gaming
Subnautica 2 is "ready" for early access says co-founder ousted from studio, but the publishers seem to disagree
Discussion
From the article, sounds like the co-founder wanted a long pre-release and a steady work load for the dev team. Meanwhile the publisher wants to crack the whip and create one of those hellish crunch times at have either a much shorter pre-release or just release it in less time. Looks like the dev team is getting fucked.
Exactly. One of the risks of selling to a big corp I guess. It's so sad what's happening to this industry.
no even a risk anymore...if u sell to a big corp, this is what is expected these days.
But if you work for small start-up, you are also crunching. So where can developers go :'(
Crunch isn't just a big corporation thing. If anything, it happens more on average at medium size places.
I was so ready to buy this the second it hit EA. But this is such a red flag I now have to wait.
I just wanted to chime in here, because you nearly gave me a heart attack with your unfortunate contraction of "Early Access". So shame on you and all your livestock!
EA
I mean...they're basically synonymous in the quality you'll get now.
Sorry, EA is the plague. But Early Access? I can get behind that.
In my opinion the article gave the opposite impression, where the co-founder wanted to push the game out early but the publisher said the game isnāt ready yet and to give it more time.
It'll release as a buggy mess, we get a 08/15 apology that they'll do better and then a bunch of devs get laid off. After a few months/years the studio will get canned because not profitable enough.
Very brave of you to ponder months/years when we know it's next quarter to artificially inflate profit.
How long should they get, though? āWhen itās readyā is fine for fans but you canāt expect ownership to put up with endless delays and extravagant dev times either.
And he was just 1 of 3 they fired before bringing in some guy apparently known for creating high-crunch environments. Fucking soulless ghouls. If I were one of those developers Iād just be waiting to see what the founders want to work on next
long pre-release and a steady work load for the dev team
Like they did in the first game, except, they are no longer the first game team. They don't have the same expectation. They don't have the same player base of hardcore fans. They don't have the same context of competition. And biggest different of all, they don't have the same partenairs and production COST.
I know one of the guys on the team, been looking at sending him a message all week to check in and see how heās doing
I hope this is not what it look slike, hate to see devs get screwed
this is far too common these days...even fromsoft is suffering from this mindset.
This is how you start people talking about a union.
They needed more time to add micrtransactions at investors request
Which surely they wouldn't then lay everyone off after right?
Right?
Two things about non-western developers.
1) They plan out development with features having varying levels of importance, and they have time tables for completion of features or how far along they should be. If primary features are not meeting milestones, people will be taken off the sacrificable secondary features.
2) They don't poppy cock to 5-6 year dev windows. NetEase's CEO when pulling investments out of western studios, lambasted their work ethic among other more political elements.
Why do I have a feeling that this is one of those stories where everyone involved sucks.
It is, but people need a bad guy to hate and a good guy to simp for.
I have no trust in them anymore. I was prepared to buy that day 1, but right now I just remove it from my wishlist
I think that is fair to be skeptical. And fair to remove from wishlist.
But I will judge based on the final product. If the game is a proper successor to Subnautica. And they keep their word on no microtransactions or subscriptions, I will buy it when it goes on sale and the price is right. I just played the original for the first time earlier this year with full VR mods, it was amazing.
Not saying you need trust them. But many people are acting like it's guaranteed to be bad now, I do not think that is accurate either.
Yup another sequel to a great game sadly ruined by greed.
Not really, UWE was always headed by someone who just isnāt good at meeting long term goals. This was always inevitable and known to those who followed their first official game Natural Selection 2. Charlie is a great dev and nice guy. He also financially tanked everything heās been involved with. Subnautica was completely lost in EA development until streamers starting covering the prototype and they hired people to write the story and finish a new idea of the initial vision.
When below zero came about Charlieās hubris caused him to sever ties from people who helped build their initial success and stray from the parts of the original game fans liked the most in favor of more constrained and linear approach to the story. Are the publishers probably cold? Yes but they are also financially calculated and there was clearly enough risk posed by incompetent leadership to bring someone else in to finish the product.
