5 ms·

It's not just a matter of the game not living up to marketing, or expectations being set too high. On release week, after the game went gold, the guy (and it's

by nolok 8y ago

It's not just a matter of the game not living up to marketing, or expectations being set too high. On release week, after the game went gold, the guy (and it's not a pr guy or whatever, he is part of the actual dev team, and creative lead) was still doing live interview lying about major features such as multiplayer or fleet battles. The first "release" trailer on the steam store page was showing lots of things that weren't in the game, too. See bribroder link to the reddit page for an idea of how far what they claimed they sold was to what they were actually selling, and it will help you see that as a cautious gamer, if you actually went out of your way to specifically check for features shown on official release video and/or answered as yes/no question by the game's lead, you would still be fooled. The reddit comment matches direct interview answers with major missing features. When you see two factions doing some major warring in space, and the guy present it as actual gameplay that's in the game's build and says "Like here, we're at the battle between two warring factions. I could join in, I could take sides." and then there is no fleet battles anywhere in the game, I have a hard time blaming the players for their expectations. I strongly disagree with the crazyness displayed by a lot of people, and those that go as far as death threat should be refered to the police. But this is not a case of "rabbid fan attack dev who couldn't reach what marketing promised", he put his hand in the fire to grab dollars, he got the money and he also got burnt. It was so bad, for a while valve made a exception to its refund policy specifically for no man's sky, so that players could refund it even after dozens of hours, because the dev was hiding behind the "you have not played enough, you will unlock it later in the game" trick.

ajross 8y ago
> I strongly disagree with the crazyness displayed by a lot of people But not strongly enough, apparently, to get that statement any higher than the fourth paragraph of your comment. Which tells me you're more interesting in flogging the bad game and its developers than you are in instances of actual, real-world harrassment. This is the same thing that happened with gamergate too. "Harrassment!? Fine, whatever, there are bad apples. I'm not one of them, it's not relevant. Let's talk about how awful Those Women were instead." I mean, look: it was a bad game. The developers oversold, underdelivered, and probably lied a bit too. The complaint has merit. But at some point the externalities of a situation mean we have to stop talking about meritorious complaints, because we're just egging on much worse behavior.
- Retric 8y ago
  The promoters committed fraud. Harrassment may be unpleasant, but I suspect they would rather that than be fined all profits and sitting in prison.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- evfanknitram 8y ago
  English is not my first language so I don't really understand the last sentence in your post ("egging", specifically). But what this company did was fraud in my view. He should be fined or put in jail. So should any people who sent them death threats.
  - jackcarter 8y ago
    The phrase "egg on" just means "encourage".
    - evfanknitram 8y ago
      Then that phrase makes no sense to me. Wouldn't it be the same as saying something like "we can't critize Donald Trump for his criminal actions because doing that just encourages people sending him death threats".
      - skj 8y ago
        That is the implication, yes.
      - nolok 8y ago
        I think that is exactly what he meant to answer yes, that criticizing the game or the dev's behaviors (with actual valid complaints) was wrong, because some people who did that also did bad things. I, too, am bewildered by that line of thinking.
- Tyrek 8y ago
JKCalhoun 8y ago
So, not just over-promised, under-delivered, a shitty way to run a business regardless, but outright bullshitting?
- NegativeLatency 8y ago
  As someone who bought the game on launch that was my experience. Yes.
blechinger 8y ago
I fought for a refund from Valve for about a week. Couldn't get one. I'm still a bit salty about it. I forget how many tens of hours I'd spent expecting to arrive at anything resembling what was alluded to in the trailers or demos. It was probably 20+ hours until I realized that the problem wasn't related to progression-locked content. I'd been swindled. No. More than that. I'd been robbed. I was mad. Sure. But I was more hurt and disappointed than anything. I can no longer trust Hello Games or Valve. Hello lied to consumers and Valve, from my perspective, backed them up while allowing a select few to actually recieve refunds for the sake of PR. I understand the desire to protect Developers from unrealistic backlash. You've got to draw a line somewhere which, after crossing, makes one ineligible for the normal refund process. I do think the placement of that line should vary by game (or at least genre) instead of the two hour hard cutoff Valve uses. For a game like No Man's Sky? At the two hour mark I was still taking in some of the visuals and geeking out about what I thought was coming. I definitely hadn't gotten into any of the completely broken mechanics, lack of depth of characters/worlds, or any other out of a plethora of disappointments and outright lies Hello had baked into the game and its marketing. So now, for most things, I refuse to pre-order. I might miss a few neat things that I would have gotten otherwise, however; I won't get robbed again.
- kjeetgill 8y ago
  Look, we're all unhappy about how this whole fiasco went down but dude, "I'd been swindled. No. More than that. I'd been robbed." ? That's jumping the shark a little bit. You'd been swindled, sure. Plain and simple. Not robbed. Letting anger and frustration escalate beyond the scope of an injustice isn't doing anyone any good. I agree though, a more judicial approach to refunds is probably warranted for a game that SO under delivered on the hype. This isn't in the same ballpark of a let down as Spore.
danso 8y ago
I think Murray acted badly in his overpromising, but I would argue that the game seemed to have an exceptionally hyped fanbase. Jason Schreier of Kotaku received death threats simply for being the guy to report that the game would be late: https://kotaku.com/i-got-death-threats-for-reporting-on-a-video-game-delay-1779617741 https://kotaku.com/i-got-death-threats-for-reporting-on-a-vi...

