[HN Gopher] Kerbal Space Program 2 release disrupted by corporat...
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Kerbal Space Program 2 release disrupted by corporate strife
Author : tboerstad
Score : 269 points
Date : 2020-06-03 12:37 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| [deleted]
| speeder wrote:
| 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)
| gnulinux wrote:
| I'm curious why did you think it was impossible?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| KSP takes some liberties with physics, simplifying things so
| that e.g. the N-body does not apply (that is, your craft are
| only affected by one body at once). Other challenges are the
| scale and number precision. It doesn't get it exactly right
| either, especially when you use the time accelleration,
| things can go a bit... weird. See
| https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Deep_Space_Kraken
| garaetjjte wrote:
| KSP community implemented n-body physics:
| https://github.com/mockingbirdnest/Principia
| sq_ wrote:
| > Principia is released on every new moon with whatever
| features and bug fixes are ready at the time. This
| ensures relatively timely improvements and bug fixes.
|
| This may be the funniest/best way to say "we have a
| roughly monthly release cadence" that I've ever seen.
| afterburner wrote:
| Any idea how well it works? Are there trade offs, or is
| it all upside, physics-fidelity-wise?
| cydonian_monk wrote:
| It worked really well when I used it. It replaces a bunch
| of the stock navigation tools, and takes a bit of
| learning, but really seemed to be a good n-body
| simulation engine. It's been well over a year since I
| touched KSP though, so I can't speak for the current
| versions of either Principia or the base game.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| We don't really know the scope of the original pitch, so
| hard to make a determination of feasibility. But yes, a
| fully modeled spacecraft simulator would have been
| effectively impossible.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Goes to show that you don't need a _fully_ modeled
| simulator, you need modeled _enough_ , and then to
| iterate on it.
|
| (And let the community do some of the hard work for you.
| With appropriate mods, KSP can have a very realistic
| aerodynamics model (that handles supersonic speeds as
| well), and - as others mentioned - n-body physics
| simulation.)
| mrfredward wrote:
| There may not be an analytic solution, but solving the
| n-body problem numerically with newtonian physics isn't a
| difficult thing to do...it's simple enough that it has been
| used as a benchmark for doing computations:
| https://benchmarksgame-
| team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| I'm sure they know this. The problem is that n-body
| simulations don't scale well with simulation speed. In
| KSP you can speed up time by up to 100,000x, which is
| essential for gameplay. If you want the same accuracy for
| n-body at that speed, you'll also need to do 100,000x the
| calculations. Whereas with KSPs simplified model you can
| calculate the position in orbit at arbitrary points in
| time, making 100,000x just as computationally expensive
| as 10x.
| bkanber wrote:
| I don't know which integrators they're using but an
| algorithm like RKF45 should handle time acceleration with
| adaptive step sizes no problem. As grandparent said,
| n-body is very well-known.
|
| Regardless, KSP's workaround of using SOIs is simple and
| quite effective.
| mrfredward wrote:
| The top entry in my link above simulates 50 million years
| in 6 seconds for an n=6 system. That's
| 11,000,000,000,000X running on a normal PC.
| outworlder wrote:
| Why are we all arguing about this if there is already a
| mod that implements N-body for KSP? It even positions
| celestial objects according to the calculations, with
| some changes because the stock system is unstable.
|
| https://github.com/mockingbirdnest/Principia
| e_y_ wrote:
| From a gameplay perspective, there isn't much sense in a
| full N-body simulation. Players only care about their
| spacecraft, which is a restricted three-body problem
| (small spacecraft, massive gravitational bodies) outside
| of special cases like gravity tractors. And the
| simplified two-body SOI worked pretty well in practice.
|
| In any case, the bigger gameplay problem tends to be the
| vehicle physics simulation, where you have hundreds+
| parts interacting and not in the most stable fashion
| especially above 2x time warp. That's the part that
| seemed amazing when KSP first came out, moreso than the
| orbital simulation (although the solar system exploration
| clinched the overall experience).
| perl4ever wrote:
| I haven't played the game, and I don't know if it
| _matters_ , but I would think that considering the
| processing necessary for attractive graphics in today's
| world, doing the physics right would have a cost too
| small to practically measure.
|
| I don't understand how something that could easily be
| done on an 8 MHz computer in 1985 could strain a modern
| machine. Especially if you look up a decent algorithm and
| don't do the naive one.
