gaming
Subnautica 2 reportedly delayed into 2026 just months before Krafton was due to pay a $250 million bonus to developer Unknown Worlds
This feels like an all-time scumbag move
Discussion
“Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds in 2021, three years after the hit undersea survival game Subnautica left early access and went into full release. The purchase agreement, according to Bloomberg, included the $250 million bonus, payable if the studio achieved specific revenue targets by the end of 2025; with Subnautica 2 delayed into 2026, those targets are unlikely to be met, and thus the bonus will not be payable.”
I wonder how close to these targets they are. We have a chance to do the funniest thing.
Man that is honestly fucking vile if they bought them out with a promise of a big payout if they hit the targets and then once in ownership kneecapped them on purpose specifically so they don't hit the targets
That is exactly what happened.
Even if that's not the exact reasoning for the delay, UW is still never going to see that bonus.
Absolutely, it would have been planned even before they made the offer to buy. It was a fake incentive that will no doubt be found to be perfectly legal.
Oh yeah, its Luigi time
I mean I'm not a lawyer but that seems like it should be illegal no? But I guess laws hardly apply to big corporations anyway..
pretty sure this is known as Equitable Estoppel? could be wrong, but I haven't had an opportunity to bust that term out before.
Could be Anticipatory Repudiation but I’ve no idea what I’m saying. I’ve never used that term before
Fuck even the gaming subreddit is reminding me to get back to bar study
Damn, that's a good term and probably the right one. Now I need to find a way to work that into a conversation.
Me: "Yeah, I'll be back in a few minutes. I just need to run down to the store to pick up something for my anticipatory repudiation, no biggie."
That cream is in aisle 4.
It depends on what was in the contract. Courts typically treat business to business contracts as if they should know what they're doing.
Publishers do this kind of vile shit all the time, unfortunately. A mid-sized indie studio I worked for many years ago kept getting bit by these provisions and eventually folded. They usually look good in the contract, and like something you can achieve, but then on down the line you realize it's structured so you'll never get bonus payment. They control the marketing, the milestones, and the release, so they love to work those things into the qualifiers as levers to pull if you get too close. Sorry, so sad - maybe next game!
I mean the opposite could be true and he was trying to push out an unfinished game just to get a bonus
They are probably a Subnautica 2 Early Access amount of revenue away
$250 mil is the production cost of a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Around 100 employees. However negotiated that deal on Krafton's side was out of their mind to begin with
Probably because they thought the goal was impossible. Turns out, possible. So naturally they're panicking and have decided to kill the golden goose. But hey, at least they get this one last egg.
More likely the executive that agreed to it knew there were 2 possible outcomes: no chance in hell of hitting it, so they don’t have to pay, or decent chance of hitting it, so screw the pooch to ensure they don’t, and still don’t have to pay
Screwing 100 people out of $2,500,000 each I'm willing to guess at least 1 is willing to sink the ship to send a messege.
Either releasing anyways, leaking the whole game, or leaking internal communicstions
It's not actually screwing 100 people out of 2.5M each. The offer to split the bonus doesn't appear to be documented anywhere that I can find aside from this specific article. It is possible PC Gamer just made it up.
Even if this is the case their studio of 100 people would get 250 mil.
This money would be used for some form of bonus or expansion to build the company and reward those there in some capacity that now will not occur.
That's not what the article says, the article says the founders would be due $250M based on revenue goals by the end of 2025 and that "Unknown Worlds leadership had reportedly planned to split the bonus with all of the studio's roughly 100 employees."
That means that the people who sold the studio were due $250M, not the studio itself, the studio is owned by Krafton, they don't need a $250M payout to expand or build the company.
“No, haha, please don’t give us millions of dollars in revenue this year, haha, it would really hurt us, haha”
If they delay it to next year, they make a similar amount of money from sales without having to pay $250m of it to the developer.
If Subnautica 2 ever gets properly completed now. Some of the devs were supposed to have the opportunity to get 7 figure bonuses. Now they get none of it lol. I sure as hell wouldn't be happy. Look at KSP2, greedy ass publishers are gonna be greedy but it will probably come back to bite them if morale in the dev team is low, with their CEO and bonuses are ripped from them on the final stretch.
