Nah, it was a con job. And the game isn't very good in my opinion. Terrible controls, terrible UI and inventory system, terrible graphics, ugly, nonsensical aliens, extremely boring gameplay and combat, NPCs are uninteresting, very little to no story, extreme tedium in general. Nah, this game, at least in my opinion, is pretty bad when compared to other games at the $60 price point. It's not even very good for explorer types in my opinion.
Sony is in charge of all of that. Not Hello Games. Many triple AAA games have come out that were damn near broken. People complained and then refunded or waited for patches or got over it. This is an Indie title made by the people who made Joe Danger. They did not know what they were doing. Sony stirred up all the hype and set the Price. Not Hello Games. Hello Games did not lie to everyone they simply did not have the time to finish the game based on Sony's deadline. Sony misrepresented the game to many but anyone who did a bit of research into the game would have known what they were getting. How many MMOs have launched without features the developers and/or publishers said would be in the game? Or misrepresented the game as to what it really was and how it played? A whole crap ton of them. Many of them patched it in later or worse charged for it in an expansion pack. No Man's Sky is not a special snowflake. It is an Indie game made by 15 people who made a couple very small games before it. Sony ushered this game to the forefront of gamer's imaginations with dreams of an epic sci-fi yarn in a near limitless universe. Well to many that is what the game is. After multiple patches it runs fine for nearly everyone now. Content some people said was not in the game was found to, in fact, be in the game and the player base after refunds and charge backs will settle into the type of numbers I thought this game was going to have. It is a niche game and always was going to be one. People want to crucify Hello Games but in reality the business of gaming has been lying and caught lying for years. This was a simple rush job. Not a con job.
Sorry but I disagree with the majority of this.
Sony were in control of the PS4 side of things and no doubt bankrolled the marketing campaign etc but Sean has said that ultimately HG had full control over the project, that Sony were very hands-off. Let's not forget that this is someone who worked for EA so he should have a bit of an idea of how these things play out. I can't imagine that a clever guy like him got hoodwinked by Sony's lawyers into having to say yes to every single feature, forced to talk about and demo them all over the place while being aware that they would never actually be in the game.
My guess is that he/they got carried away with what they thought they make work in the time available, in the end numerous features had to be cut back or removed totally. Over-promising and under-delivering is rife with developers who cannot keep their traps shut and one of the reasons people on both sides should be careful about hype. It's why publishers typically only show off games close to launch, they know what's making the cut.
In the end it's a lesson to everybody, clearly Sean comes out worse but he kind of brought that on himself unfortunately.
Well considering steam just enabled no-time-limit refund for NMS due to false advertising, i guess we have our answer
That's their subjective opinion, just like all those on the forum here. Its not a definitive answer at all.
I can only go by UK advertising law, which NMS seems to fall into the false advertising category i think on multiple counts, other countries may have more lenient advertising laws, but Steam probably enabled refunds due to false advertising, perhaps erring on the side of caution, i don't think they lose out financially either, as Hello Games will probably bear the brunt of the refunds, i don't know offhand what percentage Steam takes from sales, but it likely means that any refund has a disproportional impact.
Valve take a 30% cut from sales.
You would think that with Hello Games being a British company they would be a bit more careful about how and what they advertise, they should be fully aware that there's quite strong false advertising laws in the UK.
Sony is in charge of all of that. Not Hello Games. Many triple AAA games have come out that were damn near broken. People complained and then refunded or waited for patches or got over it. This is an Indie title made by the people who made Joe Danger. They did not know what they were doing. Sony stirred up all the hype and set the Price. Not Hello Games. Hello Games did not lie to everyone they simply did not have the time to finish the game based on Sony's deadline. Sony misrepresented the game to many but anyone who did a bit of research into the game would have known what they were getting. How many MMOs have launched without features the developers and/or publishers said would be in the game? Or misrepresented the game as to what it really was and how it played? A whole crap ton of them. Many of them patched it in later or worse charged for it in an expansion pack. No Man's Sky is not a special snowflake. It is an Indie game made by 15 people who made a couple very small games before it. Sony ushered this game to the forefront of gamer's imaginations with dreams of an epic sci-fi yarn in a near limitless universe. Well to many that is what the game is. After multiple patches it runs fine for nearly everyone now. Content some people said was not in the game was found to, in fact, be in the game and the player base after refunds and charge backs will settle into the type of numbers I thought this game was going to have. It is a niche game and always was going to be one. People want to crucify Hello Games but in reality the business of gaming has been lying and caught lying for years. This was a simple rush job. Not a con job.