|
| Maybe there is some misunderstanding. Like, "n-body" to
| me doesn't imply a detailed simulation of inhomogenities
| in the celestial objects, like in real life they talk
| about mascons and such when landing on the moon. I'm
| assuming it's just that you calculate the forces of each
| body on every other body. And while you can do better
| than a simple N^2 calculation, if you have less than a
| dozen what does it matter?
| philwelch wrote:
| From a gameplay perspective, I would love to put some
| propellant depots at Lagrangian points.
| sq_ wrote:
| KSP is already _heavily_ CPU-bound, so I wonder if part
| of the reason they 've avoided implementing n-body in the
| game is that it would crater framerates and simulation
| speed.
| speeder wrote:
| The aerodynamics, he was then a flight simulator modder, and
| said his dream was to make a game where you could use parts
| to build an arbitrarily shaped airplane and it would
| calculate automatically the aerodynamics, because the manual
| setup of aerodynamics for flight simulator was really bad and
| annoying.
|
| Granted wasn't him that implemented airplane aerodynamics on
| KSP (it was a modder of KSP, his mod being considered
| "mandatory" with how much it changed the game physics)
| shadowgovt wrote:
| You had the right instinct---what he's describing is done
| by X-Plane, but X-Plane started as an aerodynamics sim tool
| that became a flight simulator, so they had to swallow the
| hard-part elephant before getting to the game part of it.
|
| (On the other hand, someone should note that maybe both our
| instincts are flawed, because you could also see the
| X-Plane story and say "Why can't he do it? It's been done
| before!" ;) )
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| http://archive.is/IWOo5
| StavrosK wrote:
| That link redirects me to https://ungleich.ch/en-
| us/cms/blog/2019/09/11/turn-off-doh-f..., which, what the
| hell?
|
| It also seems to be conflating me using CloudFlare's DNS with
| me using DoH. Also, they're ironically removing my choice,
| because I chose CloudFlare's DNS yet I can't see the content
| because of that.
| Operyl wrote:
| Sounds about right given Archive.is has this feud going on
| with Cloudflare.
|
| https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/
| StavrosK wrote:
| I guess, but being against DoH just because the default
| for that is Cloudflare is throwing the baby out with the
| bathwater.
| Operyl wrote:
| Yeah, who even knows. I think it's all petty to be
| honest.
| StavrosK wrote:
| I spoke with the creator of archive.is a while back, he
| uses the location from DNS to protect archive.is against
| some attacks, and the Cloudflare cache breaks things for
| him because they return the cached result instead of a
| live one.
|
| It's an unfortunate situation, but it doesn't look like
| an easy solution exists on either side.
| Operyl wrote:
| Cloudflare denied that though.
| StavrosK wrote:
| As far as I know, Cloudflare said they tried to work with
| him, I don't know anything about denying caching.
| Operyl wrote:
| Cloudflare said they filtered EDNS subnet passthrough.
| They did provide alternative location data, though. Given
| that Cloudflare has _tons_ of data centers, in all parts
| of the world, this granularity seems good enough for what
| Archive.is required.
|
| > EDNS IP subsets can be used to better geolocate
| responses for services that use DNS-based load balancing.
| However, 1.1.1.1 is delivered across Cloudflare's entire
| network that today spans 180 cities. We publish the
| geolocation information of the IPs that we query from.
| That allows any network with less density than we have to
| properly return DNS-targeted results. For a relatively
| small operator like archive.is, there would be no loss in
| geo load balancing fidelity relying on the location of
| the Cloudflare PoP in lieu of EDNS IP subnets.
|
| > We are working with the small number of networks with a
| higher network/ISP density than Cloudflare (e.g.,
| Netflix, Facebook, Google/YouTube) to come up with an
| EDNS IP Subnet alternative that gets them the information
| they need for geolocation targeting without risking user
| privacy and security. Those conversations have been
| productive and are ongoing. If archive.is has suggestions
| along these lines, we'd be happy to consider them.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
| StavrosK wrote:
| Yes, but his reply was that they cache DNS results, so
| someone querying from France would get the cached result,
| which might be in the US. Seems a bit counterintuitive,
| but I'm just relaying what he told me.
| Operyl wrote:
| I haven't noticed that behavior. DNS caching doesn't
| appear to propagate outside of a PoP, at least from my
| testing.
| akersten wrote:
| They're sending the full article and just putting an overlay on
| it, so reader mode or inspect element will clean it right up.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| No loyalty nor generosity in the game business. Everybody out for
| a buck. Eat or be eaten. I think that summarizes it?
