Blogs Hello Games did the right thing by keeping quiet after No Man's Sky; here's why

"and some by Murray representing himself poorly in interviews"

By which you mean "outright lying"...

You can blame the "fans" for over-reacting, and I'm sure you're right that nothing would have appeased them *after the fact* - but this might all have been avoided if...wait for it.. the game actually delivered on it's promises.

I feel it's a bit rich to lay blame at the feet of the customers in this instance - many of whom spent their hard-earned cash in good faith for a product that didn't deliver on what the top-man himself said in public interviews.

 

The moment they saw pre order numbers go through the roof they could have hired a couple more people and delivered much more at launch.
Look at what they achieved with around 15 people, imagine what could have been with lets say 50.

Anyway, the game is actually significantly better now than at launch, so at least they are on the right track.

 

This ^

Also I think the player base could have been appeased. I suspect if Hello Games came out after release and said "yes, we missed some promised features, but rest assured we'll patch them in at a later date for free" then that would have quelled the rising ****-storm surrounding this game.

As it stands with the new update it *still* doesn't bring most of what was demonstrated/promised but adds the ability to build a base - a feature I personally feel is superfuous in a game designed around the ability to go out and explore a vast galaxy.

 

Has that ever actually worked in the past? Because I can't recall any instances of the Baying Mobs being appeased by anything other than a blood sacrifice (or just waiting for them to get bored and pick another target to hate).

 

It always works with my other half, when she starts moaning at me for over promising and under delivering if i say nothing she gets bored.

 

I feel that all preorders ought to have an additional page that pops up before people buy it saying something along the lines of:

'You are about to preorder this game. This is widely considered idiotic, so only do it if you don't care about potentially losing the money you spend on it.'

After all, isn't this where most of the anger comes from? Anyway, I'm glad my spidey senses activated for this game and have potentially saved me disappointment. I was a bit naughty and watched the 'ending' on Youtube...yeah, not going to bother quite frankly.

 

Ditto, and quite right too

 

This is an incredibly poor post Jake, shame on you and whoever gave this the nod to be put up. How dare 'angry and entitled' players expect things they were told to expect, in a game they paid money for.

If this were a free to play game then fine, parts were missed out/not delivered on time, no big deal. Outright lying about features that would be in the game and giving no comment whatsoever about the potential future inclusion of is awful and you shouldn't be singing their praises for eventually getting around to laying the foundations for a subset of those features that were meant to be part of the core game.

 

I liked the post Jake, don't let the angry internet get you down.

I don't preorder on priciple, as Pete J said, it's an idiotic practice that the big publishers seem to be taking advantage of. The closest thing I do is support small developers through Kickstarter.

It's also worth taking the involvement of Sony into account, which is what seemed to make this whole matter worse.

I look forward to picking this game up in the future when it goes on sale for around £20 and is a bit more finished.

 

I'd blame Sony wholeheartedly for most of this, but it's not even really /their fault/, it's just a lot of people mishandling things.

That's the thing with stuff like this, it's rarely malice, but just a few people not doing their jobs, in this case, the marketing people who needed to keep people's expectations in line.

Game's decent, though.

 

Can you let me know what Sony did to be attributed all/most of the blame? I'm not saying they didn't do anything but I honestly don't know how they caused this.

For me, and with regards to managing expectations, I don't think gamers wholly hyped the game into something it wasn't. For the most part those expectations were created my Sean Murray himself, either by lying about and/or misrepresenting the features of the game in interviews and demonstrations.

I don't understand how this is excusable or how it's justifiable to shift the blame to Sony and the gamers themselves.

 

Sony handled the marketing of the game. arranging TV appearances, print/tv/web ads and promotions, etc.

 

Sony as a global multi billion corporation could have at least let someone with experience in marketing write some notes for Sean before allowing him to appear on TV and such.

If they would have provided him with a marketing speak excuse for not having multiplayer for example would he still have lied about it being in the game?

 

Any sources for this or just heresay and presumption?

He could have just not lied regardless.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...mans-sky-steam-page-did-not-mislead-consumers

This is relevant, today.

 

From Sony UK's Managing Director:

So I slightly misspoke: Sony also handled publishing and distribution for NMS too.

 

IIRC it did with Warhammer Online. They were very upfront that the game would be missing several races and cities at release and they would be adding them later. Followers were quite sympathetic and appreciated the honesty. It still did quite well with preorders. Things mostly went downlhill for Warhammer because of the way it was handled after the delayed content was released.

 

It's relevant - it's also a total farce. And, of course, the ASA's remit didn't include the myriad interviews and "demos" used for marketing purposes prior to launch. Any claim that the "Ad" on Steam "did not exaggerate the expected player experience of the game" is surely mitigated by SM not only lying, but actually LOOKING BLOODY SHIFTY WHILE DOING SO.

In my opinion, that article only highlights the ASA's incompetence and lack of knowledge of the subject - especially to have been swayed by some very iffy excuses, especially regarding the capability of the game to produce the graphics shown in the screenshots (even if it DOESN'T).

 

I wonder if all this furor is why Sony is not allowing the release of Ark Survival in its current form...

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