If thats the case then Sony, who are not new to the industry after all, should really have known better, and i have no doubt that they aren't strangers to advertising laws either, if they have indeed been putting too much pressure on HG to get the game out, regardless of its state, and also for the games pricing, then you have to wonder if they really cared about HG at all, never mind the consumer. Unfortunately, its entirely believable that this is the case, that maybe the developers did intend for the game to have the features that they 'advertised' it would have in previous interviews, that Sony perhaps were too inflexible to give them time to create the game that they wanted to make, i can somewhat believe, the real question is what kind of time scale would they have needed to make the game that they (HG) were talking about in the interviews?
All the more reason for people like Sean Murrayneaux not to fall into the same trap. Especially so for someone just starting off their own studio.
There's blame for everybody here but the ultimate blame lies on the person who perpetuated the hype, who went on chat shows and the like repeatedly confirming features that never made it into the game (for whatever reason). That's just the way things work. If he sits there and says "Yes!" a number of times - people are going to feel he's certain about feature X and they base their decisions off that. A totally reasonable thing to do until you find out "Yes!" did not mean yes at all. He's not a faceless suit and perhaps that's why people felt they could take him at his word, perhaps that's why people feel all the more betrayed?
Whatever. What's done is done and there's lessons to be learned if people can be bothered to learn them (that sounds really pretentious).
Remember 2010 E3 Microsoft Star Wars Kinect demo? It was said it was
gameplay and then later they were called out for it and admitted they
lied.
Sony (Ken Kutaragi no less) stated numerous times that the Playstation 3 would run games at 120 FPS. Lie -------------------------------------------------------------------- Ubisoft....well
pretty much every game. Watchdogs (2012 E3 graphics were a farce and
they were caught lying about it after PC gamers uncovered files to
'unlock' the high end graphics. Plus the hacking mechanism was billed as
sophisticated and deep. Lie) ,The Division (Same as Watch Dogs and
actually more), Assassin's Creed Unity (Stated numerous time "We will
not release the game until it is ready" they released a broken game) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter
Molyneux...Just Peter Molyneux. He even had to write a short apology
about Fable:
ehttp://web.archive.org/web/20070404110938/http://allboards.lionhead.com/showthread.php?t=83152
or what about the Milo demo on the Kinect again presented by......Peter Molyneux.( It was staged) Lie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Killzone 2? (Sony AGAIN) Prerendered after telling everyone it was gameplay
Guerrilla Games revealed that the
development team was under a ton of pressure from Sony and the development team
decided to work on a trailer to resemble what the actual game would look like. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aliens:
Colonial Marines --They were sued over this game. Yeah SEGA and Gearbox
(yes the same Gearbox that went on to make the Borderlands series)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Nelson lying about the DRM on the Xbox One. Microsoft reversed the DRM policy 2 weeks later. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Gates saying this to sell the Xbox "3-D chips in the Xbox would be three times
faster than anything on the market and offer nearly unlimited graphical
visuals. We’re approaching the level of detail seen in Toy Story 2" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What about the online campaign against Mass Effect 3 and it's ending?
"This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the
endings can be a lot more different. At this point we're taking into
account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a
lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game
endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got
ending A, B, or C." - Casey Hudson-Director
"Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an
ending. BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions
than answers after finishing the game." - Mike Gamble -Associate
Producer
None of that was true.
An online campaign was picked up and
raised $80,000 for the Child’s Play charity in hopes that Bioware would
develop a better ending to the trilogy because it was hated so much. The FTC was contacted about it for false advertising and was thrown out. Bioware ended up releasing an 'Extended Cut' in response. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is in-game graphics" said by many developers at every single E3 or Gamescom ever. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Thief
will not be dumbed down for casuals" Lie. It was. We waited 10 years
for a new Thief game and were sold on the idea that they were going back
to their roots with the last one. Eidos Montreal has dumbed down many
franchises and promised they would not do that to a series as beloved as
the Thief series. They lied. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Batman Arkham Knight No explanation needed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spore-
Will Wright's 'creature' simulator will allow players
to evolve from the smallest of creatures to developing a huge
civilization with an unprecedented level of detail and content. Many of
the more intricate features shown off in demos were removed from
the final game, they said in order to appeal to a more mainstream
user-base. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bungie repeatedly said ahead of release that
Destiny had a "10-year plan" in order to keep gamers coming back.
Really? In days players had soft capped and were looking for content.