| tree3 wrote:
| Hmm? It sounds to me like there is a lot of generosity- Take
| Two poaching a lot of engineers, offering them nice bonuses.
| The employees are the ones winning in this story
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Not necessarily. The employees may have been stuck between a
| rock and a hard place. If amazon sent your whole team
| messages saying they'll hire you or crush you, taking the job
| at amazon might be more like trying to keep your job.
| Especially as others start to take the offer. The only thing
| saying the bonuses were nice bonus was the "hey come join us"
| email, and we all know what those are worth.
|
| One of the people involved said he didn't take the offer
| because he didn't think he'd get the same benefits. Since the
| contract stuff was about royalties, it might be that joining
| take-two meant trading royalties for salary/bonus, and as
| interest grew in KSP2, that might be a shitty deal.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Because it was cheaper than dealing with their current
| employer. All about controlling costs. The bonus was
| carefully calculated to balance the development costs versus
| contract costs.
|
| Those employees can expect precisely nothing once the game is
| complete, unless coincidentally their new employer has
| another project they can be immediately put to work on.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| That would have been the same result after the game was
| finished either way, given that Star was only a contractor.
|
| At least at Take Two the employees have the possibility of
| working on other games.
| Dayshine wrote:
| > 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)
| vl wrote:
| Another interesting thing is how they managed to acquire assets
| - somebody had to transfer source code, art, specs, etc.
|
| Also, by this locally-optimized move they sacrificed ability to
| work with other independents in the future, ie top independents
| will less likely to work with them.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > 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?
|
| This is common in the enterprise software world, from what I've
| seen.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| They walked away from the deal... no contract.
| marcinzm wrote:
| They had a previous contract for the work up to that point.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They walked away from the acquisition deal, but this:
|
| > the same game Star Theory had been developing
|
| certainly means they had an earlier contract.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| No, they walked away from a buyout deal, they had a contract
| with take two to develop KSP2.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| From the article, it seems like the contract was ending,
| and there were talks of a 6mo extension when everything
| came apart.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Non-solicit agreements often extend well beyond the terms
| of work, a year or two seem to be common.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They would, but the consultancy company would want you to buy
| them out (it has happened with some of my colleagues), and
| that's not going to be cheap.
|
| There's also been at least one instance where people left the
| company and were rehired by their client during the do-not-
| compete timeout of a year; in practice, a do-not-compete clause
| cannot be enforced in a court, and given that the client is
| several orders of magnitude larger in terms of finances than
| the consultancy company, a legal battle wouldn't pan out the
| way they want it to.
|
| So the guy took the job and the risk, and he still works there.
| Probably earns a lot more as well.
| ghaff wrote:
| >in practice, a do-not-compete clause cannot be enforced in a
| court
|
| Depends. I've known consulting companies that have absolutely
| enforced them--though the circumstances have usually been
| around someone setting up their own shop rather than going to
| a client.
|
| The broader issue with non-competes is more chilling effect
| than than actual enforcement. When I was with a small
| consulting firm we wouldn't touch anyone who had an even
| vaguely related non-compete. Just wasn't worth the risk or
| even the effort/cost of getting a lawyer involved.
| Havoc wrote:
| Anti-poaching clauses are basically unenforceable. At most you
| can add a clause that they may not approach your employees. If
| the employee is willing to tell a white lie on who
| approach/hinted at whom that's easily circumvented.
|
| Cleanest version I've seen thus far is a financial penalty
| built in that is probably not enforceable but is carefully
| calibrated so that it's "fk it just pay it instead of making a
| legal fuss about it & ruining a good commercial relationship on
| top of it". Leaves everyone somewhat unhappy but nobody left
| empty-handed. Both sides saw it as cost of doing business in a
| way.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Anti-poaching clauses are basically unenforceable.
|
| Not as part of a contract for work, otherwise, the entire
| contract labor market that involves specific payment for
| customers hiring workers off of the contact would die as
| customers would just ignore the "unenforceable" restrictions
| and hire desired employees without the contracted payment to
| the intermediary firm.
|
| Standalone anti-poaching agreements between competing firms
| are generally unenforceable (and also potentially outright
| illegal and actionable.)
| tedivm wrote:
| > the entire contract labor market that involves specific
| payment for customers hiring workers off of the contact
| would die as customers would just ignore the
| "unenforceable" restrictions and hire desired employees
| without the contracted payment to the intermediary firm.
|
| I've seen this happen over and over again, and I've even
| been in this situation myself. One of my first
| subcontracting jobs ended with me being contracted directly
| by the company I was was subcontracted to, and there was
| literally nothing that anyone could do (or really even care
| to do).