In the same boat.
I was going to throw my money at early access. But now I'll wait till well after 1.0 to even check out reviews.
Kicking Charlie Cleveland from Unknown Worlds is like kicking Bruce Springsteen from the E Street Band.
Not really. He has his supporters, but he also has his detractors, more than happy to point out his history of messing up Subnautica. Depending on the forum, people are either happy he's gone, or the opinion is split 50/50.
Not sure who to blame for this one, but as a big original NS enjoyer I was rather ticked off that Subnautica didn't have any real mod support.
wtf??? they kicked max too heās like their john carmack
thatās messed up
Heās the Elmo to Sesame Street
They fired Brian Mitsoda from Bloodlines 2, which is like kicking Billy Joel from The Billy Joel Band.
Corporate oversight makes things more corporate; any effect on quality is purely incidental.
I loved the Early Access for Subnautica but planned to wait until full release/reviews before grabbing this one.
I am by no means a Charlie Cleveland stan despite playing lots of NS back in the day and I donāt agree with all of his decision making (see BZ, and a huge eye roll at āAI filmmakingā) but I do respect him and the Unknown Worlds team and this seems like a textbook shitty publisher decision and a huge red flag. Subnautica 2 just went from instant day one buy to wait and see for me.
A lot of these mod and/or indie teams turned professional studios that then get mixed up in the business and publishing side of things to their detriment seem to run into this kind of drama/frictionā¦ happened with Insurgency too, plus look what happened with Disco Elysium
This is going to be an amusing saga of mis management
"ready for early access" is almost an oxymoron.
Ready for to be unfinished
Aww mann, I'm scared for this game now. I loved Subnautica 1. I also loved KSP 1. Why can't we just have a good part 2?
Whelp, I see another "Kerbal space program 2" situation here. Subnautica 2 is gonna likely suck.
Eh well. It's been fun everyone. I'll wait on the spiritual successor.
Subnautica 2 is done. Im going back to subnautica 1 and stay there forevermore
Sold their soul for some reason ( even though subnautica was a big success) and now they are paying for it.
The reason was money. A lot of it. No big mystery
We donāt want early access lol, just release the damn game when itās ready tf
Man fuck early access. Paying to bug test for them and by the time the game finally releases, you're already burned out playing the worst versions of the game.
After watching the complete disaster that was ksp2 I think Iāll just wait until the reviews come in.
co-founder ousted from studio
and i wonder why dude was "ousted" lmfao.
The exact reasons remain cloudy, but the language of Krafton's original press release suggested a disatisfaction with the pace at which Unknown Worlds was working.
This is never a good sign. "YOU ARE NOT FAST ENOUGH WE NEED MONEY NOW!" is recipe for disaster.
Sounds about right. The Callisto Protocol suffered because of Krafton rushing it out.
I mean, even if they had one more year to develop CP, it would not help. The game had core issues which would need complete rework from the ground up.
How about skip early access and launch the game when itās fully ready instead of always going for the cash grab
Rip one of my favorite games.
Is this one in development hell like human fall flat 2
I remember when they formed the studio in Massachusetts, just ahead of the release of natural selection 2 back in the old days. In fact my user name is a handle I used back playing natural selection in the days before and during the founding of steam.Ā
This news is disappointing, I wasn't aware they'd give in to a publisher but considering the popularity of subnautica I'm not surprised because I wouldn't think that they would haveĀ had the funds any other way to promote it things were tough for them back then.Ā
I was one of the playtesters back in NS. Tough to see this happen to Flayra.Ā
Earlier in the discussions people were saying the publisher probably wanted to put it out in early access as a buggy mess just to make money. Now people are saying that the publisher wants to hold off on early access so they can create a crunch time to get things done all right before release.
So which one is it lmao. People just want to blame the publisher either way
tbh, based on below zero, this decision is probably not wrong, just late
Went from early access to wait for reviews. Still keeping an eye on it tho. Subnautica was a top 5 of all time for me.