'Taken King' probably brought the game to be what many were lead to
believe the original release was going to be. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WarZ players (Infestation) players claimed fraud on the developer
This kind of thing actually happens all the time.
When you put a list like that together, it makes for pretty depressing reading O.o
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aliens:
Colonial Marines --They were sued over this game. Yeah SEGA and Gearbox
(yes the same Gearbox that went on to make the Borderlands series)
Aliens actually came out 4 years after the first Borderlands. Even developers with well-received games in their track record sometimes do shady business or put out crappy products.
I've seen CD Projekt Red put on a pedestal more than once, yet people quickly forget that they were having lawyers send threatening collections letters to pirates of Witcher 2 asking for 4-figure settlements to avoid court action.
And the number of people who hate the gaming giants like Microsoft, EA and Ubi for their questionable practices and/or quality but love Valve and wholeheartedly accept Steam and the monopoly it has on PC gaming while overlooking its inherent DRM? Complete hypocrisy.
I don't know how many of you are fans of The Office (US), but the boss on that show, Michael Scott, refused to give anyone bad news. He wanted everyone to love him all the time and would lie lie lie to get around telling anything negative to anyone. Problem was, it always came back to bite him in the ass when people found out about the bad news from another source. He always ended up looking worse.
Sean Murray is Michael Scott. You watch any interview with that lying jerk and no matter what the interviewer asks him about the game, he claims it will be in it. "Hey, will there be martians made out of pizza that walk up to you and ask 'would you like a slice?'" and he will laugh nervously and say "yes". I watched an interview where the interviewer kept raising the stakes with every question.
"Can we do X in game?" "Yes" "Oh really, wow, so will we be able to do Y?" "Yes, absolutely" "That's just fantastic. So, I know this is really out there, but will we be able to do Z, because it would be a dick move if we could do X and Y but not Z" "Yes, it would be a dick move, so certainly you'll be able to do Z"
So essentially, every time this idiot was put in front of a microphone, he started promising things that he couldn't deliver and that's why we have a featureless game that costs $60 + promises.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the comments in question were made in "development". A phase when anything can change, and in this case does. If someone does manage to draw this into court, then "made during development" will be brought up. At the time the comment was made, it was true. A second later and things changed, quess what any and all lawsuits are thrown out. Those bringing the lawsuits are left holding the bag for lawyers fees, most likely for both sides.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Well considering steam just enabled no-time-limit refund for NMS due to false advertising, i guess we have our answer
That's their subjective opinion, just like all those on the forum here. Its not a definitive answer at all.
I can only go by UK advertising law, which NMS seems to fall into the false advertising category i think on multiple counts, other countries may have more lenient advertising laws, but Steam probably enabled refunds due to false advertising, perhaps erring on the side of caution, i don't think they lose out financially either, as Hello Games will probably bear the brunt of the refunds, i don't know offhand what percentage Steam takes from sales, but it likely means that any refund has a disproportional impact.
Valve take a 30% cut from sales.
You would think that with Hello Games being a British company they would be a bit more careful about how and what they advertise, they should be fully aware that there's quite strong false advertising laws in the UK.
After multiple patches it runs fine for nearly everyone now. Content some people said was not in the game was found to, in fact, be in the game and the player base after refunds and charge backs will settle into the type of numbers I thought this game was going to have. It is a niche game and always was going to be one. People want to crucify Hello Games but in reality the business of gaming has been lying and caught lying for years. This was a simple rush job. Not a con job.
Pardon me but the big talk is not about content. It's about features advertised, talked about, shown in pre release builds and missing from the final product.
Features like: - Classes acting as different professions. - ships with different stats & characteristics which one could name instead of the plain cosmetic cargo holds they are now. - Meaningful factions warring each other which you could choose to join and gain or loose standing respectively. - Complex crafting. - Multiplayer.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the comments in question were made in "development". A phase when anything can change, and in this case does. If someone does manage to draw this into court, then "made during development" will be brought up. At the time the comment was made, it was true. A second later and things changed, quess what any and all lawsuits are thrown out. Those bringing the lawsuits are left holding the bag for lawyers fees, most likely for both sides.
Marketing laws do not differentiate between "in development" and "after release".
When something is first promised, then changed while in development, first it becomes a question of correcting wrong information:
1. If the developer first announces A, then corrects himself and announces that not A, and the correction is made with enough visibility, then the developer is allowed to change anything and everything as long as he's not sold the product yet.