|
| This doesn't mean the contract labor force is going to die
| off- generally speaking people who hire contractors want
| contractors, not employees, for a variety of reasons
| (financial commitment, not having to manage the HR aspects
| of the employee, knowing that you can let the contractors
| go without having to notify the state of a lay off).
| privateprofile wrote:
| >> 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.
|
| I'm amazed that people sign contracts accepting this kind of
| restrictions to their lives.
|
| That's (fortunately) illegal in the EU country I live in, as it
| creates artificial barriers in the job "market", i.e. it is
| illegal to limit people's access to work. Still, cartel
| practices like not hiring from "friendly companies" abound.
|
| >> 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?
|
| I see contracts imposing restrictions like this all the time
| where I live, and people sadly just nod and accept, but these
| clauses never hold up in court as no company has a right to
| decide where people can or can't work.
|
| Having worked as a consultant, I'm repulsed by the idea that
| I'd need my company's permission to leave and go work for a
| client. Especially because the provision stinks of "cheaper
| than actually investing in people retention". If the issue is
| intellectual property transfer, that's what an NDA is for.
| apercu wrote:
| > I'm amazed that people sign contracts accepting this kind
| of restrictions to their lives.
|
| I'm amazed that there are people out there who think we have
| a choice. I would not have my most important clients if I
| refused to sign non-solicitation clauses.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >That's (fortunately) illegal in the EU country I live in, as
| it creates artificial barriers in the job "market", i.e. it
| is illegal to limit people's access to work. Still, cartel
| practices like not hiring from "friendly companies" abound.
|
| Interesting. I've heard of EU countries where leaving a job
| requires giving 2+ months of notice or paying a large
| financial penalty.
| distances wrote:
| Yes, it's usually three months in Germany. It's a bit on
| the long side but I don't mind that much. I guess I've been
| lucky to have only nice working environments so I've never
| been in any particular hurry to leave.
| CJefferson wrote:
| No-one was stopping Star Theory employees from going to work
| for Take-Two.
|
| The problem was when Take-Two messaged every worker at the
| company and said "We've just bankrupted the studio you work
| for. Come work for us on the same product you were working on
| before".
| tzs wrote:
| > I'm amazed that people sign contracts accepting this kind
| of restrictions to their lives.
|
| I believe he's talking about a contract between the
| companies, not contracts with individual employees. That may
| be different.
|
| An employer making an employee sign a contract saying that
| they won't work elsewhere without the employer's permission
| has obvious problems, such as the vast (usually) difference
| in bargaining power between an employer and an individual
| employee, and it gives the employer massive control over the
| employee's life.
|
| I believe that those are the main reasons many jurisdictions
| make such clauses unenforceable.
|
| In the case of two companies making a deal that company A
| will buy a service from company B and not hire away B's
| employees, you are much less likely to have such a great
| disparity in bargaining power. Unless it's a very small
| industry, B's employees probably have many other job
| opportunities in that industry besides A and other companies
| B has worked for.
|
| That suggests that there might not be such strong public
| policy reasons for make such contract unenforceable,
| especially if they have some time limit such as B's employees
| can't be hired by A for a year after working on B's service
| for A.
|
| Almost every court case I can recall hearing of in this area
| was either (1) contracts between companies and individual
| employees, not between companies, or (2) arrangements between
| competing companies to try to limit labor mobility to keep
| salaries down, which raised antitrust issues.
| Dayshine wrote:
| > Having worked as a consultant, I'm repulsed by the idea
| that I'd need my company's permission to leave and go work
| for a client
|
| For a large consultancy with many clients, I agree.
|
| But when a significant portion of your employer's income is a
| single client:
|
| Are you comfortable with that single client of your employer
| having a strong incentive to make your job redundant so they
| can try to hire you under worse terms (as you suddenly lost
| your job)?
|
| You don't need your company's permission, you're unemployed.
|
| I guess what I'm thinking is something more along the lines
| of not hiring employees immediately after making them
| redundant through your own actions?
| privateprofile wrote:
| >> Are you comfortable with that single client of your
| employer having a strong incentive to make your job
| redundant so they can try to hire you under worse terms (as
| you suddenly lost your job)?
|
| I understand what you mean, and that situation doesn't seem
| desirable either, but I think that that is very uncommon
| when compared to companies trying to retain/squeeze
| employees using contracts with employment restrictions.
