7 ms·

KSP always looked very cool but I've heard a couple of things that threw me off: - KSP devs are or were treated poorly by their employer (low pay, no compensat

KSP always looked very cool but I've heard a couple of things that threw me off: - KSP devs are or were treated poorly by their employer (low pay, no compensation for the success of the game) - apparently the program collected a lot of data (I can't remember what exactly) about its users and the machines it was running on, to the point where even non-privacy minded people were calling it spyware Does anyone know anything about this? Afaik discussion about these issues just kinda stopped after a while but we never got a conclusive answer to these points.

t0astbread 7y ago
Aside from those controversies, does anyone else find it kinda weird that KSP is not FOSS? I mean, I don't wanna sound like the guy that points an index finger at devs making proprietary software but I would've guessed they have the right kind of audience for that. (In the sense that their audience would still pay for the program and they might actually benefit from open sourcing it.)
- jstummbillig 7y ago
  Weird, yes, in a way. KSP always looked and felt very OSS to me. But in hindsight it seems very hard to argue with the route they chose, given the immense, improbable success they had.
- derefr 7y ago
  I wonder how difficult it would be to build a FOSS clone of the base game of KSP, that's ABI-compatible with all the mods.
  - therein 7y ago
    The game targets Mono and written in C# so reverse engineering it should be simpler than a game compiled into a native binary.
- liability 7y ago
  Not so weird when you consider that there are very few open source games with open source assets. An open source engine, similar to OpenTTD, OpenRCT2, OpenMW, etc sure would be nice though.
  - t0astbread 7y ago
    Yeah (unfortunately) but there are lots of open source space simulation programs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20518109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20518109
  - Sendotsh 7y ago
    Godot? Seems to be popular and some pretty decent games have been made with it.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  I've never thought about this before, but now that you asked... We should totally create a FOSS KSP, say Kernux:KSP == Linux:Unix
hadlock 7y ago
Squad was/is a marketing company based out of Mexico. The owner of the company agreed to let his lead technical guy work on KSP as a side project as a bribe to keep him from leaving to do other things. KSP took off, and the team grew to more than five people. After the 1.0 release most (all) of the original team left, especially after they outsourced the console port to an outside team. The original KSP team are all now working on independent projects. KSP2 is sort of a Battlefield 5 type game, where somebody still owns the IP but the original team that built the engine/brought the magic is gone. It might be good, who knows. In my opinion I'm a little skeptical about KSP2 as the base KSP1 game was so moddable that I can't imagine what they would add to KSP 2 that isn't in the base game through mods already. But maybe it will be even better than the first.
- t0astbread 7y ago
  So that means the original devs were never really compensated and if I buy a KSP game nowadays I'm not supporting them either?
  - hadlock 7y ago
    Well KSP launched several successful careers and also there's the goodwill of the owner of Squad who had the foresight to invest in his employee and his employee's skillset. But yes you are correct KSP is not owned by the original creative/creator, it's owned by their employer.
    - BEEdwards 7y ago
      >there's the goodwill of the owner of Squad who had the foresight to invest in his employee and his employee's skillset Sure if you ignore the whole once Squad realized they had a cash cow they treated the developers like shit until they all left. Companies investing in skill sets generally try to keep their cash cow men around.
      - ryandrake 7y ago
        It’s an interesting example to bring up next time one of those HN threads pop up about “Should I work on a side project while still working for my employer?”
Faark 7y ago
As for the spyware accusation... from what I read, Take Two slapped their usual privacy policy on the game after they bought it. The community didn't take that nicely. I don't remember ever seeing any evidence for spying beyond policy discussion and would be surprised if there is anything beyond common telemetry.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  This is incidentally a very warm experience for me - I remember launching KSP some time after 2018-05-25 and being greeted with a request for consent for tracking. And the ability to say "no".
- t0astbread 7y ago
  So it has neither been proven nor disproven that the game has privacy-invading telemetry but TT could add it in any day? Add to that that Steam forces you to update games if you wanna play them and that this probably affects all TT-owned games now.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Isn't that true of the vast majority of software these days (e.g., the vast majority of Steam games)? (I mean, yes, that's of course bad, but it seems like a relevant distinction whether it's uniquely bad or just a non-noteworthy participant in a bad ecosystem.)
    - t0astbread 7y ago
      Agreed. That's why I barely play games anymore these days and instead spend my free time switching to free software where I can. ^^
  - Faark 7y ago
    You should be fine with copying the ksp directory out of steams reach and run it from there, since the game doesn't appear to use Steam as copy protection. It certainly didn't when I was into modding years ago (still have quite a few older versions with different mods laying around) and even an up to date install still seems to start fine after exiting steam / doesn't contain any dlls looking like steamworks.
jammygit 7y ago
The spyware was called red shell, it would apparently track your web browsing to figure out how marketing campaigns were paying off. https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/8stnm3/red_shell_malware_removed_from_ksp_in_todays/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/8stnm3/...
- mcv 7y ago
  Is there a way to mod that out of the game? Everything I read about Squad makes me really not want to support anything they do, but KSP is one of the coolest games in recent history. It's a real shame the original devs didn't stay in control.
  - zaarn 7y ago
    If you follow the link in GP, you'll find a reddit post explaining it was removed in an update.
fsloth 7y ago
If you don't want to buy products made by employees treated badly don't buy games. Unless they are the few, cool, indie ones like Papers Please and so on. Employee treatment is a wide spread problem in the games industry. No unionization, and the pool of hires is continuously refreshed by new young naive people who've "always dreamt of working in games". I'm not saying that this is not an issue, but it's kind of obvious that this is a shit market for employees.