If the developer doesn't correct wrong information before selling the product, then it becomes a question of margin of error:
2. The game is allowed reasonably deviation from information given: Details can be changed during development and the devs don't need to correct every minor detail, marketing speeches are allowed to exaggerate somewhat and paint the game in as good light as possible, and the buyer is expected to accept that development and patches change the game. Only when the game is missing major features or major content that was promised, has large technical problems, or plays completely different from what was promised there's an error in the product.
If there's an error in the product, then it becomes a question of how the buyer reacted to that error:
3. Buyer doesn't need to do any special research on whether information given by the developers and publishers is accurate, but if after noticing the error you continue playing without complaining, then at some point you've accepted the product as it is and lost your right to complain about that error.
All I can say is that if you feel they have done so is to copy every web page where they stated / made claims about what will be in the game. Then send them with a letter to the FTC and your state AG office and let them review it. If they feel it has merit, let them take action.
This case is really sad, for me. I hate to see Hello Games go down like this because they tried to do something really cool and took some creative risks.
They are not being punished for the creative risks they took though, but rather for how they handled what seems like a too early release (Sony's fault?) and the way this was managed (or mismanaged) by Sean Murray. He must have been under a lot of pressure to do what he did. Maybe he sold his soul to the devil (financial backers breathing down his neck, "We don't care about your reputation. We want to see the big box sales up front").
It's a video game. It's not like they went out of their way to take millions and just dissapear. They made a product. Whether or not they decided half way through that it wasn't possible to do what they had said, isn't up to us.
Some people are having fun with it. Most people aren't. It's a video game. It's not a life changing thing you spent hundreds on. You spent 60 dollars. Get a refund if you care that much. I don't understand why everyone always tries to go and try to sue a company because they promised you your entertainment would be different
Why don't any movie companies get sued for making trailers that don't match the product? Or have scenes that were cut?
I just don't see why everyone takes their video games so incredibly seriously. I play games a lot, probably 90% of my free time. I have been burned plenty of times on games that weren't what I wanted. But you move on.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the comments in question were made in "development". A phase when anything can change, and in this case does. If someone does manage to draw this into court, then "made during development" will be brought up. At the time the comment was made, it was true. A second later and things changed, quess what any and all lawsuits are thrown out. Those bringing the lawsuits are left holding the bag for lawyers fees, most likely for both sides.
For any scratching their heads over why this title might be drawing the amount of attention it has over "hype" or "promises" when 'this sort of thing happens in the games industry all the time', I found the following to be an even-handed appraisal:
tl;dr - developer aspirations become promises when it's live and on tape
Personal opinion: you aren't allowed to say anything you want in order to increase pre-launch sales and then shrug it off as "it was during the development cycle". Very loosely, this is "fraud". More specifically, false advertising. I'm not in any way implying Hello Games is guilty of this, but no, you can't just say anything you want in order to make a buck. If you are selling something, people need to rely on your word.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
I think the biggest issue is the AAA price, if they had stuck to indie price levels all this fuss would be forgiven and forgotten already.
If the price had been more 'realistic' then yes, they would probably have got away with it, people don't generally hold indie games up to the same kind of standards as you get from AAA rated games, they generally aren't after all, but as soon as there is a AAA price tag on a game then there are expectations associated with it, that the developers had also gone on record stating that the game also had certain features was a huge boost to the games advertising, the combination of these factors fast became a 'perfect storm'. Its unlikely that Hello Games will be able to make another game without that game coming under a certain amount of scrutiny after this, nor are people likely to take future press statements they make at face value.
if I enjoy something, I'm ok with a high price. Making something cheap doesn't increase my enjoyment of it, it just makes me feel less bad if I don't like it. I love NMS so am happy with the price and accept they will continue to develop it. I'd rather have the game that we have now that wait for another year for something more polished as I can enjoy it now and also enjoy it as they develop it.
Its good that you are satisfied with your purchase, but would you not agree that your enjoyment would be more if the features that were advertised as being in the game, were in fact, in the game? The trouble is, as consumers, if we buy goods that are not as described, where is the incentive for the 'producers' to be honest about their products? Its why advertising laws exist after all, and while UK advertising laws are possibly a bit more draconian in nature than other countries, its to ensure that when a product is being described as one thing, it must be that thing.
I saw the advert for NMS and didn't see anything in it that isn't in the game. I wanted a massive exploration game and that's what I got, to sit and chill with. Great that they are going to add more stuff. The game is no less than what I was expecting.
I think the biggest issue is the AAA price, if they had stuck to indie price levels all this fuss would be forgiven and forgotten already.