| jon-wood wrote:
| Most consultancies defend themselves from this sort of
| behaviour in two directions. Firstly there'll be clauses in the
| consulting contract stating that the client can't hire anyone
| who's worked on their project for [n] months after completion
| (sometimes with the caveat that they can, but there'll be a
| recruitment fee due to the consultancy). Secondly employees of
| the consultancy will have non-compete clauses in their
| employment contracts stating much the same thing.
|
| The interesting bit here is if Star Theory are going out of
| business then any contracts will presumably become void because
| one of the signatories has ceased to exist.
| e_y_ wrote:
| Companies closing their doors doesn't necessarily mean
| ceasing to exist. Sometimes it ends up in a holding company
| with one person (a lawyer) to close up any loose ends and
| liquidate assets.
|
| Although in Star Theory's case, their development contract
| was coming to an end, so it's possible it had already expired
| at that point. And the contract may have also had certain
| required metrics like development progress and financial
| health that would lead to it being terminated in cases where
| the company was effectively defunct.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > 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?
|
| In my experience, this is one of the main points that legal
| counsel argues with every contract.
|
| If your company is being contracted to do work, your legal
| counsel will want to add a non-solicitation clause to the
| contract to prevent the other company from recruiting your
| employees.
|
| If your company is contracting with a smaller company to do
| work for you, your legal counsel will want to strike any non-
| solicit clauses so they have the option to hire people out of
| that company later. If the other company is desperate enough
| for the contract, they might allow this. Otherwise they'll
| refuse the work.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Please don't use the word "poached" to describe getting
| employees to voluntarily join your company by offering better
| compensation. Unlike animal poaching, employee poaching is
| actually good for the employees being poached. In the name of
| preventing "poaching" many Silicon Valley companies in the past
| engaged in an illegal scheme to fix employee wages.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm not sure you can necessarily call it _voluntary_ if the
| offer comes paired with "oh and we're bankrupting your
| current employer".
| marcinzm wrote:
| >Unlike animal poaching, employee poaching is actually good
| for the employees being poached.
|
| That depends on their negotiation positions. "We're
| effectively killing your employer, you can join us for 10%
| less salary or take your luck on the job market." This
| situation was more akin to a mass prisoner's dilemma than
| standard poaching.
| Dayshine wrote:
| > to describe getting employees to voluntarily join your
| company by offering better compensation
|
| Huh? They withdrew the contract from their current employer,
| making them redundant, _then_ offered them a job.
|
| I'm not sure abusing your position of power as sole "client"
| to bankrupt my employer to hire me counts as "offering better
| compensation".
|
| If not poaching, perhaps coercing, compelling, forcing?
| munk-a wrote:
| In this case the employees were faced with a decision to lose
| their jobs working on KSP2 or take whatever Take-Two was
| offering. I agree that normally "poaching" is word used by
| some really slimly people who want to make sure labour
| doesn't realize how much it is worth - so it'd be great if a
| different term was used above. But in this case it might
| actually be an accurately illustrative word for what actually
| happened.
| MattyMc wrote:
| I don't think people are interpreting the term "poached" as
| literally as you are. Losing an employee to a competitor is
| bad for a company, especially bad for a small company, hence
| the negative connotation.
| GuiA wrote:
| "Poaching" is terminology used by recruiters/executives
| precisely to control the narrative, and justify the kind of
| employee-hostile decisions that OP is referring to.
|
| It makes sense to reconsider the use of that word given
| that employers competing on wages and benefits does benefit
| the employees.
| Dayshine wrote:
| Would you describe this as Poaching:
|
| - Finding a small zoo
|
| - Deliberately bankrupting them
|
| - Buying their animals cheap and slaughtering them
|
| In my mind Poaching equates to using illegal or unethical
| means to hunt animals. Bankrupting a zoo to rid the
| animals of their protection feels like that to me.
| sk0g wrote:
| It's used a lot in sports, where one team "poaches
| exciting talent" from another, etc. so I don't see a
| problem with it myself.
| nogabebop23 wrote:
| This is not true at all. Professional athletes are all
| independent contractors with explicitly defined terms of
| engagement and restrictions on changing employers. They
| even call it "free agency". This is a different legal
| beast than a standard employment agreement.
| baseballdork wrote:
| It is absolutely true that poaching is a common term in
| sports[1].
|
| [1]
| https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2023482-5-milwaukee-
| buck...
