I had heard the original team that built this game quit due to poor working conditions. Is that true? If so, who built this expansion and have the working conditions improved?
The original devs were paid next to nothing while developing KSP from their own ideas, with the efforts of a startup company. Terribly poor negotiation tactics on their part, but still quite shitty of the owners not to give them a massive bonus after the huge success of the game.
Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.
> Terribly poor negotiation tactics on their part, but still quite shitty of the owners not to give them a massive bonus after the huge success of the game.
If the game failed to gain traction would we be asking the devs to give a refund of their salaries?
> Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.
There’s nothing unethical with not sharing the bounties of success with those that aren’t sharing the costs of the risks.
Without knowing the details, the fact that multiple core developers quit seems to be some evidence that they were treated unethically. That's not something that happens in normal conditions.
Timing is vital in these contexts. I've worked at a job in a team of 3 under terrible conditions (terrible from a "western" perspective of course, nobody was whipping or pointing guns at us, but you get the point). Complaining with management -the worst bunch of incompetent idiots I ever encountered in my life- was 100% ineffective so that after just a few months one of my colleagues left, then a bit later I left. The company suddenly panicked realizing how the project was likely going to tank in a spectacular way and promptly turned their tactics literally burying the only left member with money, benefits and much better working conditions so that he kept the job for years. Same company, same project, same team, but asking to 2 different people could have yielded very opposite opinions.
It's selfish on an unfathomable level. And on top of that, it is self defeating. This is a stunt that you can only pull of once. Who in their right mind would ever want to work for, or even with, such horrible people ever again? How many who would've gladly paid them, will now pirate without the slightest remorse? I'm quite sure this move did cost them a lot of money in the long run.
> It's selfish on an unfathomable level. And on top of that, it is self defeating. This is a stunt that you can only pull of once.
This “stunt” (ie paying what you agreed upon) is pulled by every company that hires contractors which covers just about successful startup.
> Who in their right mind would ever want to work for, or even with, such horrible people ever again?
Perhaps it’s a mindset difference but I don’t feel entitled to other’s gains simply because they’re more successful than originally anticipated.
That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of other reasons not to work with someone or some place. From what I’ve read the working conditions at KSP for the devs were quite bad.
> How many who would've gladly paid them, will now pirate without the slightest remorse? I'm quite sure this move did cost them a lot of money in the long run.
Software pirates, in particular pirates for games, don’t care about your supposed morals. If they’re going to pirate a game they’ll do it anyway.
The only way to get people into such "I get everything and you get nothing" arrangements is to either take advantage of an incredibly desperate situation, or through deception.
I don't see any ethics in the subject at all. If that's how much they were being paid then they're likely terrible negotiators but that doesn't make any part of the contract unethical.
If they were promised equity, a bonus, or some other extra compensation that was not subsequently delivered then not paying that out would be unethical. But agreeing to a lowball amount and then complaining about it being a lowball amount isn't ethics related. It's just sour grapes.
It's the same in the opposite direction. If a contractor charges a company 10x his normal rate and a company accepts those terms, there's no ethics involved either.
Nobody has a proverbial gun to their head to accept a deal either way. If they do then sure there's ethical issues but I haven't seen that in this situation. Just very poor negotiations on the part of the original dev team.
You’re assuming the owners did everything according to contract and above-board. Maybe they didn’t. Ever considered that? Even if they did, perhaps they just got lucky and were able to convince smart developers to work against their interest. Regardless, defending them does you no favors, as evidenced by the comments on here, nor was it the best long term move for them, because I won’t be buying anything pushed out by that leadership team and will encourage others to do the same. Given the comments here, I suspect others will, too.
Violence isn't the only way to coerce people into doing things against their interest. If there was an implication that bonuses would be available, or something to the effect, it's unethical to say, "haha, you didn't have an iron-clad contract". Using fine-print in contracts to get one over on people who aren't lawyers is pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
The point people are trying to make is that the people who quit said they were treated unethically. By disputing that it was unethical behavior, you're calling those people liars. Being "more right leaning" doesn't make you an asshole, but calling people liars without evidence does.
> Violence isn't the only way to coerce people into doing things against their interest. If there was an implication that bonuses would be available, or something to the effect, it's unethical to say, "haha, you didn't have an iron-clad contract". Using fine-print in contracts to get one over on people who aren't lawyers is pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
None of the comments I've replied to describe anything like that. They simply refer to the (paltry) amount. I'm not disputing there's more to the story, I was simply commenting on the bit that's actually in front of me.
> The point people are trying to make is that the people who quit said they were treated unethically. By disputing that it was unethical behavior, you're calling those people liars. Being "more right leaning" doesn't make you an asshole, but calling people liars without evidence does.
I never said they were liars. I said that the $200/month doesn't on its own make the agreement unethical.
Apparently that distinction is beyond the grasp of today's commenters.
For whatever it's worth, 2K did buy the thing from Squad. Too late for most of the original devs, but it might change things. On the other hand, they're keeping Squad as the developer, which doesn't feel so good...
I should get back to Factorio, but Cities Skylines has taken over my brain-game timeslot lately.
It's really amazing to me how fun they both are, given that they're just exercises in logistics.
Cities Skylines is about managing traffic flow, basically every other mechanic stems from that in some way or another. Not a surprise given the developers' previous games were the Cities In Motion series.
Factorio is about efficient transport of materials into machines that assemble goods, and about building up abstractions so you are constantly solving new types of problems with the resources you've automated already.
Both of them have helped me to better understand concurrency, throughput, and optimization. And playing Factorio with friends has helped me stretch my project management muscles. By halfway through the game I had to make a Trello board just to keep track of what needed to be done and where the bottlenecks were.
If you're in the mood for a thinking game I highly recommend both of them.
Based on the quality of the 1.4 release, I would say probably not. There were many glaring obvious bugs and omissions, so they must had been in a bit of a rush (i.e. badly managed) to get it out.
Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.