Terrible project management doomed the game

[BOT Kotori]

When KSP2 was first released, I (and many of my friends in the software industry) was really surprised by the incredibly slow turnaround time for bug fixes and new features. What ever model in engineering they were using was planned and executed terribly and resulted in unbelievably slow development speed for the size of the team.
In many threads and comment sections, I was not alone in saying that if that was my team I would have been fired or PIPed really soon for the incompetency.
Now that actually happened, it is really a shame but the writing has been on the wall. The engineers were not necessarily bad and I'm sure many did not deserve it, but the management surely did. If personal emotions were put aside and I were an engineering SVP overseeing this project, honestly I would have cut the loss maybe even sooner TBH, it's that bad.
I honestly believe KSP is really one of the most important games to the future of humanity, as it helps to inspire countless people into aerospace and space flight, among which there might be the next generational leaders that will take us to the interplanetary age. It is really a shame that the project crashed like it did. Whoever ran the project should be held responsible for the blunder.

[ohthot1227]

Yeah, even much smaller teams dealing with less-profitable IP early access games would listen more to the steam forum and make more often and more major bugfixes.
I've never seen such a 'lazy' dev team.
And all the while making flamboyant fusses like they were doing something.
Come to think of it, I should have noticed THIS was there intital goal from the moment ksp2 was out.
I agree that T2 was also one of those scammed by the KSP2 dev team.

[chollman82]

Months ago they said they hadn't gotten much done because they had spent a lot of their time in "scrum meetings"... I've been a developer for almost 2 decades and that is just nonsense. It's either a blatant lie or evidence that no one there knew what they were doing. Imagine being 4 years into a project, a project that is already YEARS LATE, and telling people that you haven't made any progress in three months because you've been in meetings the whole time...

[Alshain]

Originally posted by chollman82:

Months ago they said they hadn't gotten much done because they had spent a lot of their time in "scrum meetings"... I've been a developer for almost 2 decades and that is just nonsense. It's either a blatant lie or evidence that no one there knew what they were doing. Imagine being 4 years into a project, a project that is already YEARS LATE, and telling people that you haven't made any progress in three months because you've been in meetings the whole time...

I've seen companies that didn't understand SCRUM that has that problem, but that is bad management so even if they were doing that, they still suck.

[OperationDx]

Originally posted by chollman82:

Months ago they said they hadn't gotten much done because they had spent a lot of their time in "scrum meetings"... I've been a developer for almost 2 decades and that is just nonsense. It's either a blatant lie or evidence that no one there knew what they were doing. Imagine being 4 years into a project, a project that is already YEARS LATE, and telling people that you haven't made any progress in three months because you've been in meetings the whole time...

So what games or programs have you worked on and published? Oh and I'm a Physician and have a bridge to sell you.

[MangoMan]

Originally posted by OperationDx:

So what games or programs have you worked on and published? Oh and I'm a Physician and have a bridge to sell you.

this is KSP, it is not surprising that there are some developers here

[OperationDx]

Oh I'm sure some developers do browse game forums but... I'm not buying this one based on interactions I have already had.

[Skorj]

Originally posted by chollman82:

Months ago they said they hadn't gotten much done because they had spent a lot of their time in "scrum meetings"... I've been a developer for almost 2 decades and that is just nonsense. It's either a blatant lie or evidence that no one there knew what they were doing. Imagine being 4 years into a project, a project that is already YEARS LATE, and telling people that you haven't made any progress in three months because you've been in meetings the whole time...

Eh, places like that do exist. I fixed one once. It was bizarre - no one, not even the managers, wanted to spend multiple hours a day in pointless meetings, but so one seemed able to stop. It just took one outsider to come in and yell at them all for being idiots and tell them to cancel all the stupid meetings. Everyone seemed happy about the change, yet no one had changed it before I showed up. People are weird, man.

[chollman82]

Originally posted by OperationDx:

Oh I'm sure some developers do browse game forums but... I'm not buying this one based on interactions I have already had.

I'm a firmware engineer for a multinational manufacturer of fiber optic test and measurement equipment. I design and implement the firmware and software for instruments like Optical Time-Domain Reflectometers, Optical Spectrum Analyzers, and Chromatic- and Polarity-Mode Dispersion Analyzers. Our old platform utilized the TI TMS320F2812 DSP with a custom hard-real-time OS written by myself. We also used the Epson S1D13706 display controller, Atmel AT45 dataflash chips, various port expanders and other auxiliary chips, and a few FTDI comm. chips. Our new platform is based on the Raspberry Pi CM4 chipset for the front-end with a yet-to-be-determined custom FPGA implementation for the data acquisition backend.

Good enough or do you need screenshots of my development environment?

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by chollman82:

Originally posted by OperationDx:

Oh I'm sure some developers do browse game forums but... I'm not buying this one based on interactions I have already had.

I'm a firmware engineer for a multinational manufacturer of fiber optic test and measurement equipment. I design and implement the firmware and software for instruments like Optical Time-Domain Reflectometers, Optical Spectrum Analyzers, and Chromatic- and Polarity-Mode Dispersion Analyzers.

What does that have to do with KSP2?

[chollman82]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by chollman82:

I'm a firmware engineer for a multinational manufacturer of fiber optic test and measurement equipment. I design and implement the firmware and software for instruments like Optical Time-Domain Reflectometers, Optical Spectrum Analyzers, and Chromatic- and Polarity-Mode Dispersion Analyzers.

What does that have to do with KSP2?

Absolutely nothing and I never said it did. This is what I said... you can just scroll up but whatever:


"Months ago they said they hadn't gotten much done because they had spent a lot of their time in "scrum meetings"... I've been a developer for almost 2 decades and that is just nonsense. It's either a blatant lie or evidence that no one there knew what they were doing. Imagine being 4 years into a project, a project that is already YEARS LATE, and telling people that you haven't made any progress in three months because you've been in meetings the whole time..."

The projects I work on are more complex than this game, and ultimately software development is software development. I don't think anyone here is claiming art, sound, music, or 3D modelling is what killed KSP2.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by chollman82:

...I don't think anyone here is claiming art, sound, music, or 3D modelling is what killed KSP2.

Nope, incompetence killed this game. 100% and I'm sure their scrum meetings probably took multiple hours along with their sprint planning (defeating the entire purpose). They were about as "agile" as a sloth.

[chollman82]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by chollman82:

...I don't think anyone here is claiming art, sound, music, or 3D modelling is what killed KSP2.

Nope, incompetence killed this game. 100% and I'm sure their scrum meetings probably took multiple hours along with their sprint planning (defeating the entire purpose). They were about as "agile" as a sloth.

Agreed. My only point was that as a software developer with significant experience using "meetings" as an excuse for no recognizable progress in nearly 3 months is just nonsense.

This guy OperationDx has some problem with me from a different thread so he's here accusing me of lying about things, that's why I posted all the irrelevant details.

[Dalek1967]

I'm guessing that they grossly underestimated how much effort it would be to replicate the features of KSP. They ended up releasing a dumpster fire, but their deliverables were still all tied to the road-map*. They have been shoveling sand ever since.

*Early on someone probably guessed "eh, 6-8 months for each feature" and they were tied to those dates.

Still interesting:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/

[JimmyTheSaltyMelon]

OuterSpace is not real this is a fictional GAME don't be fooled

[fullerfamily]

I have zero evidence, but I would put my money on your conclusion.

I have been around enough software development to see questionable statements. It seems every time we got an update they were redefining their development process/plan/schedule. Then the new model would last a total of zero releases, until the moved to a different model. Was the constant change a cause, symptom, or uncorrelated? I would like to find out someday.