Well, EA means pay now and we will finish the game later (maybe), so he is right, the game is ready for EA
Online features make me not having interest in the second game. And previous DLC don't helpĀ
first one had online features; the time capsules
There are online features in Below Zero?
fully functional coop mod?
idk?
No. I have complimentary reasons for not having interest in the second game.
-Independent reason number one: Online features in the second game.
-Independent reason number two: How the plot and game flow was managed in the DLCs.
Sorry for no using a diferent comment for each reason.
The Devs fucked up everything they touched since the Original, so I believe the publisher.
Yes, it could be a good thing, time will tell. I think if they were good, nobody would touch them, perhaps there was reason to fire them.
Could swear I heard it the other way around Oo
Publisher said its ready and the fired guys were saying "needs more time".
Literally no one can get their story straight yet still rage like animals.
I give up on caring about any of this dev drama, i will get the EA when it releases, play it, then judge the full release. Could give less of a shit about all this "news".
Why would you sell your business when its working out that well for you? Greed. Only answer that makes sense and I am not really a fan of greed.
But why would you kick out the founders and generate a shitstorm on the other hand? They gotta know it makes them look real bad.
Bro it's a business like any other. I could literally care less if a company is greedy if they make a good game. That's why ill judge it when it comes out. It's not like the greedy CEOs are making it themselves, still possible for the art team to show their love and soul for game making.
All game devs are greedy at some point. Just how the world works. Still can get decent games out of them though. Good to scrutinize though. Remember, plenty of youtubers will be playing the game for free so if it's really that big a deal to you, watch them play for a bit before buying.
You would sell your dream for MORE money? Not sure what you are trying to tell me man. My point is they own a company that made a ton of money. If that ton is not enough, you are screwed...greed=bad.
I wouldn't try to get 120M instead of 100 million. I'd be happy with the 100M.
Don't know anything about anything, but if one person says it's ready for early access and the another says it's not, I'm going to side with the one not sending it out too early and waiting for the better product to issue.
Ar6
"Never let a guy in a suit see your early build." - I don't remember who said it.
Here's an idea, just release a complete game instead.
I think Early Access is fucking bullshit and should have died out a decade ago. I place the blame solely on Steam. Such a con.
Subnautica was an outlier where early access was done right
No one is forcing you to play an early access game that clearly states itās early access. I would argue early access has made a lot of games better in their 1.0 release than it would have otherwise if they just paid a few in house QA testers.
Aināt this the point of early access though? Itās unfinished and unready so they need to test it.
I'm superman and regime changes within devolopment studios are my Kryptonite.
I won't be touching it until 2 years post early access. 1. to see negative reviews, 2. to see if updates keep getting pushed.
they sold the golden goose and then complain
If it was about money for the publisher, theyād put it out thereā¦ surely there was a milestone agreement leading to launch?
Either the quality isnāt there or the easy access period would be too long, which normally people moan about.
This is why you should always read the contract very carefully and think twice about publishers. I hope the founders don't give up on gaming and have better luck in the future.
Dangers of selling out to a publisher. Ultimately they put themselves in the situation they are now in. Subnautica 2 may very well end up as collateral damage as well.
*thalassophobia intensifies*
[deleted]
I can't tell if this is sarcasm, or if you genuinely didnt bother to read the article
don't they just fired the whole developer crew a week ago? can't disagree if they exist.
This one reads like a management blunder, not a publisher problem. They made Subnautica. They made a ton of money with Subnautica. People were expecting Subnautica: Below Zero to be DLC for the original game but they released it as a standalone title and made even more money.
And somewhere along the line, they decided that they needed to not only bring in the additional resources of a publisher, but that they would sign a contract that gives the publisher the authority to fire the people who started the company in the first place.
Just a tip: if you're making bank, use it to stay independent, or divest yourself entirely of the project and start over somewhere else. Don't sell your rights and your soul to a fucking publisher.