t0astbread 7y ago

Aside from those controversies, does anyone else find it kinda weird that KSP is not FOSS? I mean, I don't wanna sound like the guy that points an index finger at devs making proprietary software but I would've guessed they have the right kind of audience for that. (In the sense that their audience would still pay for the program and they might actually benefit from open sourcing it.)

jstummbillig 7y ago
Weird, yes, in a way. KSP always looked and felt very OSS to me. But in hindsight it seems very hard to argue with the route they chose, given the immense, improbable success they had.
derefr 7y ago
I wonder how difficult it would be to build a FOSS clone of the base game of KSP, that's ABI-compatible with all the mods.
- therein 7y ago
  The game targets Mono and written in C# so reverse engineering it should be simpler than a game compiled into a native binary.
liability 7y ago
Not so weird when you consider that there are very few open source games with open source assets. An open source engine, similar to OpenTTD, OpenRCT2, OpenMW, etc sure would be nice though.
- t0astbread 7y ago
  Yeah (unfortunately) but there are lots of open source space simulation programs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20518109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20518109
- Sendotsh 7y ago
  Godot? Seems to be popular and some pretty decent games have been made with it.
Aperocky 7y ago
I've never thought about this before, but now that you asked... We should totally create a FOSS KSP, say Kernux:KSP == Linux:Unix

hadlock 7y ago

Squad was/is a marketing company based out of Mexico. The owner of the company agreed to let his lead technical guy work on KSP as a side project as a bribe to keep him from leaving to do other things. KSP took off, and the team grew to more than five people. After the 1.0 release most (all) of the original team left, especially after they outsourced the console port to an outside team. The original KSP team are all now working on independent projects. KSP2 is sort of a Battlefield 5 type game, where somebody still owns the IP but the original team that built the engine/brought the magic is gone. It might be good, who knows. In my opinion I'm a little skeptical about KSP2 as the base KSP1 game was so moddable that I can't imagine what they would add to KSP 2 that isn't in the base game through mods already. But maybe it will be even better than the first.

t0astbread 7y ago
So that means the original devs were never really compensated and if I buy a KSP game nowadays I'm not supporting them either?
- hadlock 7y ago
  Well KSP launched several successful careers and also there's the goodwill of the owner of Squad who had the foresight to invest in his employee and his employee's skillset. But yes you are correct KSP is not owned by the original creative/creator, it's owned by their employer.
  - BEEdwards 7y ago
    >there's the goodwill of the owner of Squad who had the foresight to invest in his employee and his employee's skillset Sure if you ignore the whole once Squad realized they had a cash cow they treated the developers like shit until they all left. Companies investing in skill sets generally try to keep their cash cow men around.
    - ryandrake 7y ago
      It’s an interesting example to bring up next time one of those HN threads pop up about “Should I work on a side project while still working for my employer?”

Faark 7y ago

As for the spyware accusation... from what I read, Take Two slapped their usual privacy policy on the game after they bought it. The community didn't take that nicely. I don't remember ever seeing any evidence for spying beyond policy discussion and would be surprised if there is anything beyond common telemetry.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
This is incidentally a very warm experience for me - I remember launching KSP some time after 2018-05-25 and being greeted with a request for consent for tracking. And the ability to say "no".
t0astbread 7y ago
So it has neither been proven nor disproven that the game has privacy-invading telemetry but TT could add it in any day? Add to that that Steam forces you to update games if you wanna play them and that this probably affects all TT-owned games now.
- geofft 7y ago
  Isn't that true of the vast majority of software these days (e.g., the vast majority of Steam games)? (I mean, yes, that's of course bad, but it seems like a relevant distinction whether it's uniquely bad or just a non-noteworthy participant in a bad ecosystem.)
  - t0astbread 7y ago
    Agreed. That's why I barely play games anymore these days and instead spend my free time switching to free software where I can. ^^
- Faark 7y ago
  You should be fine with copying the ksp directory out of steams reach and run it from there, since the game doesn't appear to use Steam as copy protection. It certainly didn't when I was into modding years ago (still have quite a few older versions with different mods laying around) and even an up to date install still seems to start fine after exiting steam / doesn't contain any dlls looking like steamworks.

jammygit 7y ago

The spyware was called red shell, it would apparently track your web browsing to figure out how marketing campaigns were paying off. https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/8stnm3/red_shell_malware_removed_from_ksp_in_todays/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/8stnm3/...

mcv 7y ago
Is there a way to mod that out of the game? Everything I read about Squad makes me really not want to support anything they do, but KSP is one of the coolest games in recent history. It's a real shame the original devs didn't stay in control.
- zaarn 7y ago
  If you follow the link in GP, you'll find a reddit post explaining it was removed in an update.

fsloth 7y ago

If you don't want to buy products made by employees treated badly don't buy games. Unless they are the few, cool, indie ones like Papers Please and so on. Employee treatment is a wide spread problem in the games industry. No unionization, and the pool of hires is continuously refreshed by new young naive people who've "always dreamt of working in games". I'm not saying that this is not an issue, but it's kind of obvious that this is a shit market for employees.