If the price had been more 'realistic' then yes, they would probably have got away with it, people don't generally hold indie games up to the same kind of standards as you get from AAA rated games, they generally aren't after all, but as soon as there is a AAA price tag on a game then there are expectations associated with it, that the developers had also gone on record stating that the game also had certain features was a huge boost to the games advertising, the combination of these factors fast became a 'perfect storm'. Its unlikely that Hello Games will be able to make another game without that game coming under a certain amount of scrutiny after this, nor are people likely to take future press statements they make at face value.
if I enjoy something, I'm ok with a high price. Making something cheap doesn't increase my enjoyment of it, it just makes me feel less bad if I don't like it. I love NMS so am happy with the price and accept they will continue to develop it. I'd rather have the game that we have now that wait for another year for something more polished as I can enjoy it now and also enjoy it as they develop it.
Its good that you are satisfied with your purchase, but would you not agree that your enjoyment would be more if the features that were advertised as being in the game, were in fact, in the game? The trouble is, as consumers, if we buy goods that are not as described, where is the incentive for the 'producers' to be honest about their products? Its why advertising laws exist after all, and while UK advertising laws are possibly a bit more draconian in nature than other countries, its to ensure that when a product is being described as one thing, it must be that thing.
I saw the advert for NMS and didn't see anything in it that isn't in the game. I wanted a massive exploration game and that's what I got, to sit and chill with. Great that they are going to add more stuff. The game is no less than what I was expecting.
A lot of people were expecting to be able to play the game with their friends though, even on these forums until very recently, there were people who were adamant that the game had multiplayer, probably because they had been following the game for some time. There will be people who are happy with the game as it stands, and are prepared to wait for more fixes, apparently there is a patch incoming thats over 600mb in size, its hit the PS4 version already and is due for the PC soon, but not everyone is patient enough to wait for the game to become the game they thought they were buying, and who knows when or if that will ever happen? I do feel sorry for the developers at HG though, it sounds as though they had little choice in the matter, and are doing the best they can to try and fix things as quickly as possible, an unenviable task and likely a thankless one at this point. O.o
Well STEAM and PSN have both done refunds for me today with over 100 hours played on both systems PSN never gives refunds and they were gave me a full refund and were very apologetic about the state of the game.
Some of the features that some people say are not in the game I have seen in the game or have seen player screens of those features. I agree this has gotten way out of hand. Just because you did not see it does not mean it is not in the game. There were things not featured in the game that we all thought or were told were going to be in it. I think Sony pressured the studio to push it out the door as is and those things will be patched in later. As it is I have over 60 hours in game and love it. I am exploring a forest planet now. (a feature some said was not in game) The planet is teaming with life and I have landed at two outposts with moving machinery (another feature some people said was not in game) I love it. I plan on exploring as much of the planet as I can. I found an alien ruin that featured a puzzle that gave me 4 alien words and a point of interest which gave me a massive upgrade to my ship's weapon. On my way to the planet I was attacked by 4 pirates and as I was fighting them off two ships from the space station came out and started blasting them! It was awesome!
This ^^^. Much of what people have complained about they could find in the game if they just played it. The game is not meant to unlock all of its secrets in the first 5 hours of play. I have over 120 hours of play and I am still finding things that I did not know were even in the game. This is a game of exploration. It is not a game like Call of Duty or Battlefield promises "action" all the time. Nor is it a game in which you will play for just 30 minutes and go "wow, I beat it!". This is a game that takes time and a bit more patience then most people seem to have. If that is not your cup of tea, don't buy it and don't play it.
I'm very surprised that they are doing this. Although, any game with major performance issues should have more than two hours of time to try the game(as well as try to fix the issues)
Remember 2010 E3 Microsoft Star Wars Kinect demo? It was said it was
gameplay and then later they were called out for it and admitted they
lied.