by nolok 8y ago

ajross 8y ago

> I strongly disagree with the crazyness displayed by a lot of people But not strongly enough, apparently, to get that statement any higher than the fourth paragraph of your comment. Which tells me you're more interesting in flogging the bad game and its developers than you are in instances of actual, real-world harrassment. This is the same thing that happened with gamergate too. "Harrassment!? Fine, whatever, there are bad apples. I'm not one of them, it's not relevant. Let's talk about how awful Those Women were instead." I mean, look: it was a bad game. The developers oversold, underdelivered, and probably lied a bit too. The complaint has merit. But at some point the externalities of a situation mean we have to stop talking about meritorious complaints, because we're just egging on much worse behavior.

Retric 8y ago
The promoters committed fraud. Harrassment may be unpleasant, but I suspect they would rather that than be fined all profits and sitting in prison.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
evfanknitram 8y ago
English is not my first language so I don't really understand the last sentence in your post ("egging", specifically). But what this company did was fraud in my view. He should be fined or put in jail. So should any people who sent them death threats.
- jackcarter 8y ago
  The phrase "egg on" just means "encourage".
  - evfanknitram 8y ago
    Then that phrase makes no sense to me. Wouldn't it be the same as saying something like "we can't critize Donald Trump for his criminal actions because doing that just encourages people sending him death threats".
    - skj 8y ago
      That is the implication, yes.
    - nolok 8y ago
      I think that is exactly what he meant to answer yes, that criticizing the game or the dev's behaviors (with actual valid complaints) was wrong, because some people who did that also did bad things. I, too, am bewildered by that line of thinking.
Tyrek 8y ago

JKCalhoun 8y ago

So, not just over-promised, under-delivered, a shitty way to run a business regardless, but outright bullshitting?

NegativeLatency 8y ago
As someone who bought the game on launch that was my experience. Yes.

blechinger 8y ago

I fought for a refund from Valve for about a week. Couldn't get one. I'm still a bit salty about it. I forget how many tens of hours I'd spent expecting to arrive at anything resembling what was alluded to in the trailers or demos. It was probably 20+ hours until I realized that the problem wasn't related to progression-locked content. I'd been swindled. No. More than that. I'd been robbed. I was mad. Sure. But I was more hurt and disappointed than anything. I can no longer trust Hello Games or Valve. Hello lied to consumers and Valve, from my perspective, backed them up while allowing a select few to actually recieve refunds for the sake of PR. I understand the desire to protect Developers from unrealistic backlash. You've got to draw a line somewhere which, after crossing, makes one ineligible for the normal refund process. I do think the placement of that line should vary by game (or at least genre) instead of the two hour hard cutoff Valve uses. For a game like No Man's Sky? At the two hour mark I was still taking in some of the visuals and geeking out about what I thought was coming. I definitely hadn't gotten into any of the completely broken mechanics, lack of depth of characters/worlds, or any other out of a plethora of disappointments and outright lies Hello had baked into the game and its marketing. So now, for most things, I refuse to pre-order. I might miss a few neat things that I would have gotten otherwise, however; I won't get robbed again.

kjeetgill 8y ago
Look, we're all unhappy about how this whole fiasco went down but dude, "I'd been swindled. No. More than that. I'd been robbed." ? That's jumping the shark a little bit. You'd been swindled, sure. Plain and simple. Not robbed. Letting anger and frustration escalate beyond the scope of an injustice isn't doing anyone any good. I agree though, a more judicial approach to refunds is probably warranted for a game that SO under delivered on the hype. This isn't in the same ballpark of a let down as Spore.

danso 8y ago

I think Murray acted badly in his overpromising, but I would argue that the game seemed to have an exceptionally hyped fanbase. Jason Schreier of Kotaku received death threats simply for being the guy to report that the game would be late: https://kotaku.com/i-got-death-threats-for-reporting-on-a-video-game-delay-1779617741 https://kotaku.com/i-got-death-threats-for-reporting-on-a-vi...