First a disclaimer: I have no idea what's going on with KGS or any inside info. I'm just speculating, please treat it as such.
As a generalization when a significant group from a successful game walks out en mass, it's because they feel the owners aren't fairly sharing profits. Letting this happen is usually a reallydumbmove by the owners.
A great example is the Medal of Honor franchise, which raised a studio best known for a nice quake expansion to the top of the industry. The owners did not treat the team in a way the team considered fair. The bulk walked out, signed a deal with another publisher to become their own studio, and the Call of Duty franchise was born. I think most people are aware that CoD has made an obscene amount of money. It's hard to believe that whatever selfish split the MoH owners were getting justified not having any split of that team's later work.
When you have a team that has proven they can hit the top, the last thing to do is treat them as disposable.
owners basically used all the money (to the tune of millions) to start a music label and create a film instead of investing it in their golden laying hen
the project itself was a employee pet project (Harvester's) and he was about to quit to start it, but they convinced him to stay. Harvester should have seen it coming, since the very reason he was fed up to leave was the way Squad treated the employee as low quality tools, but hey, it's not an easy decision to start your own thing in a climate of financial insecurity
Do you have any info on what music label and film they created with that money?
It's very sad seeing this happen since i love KSP and as a Mexican it was great to see sonething like this being made here. How is it that you lay waste to something as cool as KSP :(
> As a generalization when a significant group from a successful game walks out en mass, it's because they feel the owners aren't fairly sharing profits.
Another key factor is often the owners stifling creative developments in order to chase $. This is particularly the case with long running franchises that are being milked rather than developed.
It has been years for me as well (mostly due to the Java Runtime requirement which I'm usually loathe to install.) The highest achievement of my amateur career must have been tying with a 1-Dan once. :)
I wonder why this game hasn't seen a resurgence (in the West) on today's mobile devices yet.
As a generalization when a significant group from a successful game walks out en mass, it's because they feel the owners aren't fairly sharing profits. Letting this happen is usually a really dumb move by the owners.
A great example is the Medal of Honor franchise, which raised a studio best known for a nice quake expansion to the top of the industry. The owners did not treat the team in a way the team considered fair. The bulk walked out, signed a deal with another publisher to become their own studio, and the Call of Duty franchise was born. I think most people are aware that CoD has made an obscene amount of money. It's hard to believe that whatever selfish split the MoH owners were getting justified not having any split of that team's later work.
When you have a team that has proven they can hit the top, the last thing to do is treat them as disposable.