Below Zero sold considerably worse than the original game. It needed to be rebooted mid-development as the original story was not resonating with the majority of the audience. What came out wasn't received well. Based on the controversy with character design earlier, I'm inclined to believe they were having similar quality control issues this time around. Krafton kept asking them to change course or fix things. They refused, and as a result they got the boot.
The original story was so much better than the dredge we ended up with.
āSpooky altera disappeared your sister. Follow in her footsteps to rescue or avenge her deathā
Turns out your sister was a terrorist and killed herself in a suicide bombing.
Also an alien uses your head as a usb drive or something and basically holds your hand the entire game instead of letting you explore.
lol fucking what
Spot on actually lol.
I also finished the game without knowing that: Your sister if you sole motivation to go the planet but then the USB alien happens and you forget about your sister and leave LOL! She's optional.
who decided on this story lmfao what a joke
I fucking loved subnautica but I lost interest in below zero about 70% through, if I were guessing. That's hilarious you can just bail on the sister plot line
Yeah. I spent a whole year writing walkthroughs for the 10+ iterations of Early Access.
The massive story changes and rewrites between release 6 and release 8 were wild. Most of the community didn't like the changes.
It went from being mysterious to a cliched, corporate business story.
The first Subnautica was amazing. BZ was disappointing, and I have 300+ hours both games.
why did they change the story in the first place? what was the point?
They never told us. The voice actress left and they changed the plot and starting gmeplay.
The Alterra space base was supposed to explode in the original version halfway through the game, and that was removed in EA release 8.
There were suspicions that it was because early access players complained that the player character talked too much since the MC in the original never spoke. So maybe the devs overcorrected.
It still doesn't explain the story rewrite.
Overall it's not a bad game. We mainly were disappointed that the game was a lot smaller for a standalone game. If it were marketed as a DLC, it would've been much better received.
Not to offer any praise to the final story but "the original story" hit a brick wall and the writer couldn't figure out where to go with it, which is why they had to bring in a new writer. And the new writer was constrained by having to account for all the material already made that was intended for the old story.
So let's not pretend that the first stuff was all that great. It's easy to come up with a compelling intro if you don't have to figure out a middle and a conclusion. Just ask JJ Abrams.
Didn't appreciate the spoiler... but i guess you saved me from the dissapointing story so ...thanks?
This is your wake up call to play that Steam backlog you keep putting off
Game has been Out 4 years... If you dont want spoilers you shouldnt be in this sub :D
Edit: or at least Not Look at anything subnautica related
Why spoil the plot like that?Ā
Yo, did you know that Snape kills Dumbledore?
Yo did you know that Luke is Vaderās son?
Its been years.
Yo, you would not believe this, but Jesus actually dies in the bible!
You'll never believe what happened next
š²
Spoilers š«Ø
The game is 4 years old. This is a thread discussing the sequel and the fandom reaction to previous titles.
Does it matter? It's not like the game was major success so that everyone knows the plot. You could have made your point without giving away the major plot points.Ā
[deleted]
Very mature.
If you go into a post about a game's sequel not expecting the plot of the previous game/games to be discussed, that's on you.
Shouldnt be Looking at subnautica related Posts then. If you dont want to get spoiled you need to Take the steps and Not expect everybody else to do it for you
Bruce Willis was always dead!
I just jizzed in my pants
Some people have a need to be recognized.
Yeah, just look at some of the comments to my comment. So petty.
I just saw a wiki summary that suggested Krafton outright bought them in 2021. So the bosses got a big payday, Krafton got the rights to Subnautica, and the bosses would stay on to develop the next game because, why not? And then the bosses got punted from property. I'd be curious to see if the original bosses are still entitled to residuals on Subnautica or if they took <$x> worth of money to sell the studio and got cut off from the <$x,000,000,000> they could have had if they kept it in house.
Damn, I thought the original story was far more interesting in where it could go compared to what we got.
I'm hearing that now. Previously I heard people didn't care for it. Have to wonder if it is one of those things where insert perhaps I judged you too harshly meme applies.
Below zero was less quality control and just a complete misfire imo. It has all the technical elements, but failed to capture the atmosphere of the first game which is what made it so beloved.