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| You're making a lot of assumptions that this is a win for
| the employees. Besides the fact that the employees in
| question were quite literally being given the choice of
| "come work for us or lose your job", there's things like
| the quote below from TFA:
|
| 'Patrick Meade, a senior engineer at Star Theory, said he
| turned down the job offer from Take-Two. He declined to
| discuss the events in detail but said he didn't want to
| work for a big company where he wouldn't have the same
| degree of influence or financial benefits if the game
| were a hit. "I was at a small studio, where the work I
| did had a massive impact on our success," Meade said.
| "When I see myself at any large corporation, that is
| fundamentally not true."'
|
| It's not all about wages. (But even if it were, notice
| that he chose not to take the offer because of the lesser
| profit sharing. So it's not just a net win, even for
| those that did take the offer.)
| msh wrote:
| Well poaching is a illegal act, none of the behavior above
| is illegal.
| rowawey wrote:
| You're erroneously conflating two different uses of the
| same word. It means both things, but control-freak SJWs
| don't get to sanitize every meaning of every word.
| rowawey wrote:
| This is such a stupid assertion and attempt to control
| others. The world isn't going to sanitize every terminology
| word because you say so. Get a grip.
| shmerl wrote:
| 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.
| staz wrote:
| Squad totally abused the original dev see the other comments in
| the thread. Take Two have some Linux games (mainly Civ,
| Borderland and X-Com)
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| If these are the people that dicked over the original team on
| bonuses and are now getting karma... then good riddance.
| marcinzm wrote:
| The original developer (Squad) was bought by Take-Two who then
| contracted Star Theory to develop KSP2. Take-Two then screwed
| over Star Theory.
|
| Or in other words, same people who dicked over the original
| team, now dicked over another team, and probably have enough
| content done to still make a financial killing in the process.
| Given the pandemic I suspect they'll hire on the rest of the
| Star Theory team at a steep discount as well.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I heard Squad screwed over the developers of KSP as well,
| their wages were low compared to how successful the game was.
| mhh__ wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/55xv60/kerbal_spac
| e... (thread with some sources)
|
| Squad were paying the original developers next to nothing
| for working full time on KSP
| bdowling wrote:
| 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.
| codezero wrote:
| Said a different way, a small studio tried to stand up for its
| developers, so they would be rewarded for their hard work, and
| they got strong armed by an industry goliath so they could keep
| all the profits.
| beckingz wrote:
| 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.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Oh it's _them_? Wow, hadn 't heard that Uber Entertainment had
| changed their name.
|
| (Planetary Annihilation was not a bad game; it just wasn't the
| Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander sequel that people were
| expecting.)
| beckingz wrote:
| It wasn't a bad game. Definitely.
|
| That said, they over promised and under delivered on the
| original, and then had a stand alone expansion (Planetary
| Annihilation: Titans) that finally filled most of the
| promises.
|
| I recall that at first they did a bad job of supporting
| players who had pre-ordered, but eventually walked it back
| and gave kickstarter supporters the expansion for free and
| early purchasers large discounts.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| 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.
| whatsmyusername wrote:
| _shrug_ It made me completely lose interest in KSP2 almost
| instantly.
| nvr219 wrote:
| The core fan base of KSP is super passionate and if the game
| is good they'll play it regardless of the studio name.
| willis936 wrote:
| Passion is goodwill.
|
| Goodwill is profits on the table.
|
| With this new studio they are not beholden to prior
| promises of not having microtransactions.
| edw wrote:
| Passion can cut more than one way. It's quite possible that
| the poster you replied to is, as you said, super passionate
| _and_ is turned off by Take Two's hardball tactics to the
| point that they don't purchase the game when it's released.
| foobiekr wrote:
| That is a failed acquihire. The whole point of an acquihire
| from the acquirer's point of view is that while business-unit-
| specific OPEX budget is used for salaries, bonuses and other
| overhead, retention packages and equity arrangements are
| generally covered by the central budget. Otherwise you would
| just hire people directly, possibly using special packages.
|
| What an acquihire gets you, as an executive, is that people you
| otherwise wouldn't be able to hire, because you can pay above
| market without wrecking your budget. These people are either
| vesting out equity or they are on explicit retention packages,
| but from a budget standpoint _they aren't on you_.
|
| Another way to think about it is that this buys you the time
| necessary to, using the normal levers available to you, get
| employees to the point where a set of overlapping RSU grants
| are vesting quarterly, thereby both avoiding a steep
| compensation cliff and getting the total compensation to where
| it needs to be in a way you could not do on day one.
| afterburner wrote:
| Aren't acquihires really about the IP?
| goseeastarwar wrote:
| No, they're soft landings for talented people in failing
| businesses.
