Take Two closes Kerbal Space Program and OlliOlli devs

Indie darlings Intercept Games (Kerbal Space Program) and Roll 7 (olliolli world, Rollerdrome) got the sack by Take-Two today. Making it ever so clear what the direction of these big companies is becoming (one major franchise and nothing else).

Meanwhile CEO's keep doubling, trippling or even quadrupling their own salaries at the same time as they are ruining many great talented developers.

Take Two increased the salary of two of their top executives (likely CEO + 1 other) by 100% in 2023 vs. 2022. Their combined salaries rose to $72,350,718. See Axios* report for more details.

Be sure to vote with your wallets.

Isnt Kerbal Space Program 2 supposed to launch soon? Unfortunate on the OlliOlli dev closure used to play the first 2 game on vita for months it was really addicting. Never got into OlliOlli world I had planned to buy it on Switch but I forgot where I put that console. Only recently found it lmao.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but... :(

@R4gn4r0k: You tell people to vote with their wallets, but aren't you going to buy GTA6 day 1?

Totally understandable, those poor CEOs needs to buy couple of more yachts.

Roll 7 made two games in a short time and those two had a niche but cozy following: OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome

Nope, I always wait for R* games. Should I pirate them instead now, all the money is going to greedy grubby little hands anyway, and none are going to hardworking devs?

Yup, they're already in the 12 yaght club, but they are so desperate to get into the 15 yaght club instead, won't anybody think of the poor CEO's :'(

Pirate? no I don't encourage that, as that just makes you the a-hole. I would just not play it at all unless you buy a secondhand copy, so they get no money at all.

I haven't bought a game from them since GTA4 on the 360, will never buy another game from them ever again.

This is not a big deal. What is a bigger deal is when games don't make every chick sexy.😏

I did buy GTA IV on launch day but I split the cost with my brother.

Game companies charging €70 and all the money going directly to CEO's and none of it going to devs makes it very easy for me to avoid games.

Second hand copy is a good idea!

In related news...

TECH

Google lays off hundreds of ‘Core’ employees, moves some positions to India and Mexico

PUBLISHED WED, MAY 1 20241:27 PM EDTUPDATED 5 HOURS AGOJennifer Elias@JENN_ELIAS

Just ahead of its blowout first-quarter earnings report on April 25,Googlelaid off at least 200 employees from its “Core” teams, in a reorganization that will include moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC has learned.

They need to consolidate because all those financial losses.😐

Should have stayed indie.

Rip bozo!

@Pedro:

Lolol :P

The $2 Trillion Secret Trial Against Google Returns Tomorrow

It's been a long Winter, but the antitrust trial of the century (thus far) returns. The judge continues to keep it too secret, which is why you haven't heard about it. But there's now an audio line.

MATT STOLLERMAY 01, 2024∙

One thing I know from those working at google is it's all very loose and informal.

Imagine selling your company to Embracer, or imagine Codemasters selling to EA...

Do you have a deathwish or something??

That’s too bad. The olliolli games were great.

Yeah I really took a liking to Olli Olli world and was even planning to pick up the DLC.

I got Rollerdome through a humble bundle but have yet to try it.

Nightdive fucked up as well.

> Become bro with Atari

> Games instantly double the price

Le inflation! Le cheap hobby!

Being swallowed up by a huge corporation doesn't benefit gamers and it doesn't benefit hard working devs.

All it does is inflates already inflated salaries up top and dividends.

The loss of Ollie Ollie Devs is heartbreaking. They're as legit as it gets.... Somehow we need more scrappy sonic games (for example) but these guys take it on the chin.

Yeah, the industry could use less good games and even richer already rich people.

Haven't supported them since 2008, I believe. Got no reason to start.

One things for sure, now that I know that all the money is going to ungodly rich pharaohs that want to be burried with their wealth the chances of me buying a €70 AAA game or spend anything on microtransactions are sub zero at the moment.