KSP2 was ultimate greed. The original devs literally wanted a raise of a couple dollars.. per day.. And the company fired them all.
they get paid <$100/day because they work in mexico... Had a game that sold millions of copies.. And the company refused to pay them more.
Yes, the developers of KSP get paid literally less then US federal min wage, wanted a raise that still wouldn't bring it up to US federal wage and where fired over it.
The original devs literally wanted a raise of a couple dollars.. per day.. And the company fired them all.
they get paid <$100/day because they work in mexico... Had a game that sold millions of copies.. And the company refused to pay them more.
The original devs sold the entire IP to Take Two and walked away rich.
The next development team, the one Take Two hired to start development on KSP2, worked in Washington. Not Mexico.
Those they fired for failure to meet deadlines and goals after a bunch of scope creep by the lead designer.
And then they rehired the lead designer, and then hired a new dev team, with some of the original team in the mix.
And those guys failed, too, because they had the same exact people in charge.
Really? That's fucking awful goddamn I never knew the details.
Watch the founders announce a new company, producing a game called 'The Dark Deep', and 90% of the studio join them.
Obviously we don’t know the full story or if they were actually within reach of this revenue target, but if they were and this was intentionally delayed to avoid the payout….
That is a “quit your job on the spot” type of betrayal. Like oh, you don’t want to hit the revenue target? How about we all leave and you have no game at all?
Layoffs were timed after core MVP is done. Publisher hires scabs to finish the game. Enough people are in love with the brand and don’t know the details such that it sells decently well. Many such cases, sadly.
Don’t believe publishers. Pay lawyers to go over any agreement and add protections against mass layoffs at late dates.
I would be worse. I would stay and poison it.
I suppose the amount of people who don't buy S2 because they don't want to support unethical businesses like that has a snowballs chance in hell of equaling the 250 million they "save", but I probably won't be giving them my business, even if I did love Subnautica 1.
I took it off my wishlist and unfollowed. Won’t support these scummy business practices. Damn shame, I was excited. The first one is one of my favorite games of all time.
I won't be buying S2, because this announcement is all I need to know that the game will be crap.
Firing the original founders, then snatching massive bonuses from the existing staff, does NOT result in a game being completed to any decent standard.
This is a company interested only in short term gains. They will shovel out any shit and call it a released game. Look at Kerbal 2.
Sadly, Subnautica 2 is already dead.
I suspect a lot of people will be sailing the seas for Subnautica 2, which is ironic
Why bother? This action has told me all I need to know: They will not complete S2 to any reasonable quality standard. They've killed it with the actions of this week and last week.
Guess im buying subnautica
What does this mean for them?
It means the ~100 employees of Unknown Worlds, who were set to split the $250M, are losing out on six to seven figure bonuses
Shit like this is why you should always assume any bonus dangled in front of you is a lie, and if that bonus is contingent on something happening you can always guarantee the company will work as hard as possible to prevent it.
Too late - They've fired the leaders/founders who were going to get that bonus, then planned to share it with the employees.
These employees are now looking at 'There's nothing we can do, those fuckers in charge just made sure we will never get that bonus'.
So what do you think will happen to the game now? :)
I hope they trash their game and make it worse on purpose, just to fuck with them. Fuck it.
I doubt they need to. After this the main occupation of their workforce is "sneakily look for a better job" and maybe they'll work on the game a little bit when the boss is looking (but the boss won't be looking much because they're doing the same thing).
After this absolutely nobody there has any reason to care if the game is any good. They know they're not getting anything if it is, and they're getting laid off soon either way, so there's no reason to try.
Sadly with the game so far ahead in development it’s already ‘ready’ for early access according to the fired Founders…Krafton doesn’t care.
They’ll fire underperforming workers and hire new cheap ones as there’s massive tech job unemployment world wide, Subnautica 2 will still sell like hot chips
Early Access doesn't mean good. It means core systems are established and playable. There's still a long way to making an Early Access game into a good game and that's not something that happens with cheap contract labor.
