5 ms·

I disagree with this logic. They launched an empty, hollow game. And the features they've bolted on "for free" haven't addressed any of the core gameplay or em

I disagree with this logic. They launched an empty, hollow game. And the features they've bolted on "for free" haven't addressed any of the core gameplay or emptiness issues people have with it. Most of their new systems are half baked—confusing and only adding to the game design mess the game came out with. I'm convinced the reputation that they executed a "turnaround" is based on them staggering a few nonsense releases and being good on social media ad spends. The game is still bad and not worth the money. The benefit to the NMS team for this is they'll have people half willing to try their next game because they "didn't give up". Not the worse idea, but I think we're over stating the heroicness of this.

john_strinlai 24d ago
>And the features they've bolted on "for free" haven't why scare quotes around for free? they were free. >haven't addressed any of the core gameplay or emptiness issues people have with it. i went from hating it to really enjoying it. i am not the only one. >based on them staggering a few nonsense releases and being good on social media ad spends. The game is still bad and not worth the money. my comment comes from my opinion and my experience, not social media. i think its a good game, and i would say it's absolutely worth the money.
- glenstein 24d ago
  I suppose because you still bought the game, after all, and on some level it was about catching up to expectations for what you would have paid for out of the box. That said, I don't agree with their take at all. Hello Games offered a mountain of content that's right in the bullseye center of game's core vibe and identity; and continuing to hold the original critique against them based on the "not procedural enough" argument is increasingly equivocating between two different things. You've been given a game that's more than worth the cost of admission, and you'll see dozens, hundreds, of slop space games come and go with less than one tenth the value proposition of NMS. That should be more than enough to quell 99% of the criticism. The fact that it's not procedural enough amounts to, say, feeling that The Odyssey was good, not great. For however true that is, it's not a scandal.
  - spandrew 23d ago
    You pay for a game——if the game is not good, and patches are provided "for free" that doesn't mean much. Here, NMS launched with abysmal content and atrocious systems. Now at least it doesn't have abysmal content. A bad game is a bad game (yes, my opinion).
- flavionm 23d ago
  Content updates for a paid game aren't free. They're adding to a package that, more often than not, was incomplete to begin with. And they'll often result in more sales, which is how they pay for themselves. Not that they're bad, but wording them like they're some huge act of generosity from the studio instead of a reasonable expectation pushes the baseline away from where it should be.
  - john_strinlai 23d ago
    i bought a game that contained X with no expectations of more content. the game now has Y and Z. i did not purchase the game expecting those updates. i did not pay for those updates. so it seems completely reasonable to consider those updates to be free. wording it as something i paid for when i didn't pushes the baseline towards dishonesty.
    - simoncion 23d ago
      > the game now has Y and Z. i did not purchase the game expecting those updates. Yeah. Back in the day, those would almost always be paid expansions... if not whole-ass sequels. There's a subset of video game players these days who expect years and years of substantial changes to a game. Why, back in my day you had to pay for anything more than a game-breaking bug fix... and you counted yourself lucky if you even got those!
      - spandrew 23d ago
        This isn't an arguement I'm making. There's a difference between DLC and providing "the base game content" – which No Man's Sky was doing. It wasn't an actual game on launch and it's barely one now. They could have cut their losses but it would've ended the studio. Now they're being touted as a paragon of scrappy game dev. Which is wrong.
        simoncion 23d ago
        > It wasn't an actual game on launch and it's barely one now. I'd argue that it was barely a game at launch, and it's still barely a game today... it has always been a sandbox with very little game in it, and that's fine. [0] But that's neither here nor there. They released a "game" ten years ago. They've updated that "game" many times and never charged for updates. That makes those updates free. You can justifiably be angry about the circumstances of the launch, and justifiably be angry that anyone's saying anything good about the devs. That doesn't change the fact that this [3] And the features they've bolted on "for free"... is an asinine use of scare quotes. The updates were delivered free of charge, and the price of the base game hasn't been increased to account for them. This makes them free updates. [0] See the fourth paragraph of [1] as well as most of [2] for a little more commentary on this. [1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630148> [2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630824> [3] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629510>
micromacrofoot 24d ago
I think it looks like a variety of game that it's not, and there's a dissonance there... it's not an action/adventure game, it's a sandbox of procedural generated worlds where you gather resources to unlock new builds. You can build bases, manage settlements, maintain a fleet, build ships and exocraft, build multi-tools, have pets battle each other, cook food, manage the economy... but there's only a thin relationship/lore system and not much of a difficulty ramp at any point. You're space farming, if you expect anything else you won't like it.
EagnaIonat 23d ago
Bolted on? A lot of the core mechanics were rebuilt or added over the 10 years. > based on them staggering a few nonsense releases This has to be a troll. Or you haven’t touched the game in years. What other game has had 10 years of free updates that has dramatically changed the game?

