from Hacker News

Kerbal Space Program 2 release disrupted by corporate strife

by tboerstad on 6/3/20, 12:37 PM with 143 comments

  • by PragmaticPulp on 6/3/20, 2:25 PM

    It looks like Take-Two studios didn't want to pay the the premium of having another studio do the work, so they switched to recruiting the employees directly instead. And it worked.

    > The LinkedIn message went on to say Take-Two was setting up a new studio to keep working on the same game Star Theory had been developing, a sequel to the cult classic Kerbal Space Program. Take-Two was looking to hire all of Star Theory’s development staff to make that happen. “We are offering a compensation package that includes a cash sign-on bonus, an excellent salary, bonus eligibility and other benefits,” Cook wrote.

    I won't go so far as to condone Take-Two's actions, but I don't see this entirely as a negative for the employees involved if (and it's a big if) Take-Two chose to pay the employees extra compensation and bonuses instead of giving the money to a middleman.

    As someone who went through an acqui-hire only to see our founders walk away with millions while the employees' salaries remained unchanged, I wouldn't be opposed companies directing those acqui-hire funds to hiring bonuses given directly to the employees.

  • by Dayshine on 6/3/20, 2:22 PM

    > The LinkedIn message went on to say Take-Two was setting up a new studio to keep working on the same game Star Theory had been developing, a sequel to the cult classic Kerbal Space Program. Take-Two was looking to hire all of Star Theory’s development staff to make that happen.

    I'm amazed that the contract Star Theory had with Take-Two didn't have a clause prohibiting Take-Two from poaching employees like this.

    Edit: A more general question: If I hire a consultancy company to build something for me, would I normally be able to directly hire the employees who did the work? That sounds like the worst possible outcome for a consultancy, so surely contracts prohibit it!?

    Edit 2: Lots of people responding that anti-competes are always bad, and I don't disagree, but this feels slightly different.

    How about:

    Is it ethical for a company to deliberately cause you to be made redundant so they can hire you? (Emailing all employees of a company make it fairly clear it was planned)

  • by neuralzen on 6/3/20, 4:44 PM

    One of my family members worked for Star Theory during this time, and turned down job offers from Take Two in favor of loyalty, but it ended up biting them in the ass unfortunately. They did end up with a great job elsewhere, but still sad to hear this all went down. A reminder to look out for your own interests, even if you like the people you work for, or at least balance them because no one else likely will.

  • by cwhiz on 6/3/20, 8:14 PM

    Important to note that Take Two is a huge, publicly traded, corporation with a market cap of nearly $15 billion. They owned 2K Games, Rockstar, and others.

    The tactics described in this article would be extremely shady from one small business to another... but a massive corporation swooping in and basically ruining another company? Wow.

  • by bdowling on 6/3/20, 9:27 PM

    From the article:

    > The contract with Take-Two was the studio’s only source of revenue at the time. Without it, the independent studio was in serious trouble.

    > The [founders] had been in discussions about selling their company to Take-Two but were dissatisfied with the terms, they explained.

    > Take-Two hired more than a third of Star Theory’s staff, including the studio head and creative director.

    > By March . . . Star Theory closed its doors.

    So, a small game studio played chicken with Take-Two, a $15 billion juggernaut, and lost. Take-Two picked up the pieces.

  • by JoeAltmaier on 6/3/20, 3:56 PM

    No loyalty nor generosity in the game business. Everybody out for a buck. Eat or be eaten. I think that summarizes it?

  • by samkater on 6/3/20, 4:06 PM

    Can somebody with knowledge about how those contracts are set up comment on what happens to the IP developed by Star Theory? I understand they were contracted to build KSP2, but when "the project was pulled" by Take Two who owns the development to date? Does Take Two/Infinity need to start from scratch (with the benefit of many of the original developers) or do they essentially get to go forward with whatever the latest development version was available?

  • by WrtCdEvrydy on 6/3/20, 2:23 PM

    If these are the people that dicked over the original team on bonuses and are now getting karma... then good riddance.

  • by spiritplumber on 6/3/20, 4:07 PM

    I wonder how Felipe feels like about it. I helped a little with the wheels way back when (and sent the dev team a rover when they finished!)

  • by everyone on 6/3/20, 10:20 PM

    Damn. I was really looking forward to that game. I love KSP but the original is so janky with memory leaks / slowdown / physics craziness, the bigger the mission you try, the less fun it is. The same game but with its own custom-made engine learning from the previous game would have been great.

    Anyway no way I can buy it now and support that.. Also even if I just pirate it, its probably gonna turn out shite anyway now with giant publisher running everything.

  • by speeder on 6/3/20, 2:19 PM

    Can someone show me a non paywall version of this? KSP is fairly important to me. (I studied with KSP author, and told him when in college, that a game like what he promised to create was impossible. KSP was among other things, him proving me wrong)

  • by rendall on 6/3/20, 7:24 PM

    It was a sleazy thing to do, at least as Bloomberg describes it, but this time it won the day.

    ... I'm not sure that Take Two wins the war, though. Now other development companies will be more wary about working with them.

  • by richardwhiuk on 6/4/20, 8:28 AM

    Normally these contracts have a no-poaching clause to prevent this.

  • by shmerl on 6/3/20, 7:37 PM

    Take Two decided to outdo EA in destroying studios.

    Wasn't original Kerbal Space Program made by Squad? I'm glad they released it for Linux. I doubt Take Two will do the same.

  • by z3t4 on 6/3/20, 9:56 PM

    The game has gone worse since the original developers left. More and more bugs that ruins game-play. I guess the game still sells good though.

  • by neonate on 6/3/20, 6:03 PM

  • by beckingz on 6/3/20, 9:49 PM

    Given how badly Star Theory performed on planetary annihilation, I have minimal sympathy for the company.

    Still, the hardball tactics by Take-Two is sad to see.