Yup. My wife sells businesses through her work and these kinds of deals are specifically a trap used to trick folks who aren’t business savvy (like game developers).
LinkedIn says around 200 employees but yeah that’s still over a million each before whatever fees or things have to be accounted. I would absolutely be livid if I were them, definitely would look into how to get that money back through a lawsuit if possible.
Its arguable how evenly that sum would be split, but yeah this is fucked either way
In all likelihood, there would be employee bonuses in the 4-6 digit range based on position with a majority going to business accounts of UW.
No money, game may be dead.
KSP 2 vibes. They did their devs dirty too.
Disco Elysium's ZA/UM as well.
Fallout New Vegas metacritic incident all over again
What was the megacritic incident?
Bethesda offered royalties on fnv sales to obsidian if it hits 85+ metacritic score
It hit 84
There are speculations that bethesda put a hand on it being lower
Nah, it is not.
KSP 2 is the only example where I side with the publisher.
Private Division Intercept Games lead hyped the game up to all those heights, 5 years of dev time and millions upon millions of money pumped into the project.
Yet KSP 2 released with absolutely horrid performance, barely any parts, less features than even early versions of KSP 1 (which was made by 1 person), and ontop of that, before the Dev team got their notice, even minor updates were taking ages.
Nah, the dev team itself was horribly managed and incompetent.
Activision Take-Two just pulled the plug after giving chance after chance after chance.
P.S. KSP 2 originally had a release date of 2020. A full 3 years earlier. With more claimed features already supposedly implemented, than did on actual release.
That's how gigantic Intercepts fuckup was.
Private Division was the publisher. Star Theory was the first group of fuckups (overpromise) , and Intercept Games were the ones who pissed away all of the Covid good will the game might have otherwise had (underdeliver).
"New CEO Steve Papoutsis apparently told employees that there's no indication the delay was made "specifically to impact any earnout."" Well that's okay then. Why yes I was born yesterday, how can you tell?
This needs far more attention, this is absolutely horrible for those devs
They fired the guys who started it all...
This series is dead.
the old *yoink* move.
This is also a failure of Unknown Worlds's lawyers. They should have anticipated this possibility. The developer should have retained independence post acquisition for a period of time.
You can't fault indie developers for not having the legal foresight that your business partners aren't operating in good faith (A core tenant of a contract in the first place - But good luck proving this was the plan from the beginning)
This happens to a lot of indie developers who end up with a publisher unfortunately, the tale really should have taught some lessons but when you're focused on your passion projects, it's easy to not think about these things.
You can't fault indie developers for not having the legal foresight that your business partners aren't operating in good faith
And why not? That's literally the job of their legal team. And they fumbled hard
Yeah I don't understand the argument that you can't fault them just because they're an indie developer dedicated to a project. Any group that doesn't have the foresight to protect themselves from these types of situations will never make it in the long-run anyways.
EVERY buyout ends this way. EVERY SINGLE ONE. You dont need foresight, you just have to not naively believe rich assholes arent rich assholes...
In 2021 they were already huge and certainly large enough to afford a lawyer before you sign. If you still sign a 250m$ deal without making sure you will get your money its your own fault.
Not to mention that game publishers are known to fuck over devs.
That's why I have the emphasis at the bottom, that when you're working on a passion project it's very easy to not think about these things.
There's a documentary from Andrew Gower, the founder of Jagex - Makers of RuneScape - Who went very in depth into how easy it was to lose control while being focused on your passion project - He had access to money at the time as well, but still things got out of his grasp.
Their lawyers definitely fumbled hard though, but I don't entirely fault the passionate developers for not seeing this coming, it's really difficult when you don't have a legally minded person out the gate on your side.
...the contract for "new owner pays us $250m if we hit these revenue targets" also gave the new owner the ability to delay the release date of the game that might have made them that revenue? Why the hell would they ever agree to that and expect to be able to make that money?
They didn't explicitly have the power to delay the game at the time. They booted out UWE leadership, which consisted of the studio's founders, and replaced them with their own guy so that it could then be delayed.
yea, basically the publisher just did a really dirty move that no one really expected them to make.
Now yea, should have saw it coming, but still. The devs got fucked over hard.