I thought the reason the story changed was because the original writer left the studio
It was my impression they switched out writers as they had some consultants or something that were also let go.
My biggest issue with below zero was how hand holding and linear progression felt, not to mention by the time you can build a base, you have the truck and dont need a base anymore until deep deep.
It's sitting at 90% positive on Steam, has an 82 on Metacritic, 4.5 stars on Amazon, I could go on. This weird myth that Below Zero is hated will never go away, lol.
I'll make sure to post tomorrow asking why it's hated, it's my turn now, lol.
I can't speak to steam reviews, but the original is among my all-time favorites and below zero failed to keep my attention for more than a couple of hours all 4 times I attempted it over the years.
yeah same here, the first one was for sure more scary/suspenseful. The second one had a few cool things but overall much more bland imo
It kinda blows my mind that after seeing the first become so popular because it was accidentally scary that they decided to go out of their way to remedy that in BZ.
Sadly happens all the time. Look at Dying Light 2, which lost all the magical, scary atmosphere from DL.
It sounds a bit crazy, but often even the developer fails to understand why people love a game. Because theyāve often stumbled on the magical thing to begin with. So they make a sequel, but remove what made it great. Very few studios manage to keep the magic going.
Happens with books too, audiences sometimes channel something in the book which is way more than the author intended.
Yeah, I'm the same.
Sales projections give a different picture. You'll notice some games have a positive rating, but not be liked by the community.
Subnautica: 11.32 M according to Play Tracker
Below Zero: 3.50 M according to Play Tracker
Why the community hates it is simple. A smaller map and a subpar story that fails to capture the atmosphere and enjoyment of the original game.
I remember hating the new sub train-like system where you would have to couple/decouple "wagons"; it felt like a hassle and did not really make it feel like you are progressing but hitching more weight/length so lost agility as you progressed.
Do the community hate it? I feel most see it as I do. Not bad, but not as great as the original.
The vocal ones, at least, especially the ones who lost their minds about the protagonist being female and black. But for the rest of the audience, yeah it was a matter of it poorly measuring up to the original. My biggest gripe with the game was how much the surface sections sucked, and how there was SO much of it.
Lower sales doesn't equal to hate in my eyes. All the ratings and reviews I can find from the majority seemed to really like it. All the evidence I can find says the opposite of hate to me.
Every 2 days it's asked by someone here why it's hated, most of the comments seem to be "it's not", or a variation of "it's not as a good, but still good".
Off Reddit, it's generally hated, and even in the community here on Reddit, it appears 50/50.
If you say so, everything off Reddit doesn't show that to me based on what I can find from rating and reviews. From Steam, Xbox, PSN, Amazon, Metacritic and more, all highly rated. Seems like a case of a loud minority to be honest.
Based on the sales numbers alone the people who like it are the loud minority. Just because the people who did play it gave it positive reviews doesn't mean there isn't a huge group who didn't like it, which is apparent when you look at the difference in sales between the first and second game. Can't be a "loud minority" when there are more of them than you, the math doesn't math.
I played both and 2 was really subpar. The story had a huge disconnect from what you were actually doing in the game and the main reason your character even comes to the planet to begin with is totally optional content once the "real" story takes over. Absolute dogshit writing there compared to what we got from Subnautica 1.
The best thing about Subnautica 2 was that I got new buildings to play with in Subnautica 1.
I don't feel that's how reviews work. If it's reviewed positively by the majority of people who left the reviews/ratings, that's the evidence I'm looking at. A minority or majority is percentage based on the reviews/ratings left, not copies sold based. The majority of the percentage of reviews are positive. If people didn't buy/play the game to leave negative reviews, how would they even know how they felt about a game they didn't play then? How would you have an opinion on something you didn't buy and therefore experience? This is gaming, people love leaving negative reviews, people are much more likely to go out of their way to leave negative reviews than positive. So if it was truly disliked by the majority of people who played it, the reviews and ratings would show that, but they don't.
