A message to Nate Simpson - super worth playing

[toto]

1 - The game is absolutely gorgeous and perfectly playable. I am about to finish collecting all the available science in the game. Obviously I have to clean up Eve last. It is an absolute bargain at that price. It has hours upon hours of fun in it. To me it completely blows out of the water an idiotic fps battle royal shoot them up brain dead game people buy at that price without thinking twice. Customers are not screwed at all. No reasonable adult living in a rich country can seriously complain this 40 euros deal That was anyway directed at people owning a 2000 euros pc.

2 - The game was stopped because it was not selling well. People who invested their savings into its creation lost their money and are the first victims of this business failure. Some projects work and others don't. it is a part of investing money. So "no cry no tears" is an acceptable reaction here.

3 - The game didn't sell well because it was not ready on time so obviously one can blame partly every single person involved from devs to executives to HR to whoever you want to blame. Any project is a team work. People working on the project received their salaries. They were let go when it failed but it's not like they worked for free or anything. So no harm done there either really. Life has its set-backs.

4 - The game didn't sell well because KSP influencers didn't encourage people to buy it. I guess it's not their job to be advertisers but it is what it is. Those people have far reaching voices. Once some of them had expressed some doubts, the game is pretty much over. Product adoption is a crowd dynamic phenomena that doesn't really manage stop and go's very well. Those influencers still got views and stuff from their reviews. They would have had more business in the pipe if the game succeeded but here again no real harm done.

So anyway mister Simpson, you had a job, you did it the best you could. Your job was to lead a team and to market a product. These tasks always involve some "overoptimistic" discours. Leaders always try to look like they know exactly where they are going and that they are completely confident that they will get there. This is how they get people to start moving together and actually push together in the same direction. You had to lead your team/colleagues, your shareholders/executives, your clients/gamers and your reviewers/influencers. You did alright. You could have done better. I don't think you are guilty of promising too much to your clients or pushing too much your team mates. Project managers are in the business of delivering a baby (project) and like a good mama bear they are known to devore anybody who might be a threat to their offspring. Film directors are usually good examples of that phenomenon. In the movie business as well you can have project managers deeply invested emotionally in the project. In less arty lines of business that is in general not regarded as a desirable starting point. I am just saying...

Anyway in conclusion here are my points.
You screwed no one, not even your share holders, as long you did your best and it seems that you did.
You can do better because you are still breathing.
Social media and the internet don't really exist, f them all.
Keep up the good work and thank you for the hours upon hours of fun I had for 40 bucks.

[SpacesuitSPF9000]

Alternate perspective. A lot of people lost their jobs because Nate didn't know how to manage a project of this size. Him making social media posts recently is just damage control for his image so he can try to get hired for something else. Yes, he's a person, but so are we. And buddy, we got screwed.

[Skorj]

Personally, I think both Nate and the technical director did a mediocre job. For some games that would have been OK. But with the constraints imposed by T2, and the difficulty of KSP as a game ... not even close. We needed studio management that was actually good at it, and clearly we didn't get that.

Here's hoping the KSP IP gets sold off to someone good.

[DaS]

Originally posted by Skorj:

Personally, I think both Nate and the technical director did a mediocre job. For some games that would have been OK. But with the constraints imposed by T2, and the difficulty of KSP as a game ... not even close. We needed studio management that was actually good at it, and clearly we didn't get that.

Here's hoping the KSP IP gets sold off to someone good.

To be fair no one could have seen this project to completion with the barriers to success T2 and studio heads imposed:
1 Capped salaries well below industry standard (even the pay standards before AI started rising it)
2 many on-borders not even knowing what project they got hired for
3 Engineers not allowed to consult the writers of the code/systems they are working on.
That is like handing someone UNreal with no tutorials, no GUI, no instructions/help files, no documentation, no videos, and no one mentoring....good luck

For most of the project (across both studios) they only had 2 individuals who I would rate as senior and knowledgeable, 1 an engineer who also had degree in aerospace, one a graphics eng who quit(sometime in the intercept days I think)

GOD himself couldn't have salvaged that

[[BLK] Telu]

I would love to cheer for Nate but the guy don't have a good background in the video game industry. T2 did sabotage KSP2 but still, Intercept took the community from above and Nate lied multiple time on camera. Making false promise and selling JPEG.

He is crying because he can't find a job but that's all his fault.

[DaS]

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

I would love to cheer for Nate but the guy don't have a good background in the video game industry. T2 did sabotage KSP2 but still, Intercept took the community from above and Nate lied multiple time on camera. Making false promise and selling JPEG.

He is crying because he can't find a job but that's all his fault.

I'm the last to say he's blameless, but there is a reason your given a script in PR roles as a developer. The fact they didn't, and kept putting him out there(even after he made....questionable statements), says interesting things. Not a single person from marketing in either of the studios nor PD or T2 EVER did an interview that I can find.....interesting...... These days I view NS more as a bucket of chum, or an eager puppy, than the shark

EDIT mostly the guy just isn't mean enough to thrive in the environment I suspect he was in.

[[BLK] Telu]

Bad management anyway. I know a lot of game with good roadmap able to achieve their goal. Medieval Dynasty & Oxygen Not Included are still receiving update after all those years. Proving than it's so easy to make a good game if you want to.

[DaS]

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

Bad management anyway. I know a lot of game with good roadmap able to achieve their goal. Medieval Dynasty & Oxygen Not Included are still receiving update after all those years. Proving than it's so easy to make a good game if you want to.