They had complete control over the release date, and were planning to release soon...
... until they were fired, losing all control. It seemed like a good deal.
Right until vader, I mean, venture, altered the terms.
Yeah, it was naive of them to sign a contract like this and expect not to be sabotaged.
Bad news for anyone excited about this game. This is very likely going to end up in developmental hell. If this ever launches, it will either be stuck on early access with very slow limited updates for a very long time likely while some legal battle is happening on the background or it will end up like KSP2 being completely abandoned because the entire team get fired
I anticipate subnautica 2 in about 25 years when some company buys the rights to it for cheap
can somebody just start today making their own subnautica. we've waited long enough
I wish there were more underwater games :( i was meant to be a fish
the situation is so weird, i dunno what to think about it.
On the one hand you could say that MAYBE the ceos that got fired (original) wanted the payout for their employees and were going to potentially release the game in a broken state so they could get it, which obviously the publisher dont want cus they want more money
On the other hand as this article hints maybe the publisher heard news it was indeed gunna release and are trying to save giving the studio that money at all costs.
Im more inclined to believe the latter tbh just because of how scummy publisher usually are and there arent many big publishers that care about a game releasing in a good state lol. But once again idk, will have to see if more comes out. Either way its super sad for the devs, thats life changing amounts of money if they were gunna share it amongst the staff so my hearts go out to em
I dunno man maybe this time the suits with a history of doing devs dirty are just looking out for gamers.
Charlie (one of the founders who got booted out) said in a letter recently that the Early Access was ready and that all the devs knew it was. Delay announcement even said closed testing was going very well and that it was delayed due go a few small areas being not ready, not that it was broken. And keep in mind for all of this, we're not talking about the final release of the game - this is all about the Early Access release, it's not supposed to be complete or polished.
And it just so happens that this decision pushed what will likely be the studio's biggest launch ever just past the deadline for that $250M payout? It's absolutely just krafton avoiding having to give them that money.
were going to potentially release the game in a broken state so they could get it, which obviously the publisher dont want cus they want more money
That's the point of how they develop games though. Its early access that takes years for full release. Its not exactly a secret or pulling a No Man's Sky/Cyberpunk on the community.
I mean, Subnautica 1 was done using Early Access specifically so that fans could provide input as the game was developed. They were highly responsive and ultimately showed how the EA model can work properly, even keeping the "report bug" feature in after v1.0 was released, just in case. Of all the companies to use Early Access as part of their release process, Unknown Worlds was one of the least-scummy about it, by far.
That was the point of my comment yeah.
the in-game feedback thing was cool and more early-access games should implement something similar.
While their games can be buggy at first due to different configurations and optimization, UWE’s games have typically felt complete at launch, but who knows, maybe that 250M carrot could’ve changed things. I still think it was the latter though.
I didn't expect Subnautica to hit me this hard. At first, I thought it was just another survival game, but it ended up being one of the most immersive and emotional experiences I've ever had in gaming. The moment I stepped into the water for the first time, I was completely hooked. There’s something so calming but also terrifying about swimming through those alien oceans, not knowing what’s out there. The world doesn’t hold your hand, but that’s what makes exploring it so satisfying. It honestly breaks my heart to see how the development of the Subnautica 2 is going.
Subnautica might be my favorite game of the last decade. Corporate greed ruins everything.
That's the huge issue if you don't keep your own company and decide for money.
They sold themselves out in 2021. They lost the control over decisionmaking just to aquire more funding for the game and for the previous owners to sell their shares to realize private funds. Shady what happens right now but that's a direct consequence for their decisions. You lose the control even if anyone promises you whatever.
For what? Both subnauticas were great games. They could have done another great one without selling out. If the project has to be bigger a) size down a bit or b) get other ways of funding. But i guess the dollar signs in the eyes were too big.
Just for money the previous owners lost what they build up for years.
So, if I understand this correctly, they were ready to release into Early Access. Doing so would almost guarantee they would hit their revenue targets set by the publisher (and apparently also the parent company because they sold the studio to them), Krafton, and thus be eligible for the bonus.
