No Mans Sky Early Reviews,Disappointments confirmed ( yes with day one patch )

[Jaycephus]

Imagine that without the crazy hype, the usage had spiked up to 40 or 50K and stayed level, with most everyone satisfied with their $30 game, and then the usage slowly spiked upward as Hello Games added new features and fixed stability issues. Reviews would be more positive if the game delivered what it promised it would be, an exploration sandbox, with promise of more in the future. (The Survive, Trade, and Fight parts of NMS seem to be rather weak and out of balance with the Exploration 'Pillar'.)

[Benjamin (ShadowFlightBA)]

Imagine that without the crazy hype, the usage had spiked up to 40 or 50K and stayed level, with most everyone satisfied with their $30 game, and then the usage slowly spiked upward as Hello Games added new features and fixed stability issues. Reviews would be more positive if the game delivered what it promised it would be, an exploration sandbox, with promise of more in the future. (The Survive, Trade, and Fight parts of NMS seem to be rather weak and out of balance with the Exploration 'Pillar'.)

Imagine that Hello Games were honest developers showing the true game right from the beginning. I agree though, if this was prices $30 or less and they would have been honest, this game would have been a success. Now it's a financial success for Hello Games, but that's where the success stops. For gamers, the game isn't the success they were led to hope for.

[Shinryu]

Imagine that Hello Games were honest developers showing the true game right from the beginning. I agree though, if this was prices $30 or less and they would have been honest, this game would have been a success. Now it's a financial success for Hello Games, but that's where the success stops. For gamers, the game isn't the success they were led to hope for.

That's the difference between Financial Success and Product Success. This is why we're seeing more and more Indie games become more popular than "supposed" AAA titles. AAA developers making titles that are under a large banner like Sony, Microsoft, Codemasters, EA Games etc have far too many limitations placed on them from the upper board and management (that most times have no clue what gamers want) and those limitations affect the game. Such limitations can be not including promised content because release deadline won't be met, changes to release deadlines due to a change in the companies desires etc.

Having worked in the gaming industry since 1999 I have seen this happen a lot where games we developed had features and content promised not added due to some board of director or upper management wanting the game done and released for the financial turnover sooner rather than later. Often developers get blamed more than they deserve because it's not always their call but they can't say that in public and so they get the brunt of the community backlash.

As a developer, I feel that the product MUST be perfected over the desire for it to make money. I feel that a perfected product will in turn bring in the money because people will love it. This ideology is not shared in the industry however where most publishers and developers want the quick return for as little as they can provide, that makes me sad to see because so many games have so much more potential. Now bear in mind that when I say perfected, I don't mean the "PERFECT" game. There is no such thing. But one thing most developers fail to do is listen to their target audience. Far too many developers get caught up with their vision that when the majority of their target audience hates a system, they still stick with it instead of making it the way their target audience desires.

Developers and publishers alike have to remember that your target audience is what will make or break your game and company. You provide them with what they love and desire, listen to them and develop new content and/or features the majority is asking for, that alone will set you on the path to success. It's such a simple task yet 90% of developers fail it.

Hello Games had a great idea but they lost themselves in the sheer size of that idea and their focus turned to the wrong areas. In this industry, you cannot make niche games, it will kill your company off over time. No Man's Sky could have been much larger than what it is but due to their personal desires of an exploration game, we got a game that quickly became repetitive and boring.

As a final note, I don't really care that NMS is doing bad, all the more reasons for Planet Nomads to be the rightful successor of the success and popularity that NMS should have had. GO PLANET NOMADS WOOO!

[Jaycephus]

I've seen more than one game that has been called something like glorified screensaver or "best screen saver ever". I paid money for one of those. I promised myself I would never buy another game from that company ever again. That company no longer exists.

More recently, I've felt that way about Ubisoft games, and EA before that. In both cases I have held off buying major offerings from them, and the decisions turned out for the best. Sim City Online comes to mind, which illustrates the fallacy of Metacritic: Metascore of 64%, User score of 2.2 out of 10, Amazon rating of half a star out of 4, which is about 1.25 out of 10. The number one 5-star review of it is from SimLover who calls it an excellent meditation aid, since it never gets past the splash-screen.

[Shinryu]

LMAO, exactly. :P

[Azirahael]

TBH, i'm not sure how anyone didn't see this coming.

I've played any number of games, and as soon as 'procedural generation' appears, you know it's going to be shallow.
Even things like the Dawn of War campaign was essentially a number of skirmish maps with fixed 'story' missions.

If someone wants a deep story or campaign, it's going to take personal attention to detail.
If someone is doing 'procedural' it's because they don't have the money/crew/talent to craft it 'by hand.'

It's the diet coke of games.
It's the margarine of story.
It's the artificial sweetener of adventure.

Same with PN.
If we have cool mechanics, cool worlds, procedural terrain and a handcrafted storyline, we're gonna have a great game.
But a procedural storyline is gonna suck.

[upsetkiller]

thing is in a game like PN even a procedural story line can work , we can actually have real time physics , interactive structures and build our own worlds .

in nms you cant

[PitykePadavan]

In my opinion No Man's Sky is a really good game, i boght it on steam and the first hour was amazing!
relly it was so good....
and then the second hour was the same... yeah exactly the same

so i refunded it... but it was a really good hour

[mykola1985]

PitykePadavan, i love your comment! :-) I felt exactly the same!

[Azirphaeli]

Hello Games had a great idea but they lost themselves in the sheer size of that idea and their focus turned to the wrong areas. In this industry, you cannot make niche games, it will kill your company off over time. No Man's Sky could have been much larger than what it is but due to their personal desires of an exploration game, we got a game that quickly became repetitive and boring.

I have to disagree here, NMS didn't fail because it's niche, it failed because it abandoned it's niche but didn't provide anything engaging outside of it. it's niche appeal (exploration) was dumbed down and not given the variety and focus it needed.. while half-baked systems were put in place around it to add "more things to do." Those things are as bare bones as you could get. Then they implemented hand holding systems to make the exploration gameplay as simple, easy, and non-threatening as you could get. Gutted some exploration focused features, got rid of the reason for exploring in the first place, and... you've got NMS.

Niche games can and do work and keep gamers happy while making money. Furi is well received and I have no doubt they recouped their cost, Demon's Souls spawned endless well received sequels, and before survival + building games became a craze minecraft (mostly) started it all and would have been considered very niche if not for unexpected widespread success. Same story with a weird game about hitting a big soccer ball with cars. The problem with niche games that succeed is you need to look back at them after they are successful when they aren't niche anymore.

[Benjamin (ShadowFlightBA)]

Today the first major content update was released. This has sure put the game in the right direction again. They added a lot to the game, including new game modes. While it does not make up for the disaster and deception, it is a step in the right direction.