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I had heard the original team that built this game quit due to poor working conditions. Is that true? If so, who built this expansion and have the working condi

I had heard the original team that built this game quit due to poor working conditions. Is that true? If so, who built this expansion and have the working conditions improved?

fyfy18 9y ago
Based on the quality of the 1.4 release, I would say probably not. There were many glaring obvious bugs and omissions, so they must had been in a bit of a rush (i.e. badly managed) to get it out.
thomasz 9y ago
https://www.destructoid.com/former-kerbal-space-program-developers-slam-studio-for-poor-pay-and-crunch-time-359507.phtml https://www.destructoid.com/former-kerbal-space-program-deve... They won't get a dime from me ever. For anything.
- SaturateDK 9y ago
  I got it at the very start, and I'm pretty sad to hear about this.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  For whatever it's worth, 2K did buy the thing from Squad. Too late for most of the original devs, but it might change things. On the other hand, they're keeping Squad as the developer, which doesn't feel so good...
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  I was just thinking of buying it, and now I have changed my mind. Back to Factorio for me!!!
  - reificator 9y ago
    I should get back to Factorio, but Cities Skylines has taken over my brain-game timeslot lately. It's really amazing to me how fun they both are, given that they're just exercises in logistics. Cities Skylines is about managing traffic flow, basically every other mechanic stems from that in some way or another. Not a surprise given the developers' previous games were the Cities In Motion series. Factorio is about efficient transport of materials into machines that assemble goods, and about building up abstractions so you are constantly solving new types of problems with the resources you've automated already. Both of them have helped me to better understand concurrency, throughput, and optimization. And playing Factorio with friends has helped me stretch my project management muscles. By halfway through the game I had to make a Trello board just to keep track of what needed to be done and where the bottlenecks were. If you're in the mood for a thinking game I highly recommend both of them.
marvin 9y ago
The original devs were paid next to nothing while developing KSP from their own ideas, with the efforts of a startup company. Terribly poor negotiation tactics on their part, but still quite shitty of the owners not to give them a massive bonus after the huge success of the game. Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.
- koolba 9y ago
  > Terribly poor negotiation tactics on their part, but still quite shitty of the owners not to give them a massive bonus after the huge success of the game. If the game failed to gain traction would we be asking the devs to give a refund of their salaries? > Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof. There’s nothing unethical with not sharing the bounties of success with those that aren’t sharing the costs of the risks.
  - siddboots 9y ago
    Without knowing the details, the fact that multiple core developers quit seems to be some evidence that they were treated unethically. That's not something that happens in normal conditions.
    - fancyfacebook 9y ago
      Multiple "core" developers left Uber in waves in the past few years, I wouldn't say that means there is "some evidence" they were treated unethically. In fact it's evidence of the exact opposite.
      - squarefoot 9y ago
        Timing is vital in these contexts. I've worked at a job in a team of 3 under terrible conditions (terrible from a "western" perspective of course, nobody was whipping or pointing guns at us, but you get the point). Complaining with management -the worst bunch of incompetent idiots I ever encountered in my life- was 100% ineffective so that after just a few months one of my colleagues left, then a bit later I left. The company suddenly panicked realizing how the project was likely going to tank in a spectacular way and promptly turned their tactics literally burying the only left member with money, benefits and much better working conditions so that he kept the job for years. Same company, same project, same team, but asking to 2 different people could have yielded very opposite opinions.

I had heard the original team that built this game quit due to poor working conditions. Is that true? If so, who built this expansion and have the working conditions improved?

fyfy18 9y ago

Based on the quality of the 1.4 release, I would say probably not. There were many glaring obvious bugs and omissions, so they must had been in a bit of a rush (i.e. badly managed) to get it out.

thomasz 9y ago

https://www.destructoid.com/former-kerbal-space-program-developers-slam-studio-for-poor-pay-and-crunch-time-359507.phtml https://www.destructoid.com/former-kerbal-space-program-deve... They won't get a dime from me ever. For anything.

SaturateDK 9y ago
I got it at the very start, and I'm pretty sad to hear about this.
Bartweiss 9y ago
For whatever it's worth, 2K did buy the thing from Squad. Too late for most of the original devs, but it might change things. On the other hand, they're keeping Squad as the developer, which doesn't feel so good...
DonHopkins 9y ago
I was just thinking of buying it, and now I have changed my mind. Back to Factorio for me!!!
- reificator 9y ago
  I should get back to Factorio, but Cities Skylines has taken over my brain-game timeslot lately. It's really amazing to me how fun they both are, given that they're just exercises in logistics. Cities Skylines is about managing traffic flow, basically every other mechanic stems from that in some way or another. Not a surprise given the developers' previous games were the Cities In Motion series. Factorio is about efficient transport of materials into machines that assemble goods, and about building up abstractions so you are constantly solving new types of problems with the resources you've automated already. Both of them have helped me to better understand concurrency, throughput, and optimization. And playing Factorio with friends has helped me stretch my project management muscles. By halfway through the game I had to make a Trello board just to keep track of what needed to be done and where the bottlenecks were. If you're in the mood for a thinking game I highly recommend both of them.

marvin 9y ago

The original devs were paid next to nothing while developing KSP from their own ideas, with the efforts of a startup company. Terribly poor negotiation tactics on their part, but still quite shitty of the owners not to give them a massive bonus after the huge success of the game. Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.

koolba 9y ago
> Terribly poor negotiation tactics on their part, but still quite shitty of the owners not to give them a massive bonus after the huge success of the game. If the game failed to gain traction would we be asking the devs to give a refund of their salaries? > Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof. There’s nothing unethical with not sharing the bounties of success with those that aren’t sharing the costs of the risks.
- siddboots 9y ago
  Without knowing the details, the fact that multiple core developers quit seems to be some evidence that they were treated unethically. That's not something that happens in normal conditions.
  - fancyfacebook 9y ago
    Multiple "core" developers left Uber in waves in the past few years, I wouldn't say that means there is "some evidence" they were treated unethically. In fact it's evidence of the exact opposite.
    - squarefoot 9y ago
      Timing is vital in these contexts. I've worked at a job in a team of 3 under terrible conditions (terrible from a "western" perspective of course, nobody was whipping or pointing guns at us, but you get the point). Complaining with management -the worst bunch of incompetent idiots I ever encountered in my life- was 100% ineffective so that after just a few months one of my colleagues left, then a bit later I left. The company suddenly panicked realizing how the project was likely going to tank in a spectacular way and promptly turned their tactics literally burying the only left member with money, benefits and much better working conditions so that he kept the job for years. Same company, same project, same team, but asking to 2 different people could have yielded very opposite opinions.