However, the very people who would be paying the bonus suddenly fired the studio's main leaders, including the founding members, installed a new CEO that is from one of their other companies that they own (and is almost definitely just a puppet for them), and now that new CEO is delaying the release of the game that the previous leaders said was ready.
This delay now all but guarantees the bonus threshold will not be met?
Dude...
I hope to God they sue the absolute heck out of them for this.
I can also guarantee you that I won't pay a single cent for that game unless every dime of that bonus is paid.
This is especially heinous because the previous managers were gonna share that bonus with the entire staff, even though they probably didn't have to at all.
I love when my treasured games and franchises get killed by corporate and petty inter-personal squabble :D
I mean no offense, but shouldn't there be language in the contract the predicts a pretend delay to nix the agreement and a payout if the leads are cut before the payout date. Seems very sus that they couldn't easily counter-sue against this.
Apparently there’s something called good faith and fair dealing which is inherent in all contracts and I would say the studio could have a good legal case. Would be messy though .
Stuff like this just reminds me peak capitalism is just figuring new ways to cheat people so the rich get richer. It is ruinous for most people when left unchecked, and game development is not an exception.
Greed like this doesn't work anyway. After this, anyone who can find another job will quit and the morale of the rest will be in the toilet. The game's probably going to suck and the biggest fans of the first won't touch it because of the betrayal of the devs. Krafton will be left with a mediocre game that doesn't meet expectations and a studio where all the talent has fled and everyone left behind is more interested in refreshing LinkedIn than making anything.
Doesn't work for who?
The people at the top still make their money. It's the employees who end up needing different work and the company that folds. Then those rich people do it all over again. Failed CEOs hop from company to company with their golden parachutes. Absurdist capitalism spins on.
Basically, the owners just killed their golden goose in order to save that $250 mill.
Given that subnautica had sold (by best estimates) between 6 and 11 million copies, with a total revenue between 90m and 160 million estimated, I guess they quietly did their sociopath venture capital math, and decided to cut their losses rather than take the risk.
Quite possibly part of their plan all along.
Either way, it reads really shitty, especially since they fired the original founders.
This game has gone from a 'must buy' on my list to an 'avoid, vampires killed it'
They are going to ride off just the name and sell to millions of casuals who don't pay attention to this stuff.
If for your numbers to make sense, Subnautica 2 would need to sell at least 16.6 Million copies at the current price point, which is very unlikely. If you raise the price to lets say 30 bucks, you might break even, if sales hold up. I'm not arguing in favor of big corpos fucking over the devs, but it may make sense as to why this move was pulled. As in, no publisher is gonna eat the loss willingly if the game underperforms, they'd get in rough waters themselves.
So basically the publisher fired the developers leadership so it would delay release, so they can get off paying a $250m bonus?
Bingo
This game is cooked.
Devs should "accidentally" delete all the files and quit.
"Oops I clicked on the phising emails and reallt sketchy websites. Darn"
better yet, they should accidentally find their way online.
woopsie the source code just… floated away
Subnautica 2 got Lifepod 4’d.
RIP boys
HMMMMMMMMMMMM
Whyd it have to subnautica. I just wanted akwire new blue prints.
$250 million bonus seems absurd on its own, but they also have control when the game launches?
That's literally a scam.
imagine selling your ass to chinese mobile game company and expect to not be screwed.
4 panel meme about "animals being stupid and being caught in human made traps" all over again.
Krafton is a Korean company and initially got big with the PC game PubG
And Krafton turned PUBG into a convoluted mishmash of 748292 different in game currencies that can be used to acquire 7272948462 clown skins instead of, you know, optimising the game so a refreshed map doesn't run at 2 fps on modern hardware, or fixing bugs that cause game assets to render 1000x the desired size, or developing functional anti-cheat measures (region lock china pls for the love of god)
There was a Chinese live service game that did this recently. They got rid of all the devs right before launch so they didn't need to pay bonuses.
The realised live service games kinda need devs who know the product.
Name? Link?
His dad is the boss of microsoft
With news like that I hope the game is dead on arrival and it sells horribly. Here's hoping the original devs are able to get back in or create a new IP that I will buy.