Sony (Ken Kutaragi no less) stated numerous times that the Playstation 3 would run games at 120 FPS. Lie -------------------------------------------------------------------- Ubisoft....well
pretty much every game. Watchdogs (2012 E3 graphics were a farce and
they were caught lying about it after PC gamers uncovered files to
'unlock' the high end graphics. Plus the hacking mechanism was billed as
sophisticated and deep. Lie) ,The Division (Same as Watch Dogs and
actually more), Assassin's Creed Unity (Stated numerous time "We will
not release the game until it is ready" they released a broken game) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter
Molyneux...Just Peter Molyneux. He even had to write a short apology
about Fable:
ehttp://web.archive.org/web/20070404110938/http://allboards.lionhead.com/showthread.php?t=83152
or what about the Milo demo on the Kinect again presented by......Peter Molyneux.( It was staged) Lie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Killzone 2? (Sony AGAIN) Prerendered after telling everyone it was gameplay
Guerrilla Games revealed that the
development team was under a ton of pressure from Sony and the development team
decided to work on a trailer to resemble what the actual game would look like. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aliens:
Colonial Marines --They were sued over this game. Yeah SEGA and Gearbox
(yes the same Gearbox that went on to make the Borderlands series)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Nelson lying about the DRM on the Xbox One. Microsoft reversed the DRM policy 2 weeks later. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Gates saying this to sell the Xbox "3-D chips in the Xbox would be three times
faster than anything on the market and offer nearly unlimited graphical
visuals. We’re approaching the level of detail seen in Toy Story 2" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What about the online campaign against Mass Effect 3 and it's ending?
"This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the
endings can be a lot more different. At this point we're taking into
account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a
lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game
endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got
ending A, B, or C." - Casey Hudson-Director
"Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an
ending. BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions
than answers after finishing the game." - Mike Gamble -Associate
Producer
None of that was true.
An online campaign was picked up and
raised $80,000 for the Child’s Play charity in hopes that Bioware would
develop a better ending to the trilogy because it was hated so much. The FTC was contacted about it for false advertising and was thrown out. Bioware ended up releasing an 'Extended Cut' in response. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is in-game graphics" said by many developers at every single E3 or Gamescom ever. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Thief
will not be dumbed down for casuals" Lie. It was. We waited 10 years
for a new Thief game and were sold on the idea that they were going back
to their roots with the last one. Eidos Montreal has dumbed down many
franchises and promised they would not do that to a series as beloved as
the Thief series. They lied. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Batman Arkham Knight No explanation needed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spore-
Will Wright's 'creature' simulator will allow players
to evolve from the smallest of creatures to developing a huge
civilization with an unprecedented level of detail and content. Many of
the more intricate features shown off in demos were removed from
the final game, they said in order to appeal to a more mainstream
user-base. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bungie repeatedly said ahead of release that
Destiny had a "10-year plan" in order to keep gamers coming back.
Really? In days players had soft capped and were looking for content.
'Taken King' probably brought the game to be what many were lead to
believe the original release was going to be. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WarZ players (Infestation) players claimed fraud on the developer
This kind of thing actually happens all the time.
You make a great case for consumer protection legislation in the Industry.
IMHO just because something is a product of the entertainment industry. Shouldn't mean that they don't have to be held to the same advertising standards as other industries.
The industry is showing to be incapable of controlling itself.
Gamers are why we cant have more nice things. Anyone who took 10 min to look into this game knew what it was and the condition it was being released in. There was hours of game play to watch. If you were fooled, you fooled yourself. If you get bent out of shape not knowing exactly what you are getting than wath a few twitch streams and do some reading. Or wait for a demo or trial. Video games are works of creative art, not everyone will like the same game. Let it alone already.
It would be nice if we could take devs at their word.
That said I knew exactly what I was getting into by watching streams and youtube before buying and got 40 hours played so far. I think it will be awesome when EA copies the tech and makes a Star Wars game. I could tell it was more tech demo than game but I was there for the procedural generation.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the comments in question were made in "development". A phase when anything can change, and in this case does. If someone does manage to draw this into court, then "made during development" will be brought up. At the time the comment was made, it was true. A second later and things changed, quess what any and all lawsuits are thrown out. Those bringing the lawsuits are left holding the bag for lawyers fees, most likely for both sides.
What's it matter if comments are made in development. It's still 100% advertising/hype. Your still selling something. Maybe when something is in development and things are up in the air... one should be very very clear and honest about their claims.
Hype isn't something that happens out of the blue, it's a very strategic form of marketing thats responsible for a very significant percentage of sales.
I think the biggest issue is the AAA price, if they had stuck to indie price levels all this fuss would be forgiven and forgotten already.
If the price had been more 'realistic' then yes, they would probably have got away with it, people don't generally hold indie games up to the same kind of standards as you get from AAA rated games, they generally aren't after all, but as soon as there is a AAA price tag on a game then there are expectations associated with it, that the developers had also gone on record stating that the game also had certain features was a huge boost to the games advertising, the combination of these factors fast became a 'perfect storm'. Its unlikely that Hello Games will be able to make another game without that game coming under a certain amount of scrutiny after this, nor are people likely to take future press statements they make at face value.
if I enjoy something, I'm ok with a high price. Making something cheap doesn't increase my enjoyment of it, it just makes me feel less bad if I don't like it. I love NMS so am happy with the price and accept they will continue to develop it. I'd rather have the game that we have now that wait for another year for something more polished as I can enjoy it now and also enjoy it as they develop it.
