life… but that doesn’t ever seem to be coming. I want more games where I get to be the alien/creature/monster!
My desperation hit an all-time high when I started making a game in Godot… ;-;
*To be fair, they also needed to launch ASAP because they needed the money to stay afoat
I feel the same way - both take the top spot as my all-time best games.
I will say - It was a mistake building their own game engine for NS2. I realise options were limited but they bit off more than they could chew and that came out in the launch and first 3 years or so, as you say. Yeah the co-op and commander concept was both what made it awesome and contributed to its downfall. They tried to make it easier by making it so Gorges became a support role rather than critical to the alien comm but was too little, too late.
I would 100% back a crowdunded NS3, as I did with NS2. The eSports scene is far more mature now, it could work.
The whole ordeal with the game engine is so… ironic. They opt’d for it because they wanted the infestation to spread dynamically and it wouldnt work with existing engines… so one whole custom game engine later… the infestation feature they desperately wanted was scrapped anyways.
At least it benefited from being easy to mod… the modders are the real MVPs. Kept the game alive with everything from performance, to matchmaking, to balancing.
I’d absolutely support a crowdfunded "“NS3"”… but I don’t know if that’s feasible without the official company’s sign off? Like it couldn’t just copy the core gameloop/aliens because of copyright? I can’t imagine it feeling the same without Skulks, Gorges, Lerks, Fades, Onos. The way they traverse the map and fill a niche would be hard to beat.
Yeah, the modding community rallied around both versions. The NS community is really dedicated. I admit to stopping playing NS2 when they made the announcement, have they allowed the community to keep it going in any form?
Surely they would approve of some community crowdfunding? Perhaps the original creators but not the parent company is it is now, if the recent issues around Subnautica are to be believed. NS belongs to the community.
I haven’t played in ~a year, but afaik yes! The benefits of selfhosted servers. I think there were 3-4 servers going strong on the weekends. Unfortunately, a lot of those players were the… worst kind. Hyper competitive, 10k hours, surrender the second something goes wrong types. (Edit- this might have been because my own ELO was super high, so different levels might vary)
Still amazing to see any activity this long!
My understanding of the situation was one of the creators/founders/idk said they don’t want to do anything more with guns. Hence why subnautica has no “real” weapons and no NS3. This was a long time ago with some old tweet(?). I don’t know if a community-funded thing would get support from the original creators.
The original NS was so fucking good, man. I lived in that game for several years. The competitive scene was awesome.
Was that the half-life mod that mixed RTS and FPS?