Supernautica, a new space survival game.
How to ruin a game and make people hate you 101.
All these dickheads needed to do was just stay out of the way and rake in the profits. But it's never enough for these corporate assholes.
This is going to be a lawsuit. Of that I have little doubt
Boycott. They can't get away with this.
It's hard, I feel for the devs, but no way is Krafton getting any money from me. Removed from wishlist
This gotta be illegal. Krafton are some slimy mother fuckers.
So first they wanna split the bonus and give all employees a cut, not its gone and instead of "ready for early access" its delayed!?
What a fuckin mess -.- Subnautica was a hit! Why did they even sell their company? Greed always ruins everything. Won't buy first day or even first week. On sale...someday.
so they had 250 million corrupt evil fucking asshole reasons to do what they did nothing else
At least Krafton opened themselves up to a massive lawsuit by Unknown Worlds. For a 250 million bonus, there's going to be blood spilt.
Kinda fitting with Subnautica now that I think about it.
I really hope they sue. Krafton has pulled scummy bullshit before, I would absolutely not put it past them, and it sounds like a pretty straightforward lawsuit.
Could the Devs just delete the whole game by accident and walk out
This whole situation is just brutal. This sequel has been a top 3 anticipated game for me for years. All I want is a bigger Subnautica, with a better engine that doesn't have constant pop-in (my biggest gripe about the first game).
Wow, first they kick the founders out of their own company, then delay a game just to not pay the developers that worked hard on it.
Release in Early Access in 2026? That's fucking dumb
Make sure to send a message by unwishlisting folks
This is why we shouldn’t buy subnautica 2.
In contract law, I believe there is a thing about signing a contract and then deliberately preventing the other side from being able to achieve their end of the bargain.
It is not legal.
I hope they fight this and win.
I've been part of shitty buyouts from parent companies and also had shit like this happen. One day you think they'll stay true to their word and you get your big payout. Then you wake up one day and they rug pull your ass. Feel so bad for the Unknown Worlds Dev team. Delayed game I could care less about. That team was about to get 7 figure bonuses, enough money to change their lives and take care of their families because they created something amazing. They earned it, and corporate assholes ruined it all.
Oh I see. They did that shit on purpose because unknown worlds was doing a good job and krafton wanted to not pay out.
Exactly. And they fired the founders of UW last week. One of the founders, Charlie Cleveland said that the game was ready for early access release today
I smell a big old lawsuit
I certainly hope so.
Tangential but it's kind of mind boggling what a litigious industry video games are. I was reading a book on the history of video games and the whole thing is basically just about lawsuits. One after another.
It’s kind of interesting because a lot of the stupid patents you read about are quite often filed just so that patent trolls can’t end up using them against big corporations.
Like if you read all the horrible patents Sony and Microsoft have for shady anti-consumer product features, you might actually be tempted to view them in a slightly favorable light for simply NOT exercising them.
the devs suing the OG owners should be on the docket
why the hell did they sell.,
For the money Krafton is now trying to fuck them out of
To get $250 million dollar bonuses?
Well, to try to anyway.
I don't think anyone is stupid enough to sell for money that's paid "only if"
I'm sure the 250 mil was to sweeten the deal. Surely no one is dumb enough to hand over their company for promises
Krafton paid $750m for UW in 2021. The $250m was a bonus reliant on the game hitting early access this year. The amount wasn't part of the original purchase of the studio.
I mean smosh kinda did that before it got rescued.
$$$
Hi im Eugene Krabs, I like money
Same guy who played Kurgan in Highlander and the jerk guard in The Shawshank Redemption. Blows my mind every time I think about it.
Clancy Brown is seriously one of the best and most prolific character actors ever. He brings so much nuance to every role despite having such a distinct voice and face.
I see this all the time, "This is why you should never sell to EA/Microsoft/Krafton whatever" and it's really not that simple. Because as much as it sucks to work for a soulless, multibillion dollar, multinational corporation, it can be even tougher to make it as an independent developer. Sure, that big corporation might shutdown or downsize you later on down the line, but without the cash infusion you might have to do that right now.
yeah it's giving "but Michaelangelo, the Medicis are bad people! how can you take their money?"
like, okay, you buy me marble to work on then. what's that? giant blocks of marble are prohibitively expensive? oh, and the Medicis are one of like ten groups in the country who could possibly afford them? shocker.