From just watching Steam numbers it was clear that OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome weren't breakaway successes, however I was looking forward to what new games they had in store, they were working on several.

Well that sucks. I was actually kind of enjoying KSP2, and looking forward to the final release.

I wonder, since the game is in early access, if I will be getting a refund.

*sigh*

At least we still have KSP 1. Still, a shame the entire studio was closed down and this game will likely not be finished.

A sad day when you get shut down even if you make a quality game and a profit. Another sign of late-stage capitalism I guess, and another reason to embrace socialism, comrades.

I think I read that they are still looking to finish KSP2, but unsure how (maybe hand it off to a different dev?)

What are your thoughts on KSP2 and how it compares to 1?

Not in the same industry but my company sold itself to a large megacorporation a few years ago, and it's been one long slide downwards ☹

These c-suite people have no idea WTF they are doing. It's a culture of failing upwards provided they can maintain the unsustainable concept of infinite growth. We will hear about something they have planned to do and we collectively sort of go "Eh, what? You're going to do what?!" and, surprise surprise, it backfires and suddenly that $10-million dollar marketing budget you used to make a new label everyone hates doesn't pan out and now you're back to using the old label we've had for 30 years.

God forbid a profitable company is allowed to keep doing what it does.

I would NEVER sell my company to a corporation unless it was clearly going to go out of business otherwise. Even then I'd probably make some backroom deals to take people with me once the deal was done and go make another company once the company was sold lol.

Captalism is heading towards being a worse system than feudalism.

Embracer is a perfect example of stupid decisions piled up on stupid decisisons creating a shape of a reverse card house. Unsustainable as ****.

But yeah even in non-profit organisations like ours they want to keep hiring more and more managers, and less and less people who actually do the legwork. Everyone can see where this is going, everyone can see the trainwreck coming from miles away, except those highly educated overpaid ones at the top, of course.

The writing was on the wall as far as development goes, I suppose; a lot of people on the forums were talking about how the developer was probably getting shuttered before it happened since the new content and updates was coming out at a trickle pace.

As far as the game itself, I was enjoying it. I enjoy early-access releases as I have had [mostly] good luck with them.

Compared to KSP 1, KSP 2 was light on features but at the same time a little bit more polished. I think we have a tough time keeping expectations realistic with early-access titles (especially sequels) and remembering where the prior game was at the same time in its development cycle, how rough things were.

At the time, I thought the community was being a little too critical and impatient but in hindsight I guess it was warranted?

The TL;DR: version is that I was enjoying KSP 2, despite the slow progress being made. It had potential.

Hope they finish it! There's not a lot of NASA sims with Minions from Despicable Me! as the astronauts 😋

Sometimes it's hard for me to judge wether a game is receiving content at a good pace.

I mean some people act overly critical and demanding. I also notice that these are the people that play games for a living.

Like can you imagine Half Life 2 coming out these days? People would finish it over the weekend and would go:

"is this what I waited all these years for?"

Maybe the likes of Fortnite or whatever have conditioned people into thinking that games need to receive constant updates and content?

On the other hand Fortnite had 1 map for the longest time and to me this seems meagre compared to the games I play.

I guess I still judge games on the €60 basis and if they are worth that kind of money for the content they offer.

Like Totalbiscuit used to say: you aren't entitled to any content that comes on top of the €60 base.

People really get too tribal and attached to games. If consumers dumped games from traditional developers and always tried new stuff, the world would be better off. Instead People vote with their wallets and these dipshit ceos and big shareholders buy golden yachts. As someone who never bought a gta game, a recent cod game, a big AAA Nintendo game, or even any of the souls games, I can hold my head high. I've done my job.

The only game I bought day 1 this gen was RE4 remake, and I regret it.

I haven't bought or played a new game in almost five years.

That's a sad thing to hear. I love OlliOlli World, so this means that either the next OlliOlli will be done by different developers, or that there will never be an OlliOlli game. Either way, that's tough for me to swallow.