The reviews aren't based on the sales numbers no, but when you look at the sales numbers you can see sub1 sold almost twice as many copies as sub2 has. That means half the players who played sub1 didn't like what they saw from sub2s advertising and didn't even bother to buy it in the first place. People cannot leave a review on a product they don't buy, so that isn't included in that score despite being a factor. Not buying the game at all is worse than a negative review.
It's not even 20/80 my dude.
"Hated" is pretty strong. I enjoyed it, but it was definitely an inferior game compared to the OG Subnautica.
I agree, I'd give the main game a 10 of 10 honestly, Below Zero is around a 8 out of 10.
Ok hear me out , big fan of the subnautica here , i played a lot and a lot the first game and below zero feels like a bad copy , its feelsnoff weirdnand not fun explore, also the map sucks , i mean the 3d model map for navegation, its varely visible
Wait what controversy with character design?
They went from faceless character(who didn't take attention from atmosphere to himself) to very much overdesigned character who never stopped talking.
Wasnt received well? Do you see the overall Steam reviews at 90%? It was very well received.
Copy pasting from another comment.
Sales projections give a different picture. You'll notice some games have a positive rating, but are not liked by the community.
Subnautica: 11.32 M according to Play Tracker
Below Zero: 3.50 M according to Play Tracker
That doesnāt even make senseā¦ a game that has essentially an A in ratings from over 10s of thousands of people on Steam is considered ānot likedā by the community. Ya need a reality checkā¦ no oneās got any idea how much was sold if weāre all being honest.
Below Zero has about 90K reviews on steam.
Subnautica has 290K.
Below Zero being rated highly only tells me that most people didn't even bother.
Thats because youtubers werent playing it
See, it sounds like solid advice, but that kind of goes out the windows when someone offers you 500 million dollars not to do that
If you're going to sell, divest entirely. Notch got $1billion really good reasons to walk away from Minecraft. Trying to sell the controlling interest in your passion project without suffering for it down the line just seems kind of naive. Maybe they don't actually care as much as they let on. It's just nasty all around.
I honestly think they just wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Getting a nice payday while staying in charge, not understanding that when they sell themselves to a publisher they are no longer the boss anymore
They would have known that. If anything, maybe they just never thought it would come to the point where they were removed, but everything about this story reads like they knew how to make games, not how to run a business.
2,5 billions. :P
Yeah, as much as people say they wouldn't do it, getting that kind of offer is beyond life-changing. They would do it.
If they sold, it was to make more bank than they were making. Every development company is one flop from closing. Nothing wrong with taking the bag.
You have to learn to think farther ahead than the next 3 seconds. Whatever they got from the publisher as part of the deal cost them the company they started.
It would be like buying a big piece of property and building a house. And then you subdivide the property, sell the lot with the house on it for a very tidy profit, and build another house. You sell that house. And then you decide to bring on a real estate agent to help you sell the third house only you decided along the way to give the real estate agent authority to bar you from your own property if they don't like the house you're building or how long it's taking.
Say ya, it looks a lot like there was something wrong with taking the bag.
The thing you are missing is that they got paid. If it wasn't worth it financially, they wouldn't have done it.Ā
In your analogy the real estate agent gave them cash money worth several houses to represent them.
You should read into it more detail. The point is that they sold for <$x> thinking they would go on to earn more <$x> from their property only they've just been locked out by people who had nothing to do with building the property in the first place.
It's not always about whether or not you made $1. If you're able to think a little farther ahead and realize that by taking $1 today, you lost out on $100 tomorrow, you don't stand there saying, "Ya, but it was worth it, because I got $1."
That's what selling a company is. Taking a lump some up front because you prefer it to theoretical money later. If they had royalties as part of the sale, being fired as a developer isn't going to stop that.
..something in the something is worth two somethings in the something...
Have you tried doing the barest research before you post fucking nonsense?
A controlling interest in the company was sold by 2013 to a chinese company called Perfect World... 12 years ago and 1 year before Subnautica released into Early Access.
Subnautica and Below Zero were self published by Unknown Worlds.