Unknown Worlds made a ton of money from Subnautica. Why would they even need to sell?
Because the first thing an indie studio does after it gets a runaway hit and is showered with money is to hire a busload of people, all of whom want to get paid.
Scope bloat, budget bloat, team bloat. Everyone working in it knows that they can ship a bigger, better, more ambitious game if they just hire more. So they hire more.
And then if the next release isn't a runaway hit, the studio folds.
Their next release was a flop. A tabletop fantasy model fight game with simulated model painting.
"Moonbreaker"
I literally didn't know it existed until all this recent stuff happened, and I loved subnautica!
The game is actually quite good, the problem is it's for a pretty niche audience. A pvp turn based tactics game where the character's are miniatures (like plastic minis you'd use in real life tabletop games) instead of being animated. It does have pve too although I don't think that was the primary focus.
I’m a big fan of Brandon Sanderson, who did work for the lore/setting for this game because he loved Subnautica. Like you said, the people who played it seemed to like it (84% positive) but it’s a bit chicken and egg. It’s not worth risking a $30 purchase when the player base is so low, so they can’t attract new players to increase the player base. From the prerelease streams they did, PVE and a story was supposed to be a bigger part of the game with the Cargo Runs but they never attracted the player base to fully flesh it out, which means there is very little PVE content and it’s even less worth risking $30 on.
It’s actually interesting, Sanderson has told a story before about an author he knew that tried a book that was basically “JAG in space” hoping for crossover success from people who like legal dramas and people who like military sci-fi. That story flopped because it only attracted people who like both military sci-fi and legal dramas. I think a similar thing happened here, where tabletop fans aren’t going to start playing a digital tabletop game just for the hell of it, and for RTS fans there are a lot of really good options already out there so what is the prime attractor to this new one.
Alright, this thread officially has me interested, I’m a miniature painting fantasy reading Sanderson fan.
Because running video game studios is expensive, and even "a ton of money" might not be enough, if not to make another game the same scope as your previous one, but to make the bigger and better games to satisfy your fans and investors. That money might have been eaten up paying off the debt from making Subnautica. Because even as an independent studio, you can still have investors you want to see continued growth.
Yep. I work in a corporate environment. Is it a little soulless? Sure, but also money. The work environment is significantly worse at pretty much every non-corporate place I've ever worked, and for less pay.
wouldn't it be fun if krafton had to pay out and also didn't receive the game?
Unfortunately, unless the offer to share the bonus with the rest of the team was on signed on paper, the only two with real damages here are the recently fired founders.
This is what happens when you sell out, you lose control of the company. You only get to be CEO for as long as the people who actually own the company now want you to be. Likely they do have a suit against Krafton, but my guess is it settles for less than $250M and delays the payout into next year anyway.
Poor Charlie. I've watched him build that company up from nothing as a half life mod creator, just to be ousted by a big corporation.
This happens literally every time you sell out to a large company/public company.
They do not “share your vision”, they do not “want to invest the resources to succeed”.
They want a smash hit or a quick profit or they will chop you up and sell you for parts.
Exactly.
If you need money to get your project off and running, you need to keep a controlling share. Larian did this with Tencent, which is why they weren't forced to please them.
Sadly, most devs have no idea how to navigate scummy business tactics and end up stuck with a corporation who couldn't give two shits about their vision.
No, most devs are just temporally embarrassed millionaires who would throw their colleagues and peers under the bus for a a tiny bit more than the next guy.
Ever noticed there are basically no Tech Unions? IT/Devs are selfish people as a group.
Cries in KSP2
As a heavy player of the Natural Selection, this is sad indeed. I played NS for hundreds if not thousands of hours. I paid my constellation membership back in college to support the mod because it deserved it. This whole thing is fucked up.
The creators of subnautica made NS?