Its good that you are satisfied with your purchase, but would you not agree that your enjoyment would be more if the features that were advertised as being in the game, were in fact, in the game? The trouble is, as consumers, if we buy goods that are not as described, where is the incentive for the 'producers' to be honest about their products? Its why advertising laws exist after all, and while UK advertising laws are possibly a bit more draconian in nature than other countries, its to ensure that when a product is being described as one thing, it must be that thing.
I saw the advert for NMS and didn't see anything in it that isn't in the game. I wanted a massive exploration game and that's what I got, to sit and chill with. Great that they are going to add more stuff. The game is no less than what I was expecting.
A lot of people were expecting to be able to play the game with their friends though, even on these forums until very recently, there were people who were adamant that the game had multiplayer, probably because they had been following the game for some time. There will be people who are happy with the game as it stands, and are prepared to wait for more fixes, apparently there is a patch incoming thats over 600mb in size, its hit the PS4 version already and is due for the PC soon, but not everyone is patient enough to wait for the game to become the game they thought they were buying, and who knows when or if that will ever happen? I do feel sorry for the developers at HG though, it sounds as though they had little choice in the matter, and are doing the best they can to try and fix things as quickly as possible, an unenviable task and likely a thankless one at this point. O.o
But if you could play the game with your friends, what would you actually do? Stand next to each other and mine plants and rocks?
Sorry, but I can't imagine any big deal about being in the same space as a 'friend'.
Comments
Sorry but I disagree with the majority of this.
Sony were in control of the PS4 side of things and no doubt bankrolled the marketing campaign etc but Sean has said that ultimately HG had full control over the project, that Sony were very hands-off.
Let's not forget that this is someone who worked for EA so he should have a bit of an idea of how these things play out.
I can't imagine that a clever guy like him got hoodwinked by Sony's lawyers into having to say yes to every single feature, forced to talk about and demo them all over the place while being aware that they would never actually be in the game.
My guess is that he/they got carried away with what they thought they make work in the time available, in the end numerous features had to be cut back or removed totally. Over-promising and under-delivering is rife with developers who cannot keep their traps shut and one of the reasons people on both sides should be careful about hype. It's why publishers typically only show off games close to launch, they know what's making the cut.
In the end it's a lesson to everybody, clearly Sean comes out worse but he kind of brought that on himself unfortunately.
Unfortunately, its entirely believable that this is the case, that maybe the developers did intend for the game to have the features that they 'advertised' it would have in previous interviews, that Sony perhaps were too inflexible to give them time to create the game that they wanted to make, i can somewhat believe, the real question is what kind of time scale would they have needed to make the game that they (HG) were talking about in the interviews?
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
There's blame for everybody here but the ultimate blame lies on the person who perpetuated the hype, who went on chat shows and the like repeatedly confirming features that never made it into the game (for whatever reason). That's just the way things work.
If he sits there and says "Yes!" a number of times - people are going to feel he's certain about feature X and they base their decisions off that. A totally reasonable thing to do until you find out "Yes!" did not mean yes at all.
He's not a faceless suit and perhaps that's why people felt they could take him at his word, perhaps that's why people feel all the more betrayed?
Whatever. What's done is done and there's lessons to be learned if people can be bothered to learn them (that sounds really pretentious).
I've seen CD Projekt Red put on a pedestal more than once, yet people quickly forget that they were having lawyers send threatening collections letters to pirates of Witcher 2 asking for 4-figure settlements to avoid court action.
And the number of people who hate the gaming giants like Microsoft, EA and Ubi for their questionable practices and/or quality but love Valve and wholeheartedly accept Steam and the monopoly it has on PC gaming while overlooking its inherent DRM? Complete hypocrisy.
Sean Murray is Michael Scott. You watch any interview with that lying jerk and no matter what the interviewer asks him about the game, he claims it will be in it. "Hey, will there be martians made out of pizza that walk up to you and ask 'would you like a slice?'" and he will laugh nervously and say "yes". I watched an interview where the interviewer kept raising the stakes with every question.
"Can we do X in game?"
"Yes"
"Oh really, wow, so will we be able to do Y?"