Krafton may be the publisher of Subnautica 2 but they are also the owner of Unknown Worlds having bought it in 2021.
You seem to have misunderstood, because right after your little tantrum, you went on to regurgitate what I've already said in the thread.
Disco Elysium 2 is another prime example of this.
Exactly. Unknown did this to themselves. It's a hard pill to swallow, but its true.
With what happened with below zero I'm not entirely surprised they went to a publisher.
At that point they probably shouldn't have to, but they were a long ways from the heydays of NS1.
And because of the monry they made AND the backing of a publisher now, I wont accept that S2 is again an Early Access unginished title. What the hell were they doing with the funds?
I played / finished Below Zero without reading anything online and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a shock to me when I went online and found all the hate for the game.
Maybe I just enjoyed driving my underwater truck around beautiful environments so much that I didn't notice any plot issues.
From a technical standpoint I think it was an upgrade on the original.
Man I was getting downvoted in a the subnautica sub for saying this exact shit lmao
Baffles me actually. Its like selling your kids. Why on earth would you sell rights?? 2 great games, sequel would kick ass for sure as well. The reason is greed right?
It sounds like they were mostly having a hard time keeping their development efforts funded. Hard to rationalize when they had so much money from Subnautica. Most studios never see a success like that, but these guys did and somehow they still lost their company.
It is hard to imagine but money on projects goes faster than you'd think. They have 50 devs which is going to be like 8-10m a year or more to hire after all the associated costs / salaries. Then with exec bonuses and all the other costs and positions they need to hire even their nice 80m in revenue can be eaten up in 6 years, or faster with mismanagement.
Look at what they were doing before Subnautica... they spent a long time developing the engine for Natural Selection 2... a long long time that sort of went no where. (I say that as someone that bought it pre-alpha)
I agree. Money can go very fast. And mismanagement seems to be the key hear. I'm going out of my way to not be declaring this as if I've seen their financials. I haven't. But looking at their public history over the last 15-20 years, they've had some strong successes but have been making weird financial decisions for a while. Trying to push Below Zero up a tier from DLC to standalone game sounds like they were hoping to justify charging more for what they had and it bit them. They sold a 40% share of the company to Perfect Worlds in 2011 and by 2013, Perfect Worlds had a controlling interest in Unknown Worlds. Then Perfect Worlds divested themselves of their entire stake from 2019 to 2021.
Consider that in 2020, Subnautica hit the 5 million units sold mark. In 2021, they hit the 6 million units sold mark. Assuming the game was half off the whole time, that's a $15mil bump. That would pay a team of 100 $150,000/year for a full year, and Subnautica is still selling.
I kinda of wonder if they didn't take all of that revenue while the game was making money and use it to buy back their stake from Perfect Worlds. If that were the case, it follows to wonder if they didn't spend more than they could truly afford and that's why they wound up back in bed with another publisher.
It's like paying off your bookie right before he breaks your legs and then having to go and borrow rent money from a loan shark to make up for it.
If someone offered me 50 million to quit my current job and never work on that project again I'd take it and so would you dont even fucking lie.
Thatās genuinely a great tip. Itās always tempting to sell out, especially when it means you and everyone whoās been chasing the dream with you could finally be financially secure. But in todayās landscape, retaining the rights to your own IP is the smarter long-term move.
Big corporations often donāt understand why an IP resonates (Studios still have NO IDEA what happened to The Minecraft movie); their focus is primarily on appeasing executives and shareholders. In contrast, the video game industry offers platforms like Steam and GOG, where indie developers can test ideas at a beta level and even start generating revenue while still refining their concept.
Unlike the film industry, a unique or fun game concept can grow organically, and if it connects with players, the audience will come to you.
Youve got no idea how bad the gaming business is 99% of the time
The people fired are not involved in the development of Subnautica 2. They were just enjoying high salaries.
If Subnautica is anyone's baby, it's Charlie Cleveland's.
Yeah it is but he is not involved in Subnautica 2. Just paid fat salary and royalties to "run the studio"