Hell look at Days Gone they managed to make a walk and talk narrative delivery(...well ride and talk....) that wasn't as bad as cut scenes. Except for the mountain island stroll...(that was the dogs balls) I don't know how many NPC's I've had to follow and screamed "can you not walk faster you *(&*(&*(&#*(^(*^(&^&*$^&(^#$&*6(&^(&" I had the unfortunate experience of playing starfields opening right after a 2nd play through of days gone.....I had to buy a new monitor lol

[[BLK] Telu]

It's funny to see a company like T2 failing to deliver. Knowing than they made RDR2, a game made with care about tiny RP stuff everywhere.

[DaS]

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

It's funny to see a company like T2 failing to deliver. Knowing than they made RDR2, a game made with care about tiny RP stuff everywhere.

to be fair now that i'm thinking of Starfield I kinda wish T2(or t least CDPR) had been involved. fewer loading screens if nothing else. :D

[[BLK] Telu]

Yep, would have been great. Because, Bethesda is bad at this.

[Macro]

Originally posted by toto:

4 - The game didn't sell well because KSP influencers didn't encourage people to buy it. I guess it's not their job to be advertisers but it is what it is. Those people have far reaching voices. Once some of them had expressed some doubts, the game is pretty much over. Product adoption is a crowd dynamic phenomena that doesn't really manage stop and go's very well. Those influencers still got views and stuff from their reviews. They would have had more business in the pipe if the game succeeded but here again no real harm_ done.

Are you kidding? It's not really the job of streamers to lie for a money-greedy company that hired fail developers in the first place and try to sell and advertise a broken dumpsterfire of a game.

[Dragonsmen]

The fact that 7 years of development with a much larger team couldn't even get close to what KSP was, their poor sales weren't because it wasn't promoted it's because the game was overpriced and under delivered

[[BLK] Telu]

And the fact than the dev team didn't find "fun" all the features from KSP1. Nate is, apparently, not talking about that mistake. This team never wanted to satisfied the end customer. We got a sandbox game and a tutorial at launch. They were here only for the money.

I still don't understand why they put the KSP1 code in a trash in the first place. Knowing than they worked on it for years before starting KSP2.

[Kadaeux]

Originally posted by toto:

1 - The game is absolutely gorgeous and perfectly playable. I am about to finish collecting all the available science in the game. Obviously I have to clean up Eve last. It is an absolute bargain at that price. It has hours upon hours of fun in it. To me it completely blows out of the water an idiotic fps battle royal shoot them up brain dead game people buy at that price without thinking twice. Customers are not screwed at all. No reasonable adult living in a rich country can seriously complain this 40 euros deal That was anyway directed at people owning a 2000 euros pc.

2 - The game was stopped because it was not selling well. People who invested their savings into its creation lost their money and are the first victims of this business failure. Some projects work and others don't. it is a part of investing money. So "no cry no tears" is an acceptable reaction here.

3 - The game didn't sell well because it was not ready on time so obviously one can blame partly every single person involved from devs to executives to HR to whoever you want to blame. Any project is a team work. People working on the project received their salaries. They were let go when it failed but it's not like they worked for free or anything. So no harm done there either really. Life has its set-backs.

4 - The game didn't sell well because KSP influencers didn't encourage people to buy it. I guess it's not their job to be advertisers but it is what it is. Those people have far reaching voices. Once some of them had expressed some doubts, the game is pretty much over. Product adoption is a crowd dynamic phenomena that doesn't really manage stop and go's very well. Those influencers still got views and stuff from their reviews. They would have had more business in the pipe if the game succeeded but here again no real harm done.

So anyway mister Simpson, you had a job, you did it the best you could. Your job was to lead a team and to market a product. These tasks always involve some "overoptimistic" discours. Leaders always try to look like they know exactly where they are going and that they are completely confident that they will get there. This is how they get people to start moving together and actually push together in the same direction. You had to lead your team/colleagues, your shareholders/executives, your clients/gamers and your reviewers/influencers. You did alright. You could have done better. I don't think you are guilty of promising too much to your clients or pushing too much your team mates. Project managers are in the business of delivering a baby (project) and like a good mama bear they are known to devore anybody who might be a threat to their offspring. Film directors are usually good examples of that phenomenon. In the movie business as well you can have project managers deeply invested emotionally in the project. In less arty lines of business that is in general not regarded as a desirable starting point. I am just saying...

Anyway in conclusion here are my points.
You screwed no one, not even your share holders, as long you did your best and it seems that you did.
You can do better because you are still breathing.
Social media and the internet don't really exist, f them all.
Keep up the good work and thank you for the hours upon hours of fun I had for 40 bucks.

1: Not super fun. Not super bargain. Had less features and reliability than the original and more bugs to boot.

2/3: It didn't sell well because it failed to even equal the first game for content and quality.

4: Nobody encouraged people to buy it because, at the risk of repeating myself, it failed to even equal its predecessor.

Can't believe you're going to try and fellate such a failure of a human being as Nate.

[haize]

Dear Nate,

This game is a cluster**** and I want to know what your team was actually doing for 5 years. You may not have been the one to decide to shut down development, but you were absolutely one of the people that made so little progress TT didn't think they had another choice.

You can publish all the BS youtube videos you want trying to justify your actions but they nothing but BS excuses. You guys developed and sold the game under false pretenses, and if I were paying for 5 years of development and ended up with a garbage product like KSP2, I'd have closed your asp's down too.

Sincerely,
Someone who loves KSP1 and despises what you and your team did to KSP2.

P.S. Feel free to shove PAIGE up your rasphole.