| m463 wrote:
| There are very few soft landings in the Kerbal Space
| Program.
| dpeck wrote:
| No, then it would be an acquisition.
| foobiekr wrote:
| IP, if it can be re-used, is considered a bonus at best. In
| practice, the IP you want is in the experience of the
| people you're getting, not their random patent portfolio or
| source code.
| babesh wrote:
| It's only failed from the perspective of the acquirer and the
| employees. The founders made off. Sometimes it can still be
| considered a gain by the acquirer if it prevents a competitor
| from acquiring said talent.
| IMTDb wrote:
| > As someone who went through an acqui-hire only to see our
| founders walk away with millions while the employees' salaries
| remained unchanged
|
| I have always understood acqui-hire as "Big company sees a team
| of talented devs with good cost structure (aka: manageable
| salaries) so they pay a one time flat fee to get that team
| working on their problems"
|
| At no point have I ever expected developers salaries to change
| during an aqui-hire. They might get a boost _after_ the aqui-
| hire if they have trouble retaining the devs for whatever
| reason. But usually the whole point of an aqui hire is the
| relative low salaries of the employees compared to their
| performance.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > compared to their performance
|
| That one part is key. Acqui-hires are justified because the
| teams display high performance, not low cost. If the truth is
| that they happen for the second reason, expect a lot of
| fighting back against it once the word gets out.
| philipov wrote:
| > _the teams display high performance, not low cost_
|
| Performance is relative to cost; you can't have one without
| the other. Trying to spin it as being only about
| performance is an attempt to deceive the labor.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If it helps, add "abnormally" before "low" and "high".
|
| As of now, I don't have any certainty that there is any
| mass deceiving going on. Creating a team with very high
| performance is not easy, and it makes sense to reward it.
| But if there is deceiving, it is of one of the worst
| possible kinds.
| dathanb82 wrote:
| Frequently acquihires are about opportunity, not cost. I've
| seen acquihires at salaries above what the company would
| offer to organically recruited employees, because the company
| is just desperate to recruit. Paying higher salaries can be
| less costly (once you factor in recruiter salaries, cost of
| interviews, and opportunity cost of all the time those open
| positions sit unfilled) than hiring through normal channels.
|
| I guess it's still fundamentally about cost, but not
| necessarily first-order costs as you describe.
| dnautics wrote:
| it's also not necessarily low salaries, but also possibly
| performance density. You can get a team of developers that
| have had the chaff whittled out under more of a boilerroom
| condition that the administrative structure of a larger
| company can't do (harder to get rid of unproductive
| programmers, e.g.)
| Murkin wrote:
| One of the most important points (from the acquirer's point
| of view) is retention.
|
| Most aquihires I know lead to an increase in salary and a
| retention bonus (a pool was set as part of the aquihire
| negotiations).
|
| Since payout is tied to % employees who stay on for X years,
| both sides care deeply to keep them on board
| WJW wrote:
| This would imply that the very event of being in a team that
| is acqui-hired should communicate that you are more effective
| than the norm compared to your cost and that you can
| therefore either negotiate higher pay at the acquiring
| company or you could bring to status to the table in salary
| negotiations for a new job.
|
| FWIW, I don't think acqui-hiring is only about getting a team
| that is relatively cheap for their output. Regular hiring
| processes are also not cheap and by buying an entire company
| you can "hire" several devs in one shot (and at a lower risk)
| where it might otherwise take much more time to find that
| much extra capacity.
| structural wrote:
| You also get the benefit of hiring several devs that
| already trust one another and have experience working
| together without stepping on each other's toes. That's
| where you can look at the product they have already
| developed and for what effort, and with some diligence,
| hire the teams that aren't dysfunctional. Or at least
| that's the idea.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Exactly. You're not just hiring the individuals, you're
| hiring the established working relationships they have
| with each other.
| _chris_ wrote:
| > _The game had been set to come out this year [me: March
| 2020], but the company said last month it was delaying the
| release until the fall of 2021._
|
| Is delaying the release by over a year and a half a win? I
| wonder how much in royalties/costs they're really saving.
| gear54rus wrote:
| What infuriates me is that how can you not see that you need
| another YEAR right up until a few months remain wtf. Why not
| announce it sooner.
| BorisTheBrave wrote:
| I suspect once you realize the release date is gonna be
| missed no matter what, you might as well go for a year and
| uncut all those extra things that were sacrificed in an
| attempt to make the original reelase date.