john_strinlai 24d ago

>And the features they've bolted on "for free" haven't why scare quotes around for free? they were free. >haven't addressed any of the core gameplay or emptiness issues people have with it. i went from hating it to really enjoying it. i am not the only one. >based on them staggering a few nonsense releases and being good on social media ad spends. The game is still bad and not worth the money. my comment comes from my opinion and my experience, not social media. i think its a good game, and i would say it's absolutely worth the money.

glenstein 24d ago
I suppose because you still bought the game, after all, and on some level it was about catching up to expectations for what you would have paid for out of the box. That said, I don't agree with their take at all. Hello Games offered a mountain of content that's right in the bullseye center of game's core vibe and identity; and continuing to hold the original critique against them based on the "not procedural enough" argument is increasingly equivocating between two different things. You've been given a game that's more than worth the cost of admission, and you'll see dozens, hundreds, of slop space games come and go with less than one tenth the value proposition of NMS. That should be more than enough to quell 99% of the criticism. The fact that it's not procedural enough amounts to, say, feeling that The Odyssey was good, not great. For however true that is, it's not a scandal.
- spandrew 23d ago
  You pay for a game——if the game is not good, and patches are provided "for free" that doesn't mean much. Here, NMS launched with abysmal content and atrocious systems. Now at least it doesn't have abysmal content. A bad game is a bad game (yes, my opinion).
flavionm 23d ago
Content updates for a paid game aren't free. They're adding to a package that, more often than not, was incomplete to begin with. And they'll often result in more sales, which is how they pay for themselves. Not that they're bad, but wording them like they're some huge act of generosity from the studio instead of a reasonable expectation pushes the baseline away from where it should be.
- john_strinlai 23d ago
  i bought a game that contained X with no expectations of more content. the game now has Y and Z. i did not purchase the game expecting those updates. i did not pay for those updates. so it seems completely reasonable to consider those updates to be free. wording it as something i paid for when i didn't pushes the baseline towards dishonesty.
  - simoncion 23d ago
    > the game now has Y and Z. i did not purchase the game expecting those updates. Yeah. Back in the day, those would almost always be paid expansions... if not whole-ass sequels. There's a subset of video game players these days who expect years and years of substantial changes to a game. Why, back in my day you had to pay for anything more than a game-breaking bug fix... and you counted yourself lucky if you even got those!
    - spandrew 23d ago
      This isn't an arguement I'm making. There's a difference between DLC and providing "the base game content" – which No Man's Sky was doing. It wasn't an actual game on launch and it's barely one now. They could have cut their losses but it would've ended the studio. Now they're being touted as a paragon of scrappy game dev. Which is wrong.
      - simoncion 23d ago
        > It wasn't an actual game on launch and it's barely one now. I'd argue that it was barely a game at launch, and it's still barely a game today... it has always been a sandbox with very little game in it, and that's fine. [0] But that's neither here nor there. They released a "game" ten years ago. They've updated that "game" many times and never charged for updates. That makes those updates free. You can justifiably be angry about the circumstances of the launch, and justifiably be angry that anyone's saying anything good about the devs. That doesn't change the fact that this [3] And the features they've bolted on "for free"... is an asinine use of scare quotes. The updates were delivered free of charge, and the price of the base game hasn't been increased to account for them. This makes them free updates. [0] See the fourth paragraph of [1] as well as most of [2] for a little more commentary on this. [1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630148> [2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49630824> [3] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629510>

micromacrofoot 24d ago

I think it looks like a variety of game that it's not, and there's a dissonance there... it's not an action/adventure game, it's a sandbox of procedural generated worlds where you gather resources to unlock new builds. You can build bases, manage settlements, maintain a fleet, build ships and exocraft, build multi-tools, have pets battle each other, cook food, manage the economy... but there's only a thin relationship/lore system and not much of a difficulty ramp at any point. You're space farming, if you expect anything else you won't like it.

EagnaIonat 23d ago

Bolted on? A lot of the core mechanics were rebuilt or added over the 10 years. > based on them staggering a few nonsense releases This has to be a troll. Or you haven’t touched the game in years. What other game has had 10 years of free updates that has dramatically changed the game?