Yes Charlie Cleveland, the head of Unknown Worlds who got recently fired, basically personally programmed NS1 himself
He also personally made the engine for NS2 (and subnautica 1/2) instead of using source so that he had more control; ironic now that he is ousted from the studio. Nearly all the people who made NS2 and the foundation for subnautica are gone.
Yes. Khaara is a reference to NS actually!
Turns out, yes. I just found out this weekend from a friend, I had no idea up until then haha.
Yup, Natural Selection 1.04 was peak NS for me, I played the crap out of that back in the day.
I still think about Natural Selection.
Such a great game and had some stuff pretty ahead of it's time.
I didn't realize it was the same people when I first started playing Subnautica. Definitely gained a whole new level of appreciation when I did.
They fucked over some incredibly talented and brilliant folks.
I've played tens of thousands of hours of online games and some of my peak moments have been from natural selection, it sucked a lot, but when it was good it was SO GOOD. So many epic last stands, rallying the whole team to bum rush a hive, the whole team sacrificing their lives and upgrades so someone could ninja a critical objective on the other side of the map, it was an amazing community to be a part of. It was sad to watch the playerbase dwindle and not realize what we had at the time.
It's heartbreaking now to watch Charlie get ousted by some greedy corporate fucks for doing the exact same thing he's always done in the past while making great games.
nah its his choice he sold out. he deserves what he got.
But surely this big corporation will be different from alllll the others!
Money means a lot to most people and it's literally why they usually eventually sell out when given the chance no matter how principled they seem. Everyone's got a number...
And I wouldn't even call it greed.
Money may or may not buy happiness, but it does buy peace of mind. We should all ask our selves what lows would we stoop to in order to remove financial stress from our lives?
He doesn't deserve it, but he should've seen it coming
It's easy to say that from the outside looking in.
But on the inside, a lot of small companies get absolutely taken for a ride by predatory corporations especially private equity firms with promises of autonomy and access to resources they couldn't afford otherwise.
They apply all kinds of pressure, and they own so much of the industry that they can make credible sounding threats about what happens if you don't let them have a bigger piece of your business than they need to provide that injection of capital they promise.
exactly, it very well could be a prime example of "indie devs got fucked over and tricked into a bad deal by publisher" which happens way to often.
IMO it happens so often that they're naive if they didn't see it coming. You don't make a deal with the devil and expect no tricks. I get that they have bills to pay though and selling out is sometimes the only option.
so you wouldnt sell out to be financially set for generations?
I mean its arguable he can now start a new studio and still be super rich.
I Appreciate the idea of “not selling out” but when someone offers you a gigantic life changing cheque its gotta be hard to say no
Of course I'd do it. But then when that company goes and ousts me, I'd deserve it because that's the price you pay for selling the company.
The dude never said not to sell out, just that thems the breaks when you do.
I see his and your point but I also dont think I blame the guy because it clearly seems to be krafton are trying to get out of paying what they rightfully owe. You shouldnt be able to just fire people to avoid paying a bonus
Really sounds like they pulled an Activision. Activision did the same thing with the co founders of Infinity Ward and CoD. Activision held back quite a lot of bonuses and royalties.
Yeah I read that same article and this is how I've come to this conclusion.
i'm getting disco elysium flashbacks
NOT playing devils advocate. As they are obviously trying to stiff these guys.
Doesn’t the implication of being “Early Access” mean it isn’t done? If I was Krafton I would be banking on that if any lawsuit came in.
.. which means it's not dependent on the full release of the game: Just that they sell enough copies.
And you can bet a quarter billion that I, and many others, would have grabbed an early access copy instantly.
Whether that would have been enough is a different question, and also, whether the quality of the release was sufficient for a solid early access is another.
But - Given their track record, I'd have been willing to give them a chance, even though I rarely buy early access any more.
The guys who have a good track record just got fired, I'm not buying early access on this one now that they are gone
After this, I’m seriously reconsidering purchasing the game at all.
how the FUCK is this allowed??
Because the people it's screwing over didn't have good enough lawyers to catch loopholes like this.
New strategy. Pre-purchase anything krafton puts out...then refund it a few weeks before launch. If a TON of people did this, it would absolutely FUCK their financials.