| lrem wrote:
| One example: you might miss the fact that your company will
| be torn apart by your dominant business partner.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Also, for a lot of those devs a successful launch of KSP2 is
| going to be a career booster; they don't want to walk away from
| it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| But if they worked for Star Theory they would likely benefit
| a lot more than if they worked for Take Two directly (I
| believe the article touches on that).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| For sure, but the former is off the table. So they've got
| to decide which is more valuable to them: finishing KSP2,
| or the extra comp they could get somewhere else.
| diggan wrote:
| Guess that depends on your definition of "benefit". As one
| developer (from the article) puts it:
|
| > he didn't want to work for a big company where he
| wouldn't have the same degree of influence or financial
| benefits if the game were a hit. "I was at a small studio,
| where the work I did had a massive impact on our success,"
| gamblor956 wrote:
| As a developer, he would never have had a stake in the
| financial outcome of KSP2's sales.
|
| Didn't he bother to look into the history of the first
| KSP? The owners made bank (and are still making bank) and
| many of the developers didn't even make the equivalent of
| the US minimum wage for their work.
| simias wrote:
| The way I read what he said he seems more interested by
| having his work matter and influence the final game than
| immediate monetary reward.
|
| Given what I keep hearing about the working conditions in
| the videogame industry it seems like most videogame devs
| are in it because they like making games and want the
| reward of telling people "see this cool game everybody
| plays? Well I made (some) of that!". Otherwise with their
| skillset they'd probably have no trouble finding work in
| an other branch of the software industry that'd have
| better compensation and working conditions, if a lot less
| cool to explain during parties.
| Jare wrote:
| I would think that this engineer's ideas of how things
| were going to change were mistaken. I don't know the
| insides of this case, but generally, the impact you have
| on the game you work on depends on three things:
|
| - the trust and empowerment that project leads give non-
| lead staff
|
| - the amount of non-lead stuff with a voice
|
| - the ability of said leads to have a say in how the
| project is run
|
| In this case, the leads remained, the project owner (the
| publisher) remained, and doesn't sound like the staff
| increased much if at all; so I really doubt things would
| change much in that sense. Given what happened, someone
| thought that something in the studio/project had to
| change, but I just doubt it would be the presence of
| staff's voice.
| everyone wrote:
| 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.
| neuralzen wrote:
| 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.
| z3t4 wrote:
| 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.
| rendall wrote:
| 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.
| samkater wrote:
| 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?
| beervirus wrote:
| It'll depend on their contract. But if Take Two doesn't get the
| existing codebase, it's hard to see how this move makes any
| sense.
| [deleted]
| saberdancer wrote:
| Usually when you are contracted to develop something custom,
| you do not own the IP but rather the company that you are
| building it for. I doubt this is any different here.
|
| There are possibilities that it is arranged differently, for
| example if the IP you are developing can be used multiple times
| the company that ordered the IP may want to offer you the
| rights to distribute and use it further, for a discount, but it
| is very unlikely a game would make sense for this.
| samkater wrote:
| That makes sense.
|
| It would seem one way to protect the contracted company would
| be the right to withhold releasing the source code until the
| terms of the contract were met. You may not want to fight
| that legal battle, but at least it would give the smaller guy
| some leverage. As it sounds from the article, Star Theory
| Games doesn't have anything to fight back with.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Usually when you are contracted to develop something
| custom, you do not own the IP but rather the company that you
| are building it for.
|
| While it can get messy, generally the IP belongs to the
| original creators unless otherwise stipulated by contract.
| Most likely, Star Theory gained ownership of the IP created
| by their employees via employment contracts. The contract
| between Take Two and Star Theory would then stipulate the
| conditions underwhich Star Theory gives that IP to Take Two.
|
| How and when that IP gets assigned should be a part of any
| such contract negotiations and not something you should gloss
| over or sign blindly.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| 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!)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/IWOo5
| cwhiz wrote:
| 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.
| modwest wrote:
| I can't read the article. Did everyone except the developers
| get laid off? Or did Take Two hire literally everyone from the
| smaller co?
|
| edit: Ah I see they hired only about 1/3 of the staff.
| gimmeThaBeet wrote:
| > Brian Roundy, a spokesman for Private Division, said the
| company contacted "every member of the development team" at
| Star Theory with an invitation to join the new studio, called
| Intercept Games. "More than half of the team is now at
| Intercept Games,"
|
| Granted it's from the mouth of T2, but it sounds like the
| offer was at least more universal, and they would have
| preferred or at least been amenable to absorbing the whole
| team.
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