"Yes, absolutely"
"That's just fantastic. So, I know this is really out there, but will we be able to do Z, because it would be a dick move if we could do X and Y but not Z"
"Yes, it would be a dick move, so certainly you'll be able to do Z"
So essentially, every time this idiot was put in front of a microphone, he started promising things that he couldn't deliver and that's why we have a featureless game that costs $60 + promises.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Features like:
- Classes acting as different professions.
- ships with different stats & characteristics which one could name instead of the plain cosmetic
cargo holds they are now.
- Meaningful factions warring each other which you could choose to join and gain or loose standing
respectively.
- Complex crafting.
- Multiplayer.
When something is first promised, then changed while in development, first it becomes a question of correcting wrong information:
1. If the developer first announces A, then corrects himself and announces that not A, and the correction is made with enough visibility, then the developer is allowed to change anything and everything as long as he's not sold the product yet.
If the developer doesn't correct wrong information before selling the product, then it becomes a question of margin of error:
2. The game is allowed reasonably deviation from information given: Details can be changed during development and the devs don't need to correct every minor detail, marketing speeches are allowed to exaggerate somewhat and paint the game in as good light as possible, and the buyer is expected to accept that development and patches change the game. Only when the game is missing major features or major content that was promised, has large technical problems, or plays completely different from what was promised there's an error in the product.
If there's an error in the product, then it becomes a question of how the buyer reacted to that error:
3. Buyer doesn't need to do any special research on whether information given by the developers and publishers is accurate, but if after noticing the error you continue playing without complaining, then at some point you've accepted the product as it is and lost your right to complain about that error.
They are not being punished for the creative risks they took though, but rather for how they handled what seems like a too early release (Sony's fault?) and the way this was managed (or mismanaged) by Sean Murray. He must have been under a lot of pressure to do what he did. Maybe he sold his soul to the devil (financial backers breathing down his neck, "We don't care about your reputation. We want to see the big box sales up front").
Some people are having fun with it. Most people aren't. It's a video game. It's not a life changing thing you spent hundreds on. You spent 60 dollars. Get a refund if you care that much. I don't understand why everyone always tries to go and try to sue a company because they promised you your entertainment would be different
Why don't any movie companies get sued for making trailers that don't match the product? Or have scenes that were cut?
I just don't see why everyone takes their video games so incredibly seriously. I play games a lot, probably 90% of my free time. I have been burned plenty of times on games that weren't what I wanted. But you move on.
http://kotaku.com/the-no-mans-sky-hype-dilemma-1785416931
tl;dr - developer aspirations become promises when it's live and on tape
Personal opinion: you aren't allowed to say anything you want in order to increase pre-launch sales and then shrug it off as "it was during the development cycle". Very loosely, this is "fraud". More specifically, false advertising. I'm not in any way implying Hello Games is guilty of this, but no, you can't just say anything you want in order to make a buck. If you are selling something, people need to rely on your word.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
There will be people who are happy with the game as it stands, and are prepared to wait for more fixes, apparently there is a patch incoming thats over 600mb in size, its hit the PS4 version already and is due for the PC soon, but not everyone is patient enough to wait for the game to become the game they thought they were buying, and who knows when or if that will ever happen?
I do feel sorry for the developers at HG though, it sounds as though they had little choice in the matter, and are doing the best they can to try and fix things as quickly as possible, an unenviable task and likely a thankless one at this point. O.o
This ^^^. Much of what people have complained about they could find in the game if they just played it. The game is not meant to unlock all of its secrets in the first 5 hours of play. I have over 120 hours of play and I am still finding things that I did not know were even in the game. This is a game of exploration. It is not a game like Call of Duty or Battlefield promises "action" all the time. Nor is it a game in which you will play for just 30 minutes and go "wow, I beat it!". This is a game that takes time and a bit more patience then most people seem to have. If that is not your cup of tea, don't buy it and don't play it.
Let's party like it is 1863!
IMHO just because something is a product of the entertainment industry. Shouldn't mean that they don't have to be held to the same advertising standards as other industries.
The industry is showing to be incapable of controlling itself.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
That said I knew exactly what I was getting into by watching streams and youtube before buying and got 40 hours played so far. I think it will be awesome when EA copies the tech and makes a Star Wars game. I could tell it was more tech demo than game but I was there for the procedural generation.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Hype isn't something that happens out of the blue, it's a very strategic form of marketing thats responsible for a very significant percentage of sales.
In my humble opinion of course.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Sorry, but I can't imagine any big deal about being in the same space as a 'friend'.