There’s a lot of words being written about the release of No Man’s Sky, a long-awaited video game set in a procedurally generated universe with an effectively endless number of planets and lifeforms. The game has been in development by a relatively small team of developers for years, and the hype around the game reached epic proportions – to a point where it just became insane and crazy, with people clearly expecting way, way more of the game than it could ever deliver.
Ars has taken a look at the course of the hype train, and this is the key paragraph for me:
When Murray and Hello Games (as well as console publisher Sony) actually did show and talk about No Man’s Sky, though, they were actually relatively restrained and realistic about what they were promising. Unlike Spore and Black and White – both of which saw saturation PR campaigns that promised revolutionary and industry-changing gameplay features that mostly didn’t end up working out – it’s hard to find many concrete promises made by No Man’s Sky’s developer and publisher that haven’t ended up being true (with the possible exception of the multiplayer issue discussed above).
And that’s all she wrote, for me. I’ve been following the development for this game for years, and it’s always been crystal clear for me what this game would offer: collecting resources, discovering new worlds and species, expanding the basic capabilities of your ship and tools, rinse and repeat, until eventually reaching the centre of the universe. That’s what the developers promised, and that’s what I’m expecting tomorrow when the PC version unlocks.
All the additional hype around No Man’s Sky comes from people themselves, and from stupid journalists hyping the game through the stratosphere without ever having played it. Had you stuck to what the developer and publisher have said over the course of the past number of years, instead of letting yourself get strung along the hype train by the press and Reddit, you’d know exactly what to expect tomorrow.
I too wondered why people got so excited about this game. The final product ended up being exactly what I thought it would be, from watching the trailers.
I too wondered why people got so excited about ANY Computer game.
As they say, There, fixed it for you.
I did once get ecxited about a computer game but then realised it was boring as hell and had better things to do. Since then the only computer game I play is Sudoku.
YMMV
Well, you know… some people obviously enjoy playing these games more than you do. Go figure.
For the same reason people get excited about a movie, a song, a novel or any other human creation?
I was heavily involved in videogames during the Spore launch days, and I think it’s unfair to say that Spore promised features that didn’t turn out to be/work.
Spore was exactly what was advertised. I remember at some point they even released a “tech demo” of the space mode gameplay, which was in fact the entire space mode gameplay sans the pretty graphics. I actually got hooked to that barebones demo more than the actual game. It was faster on my laptop back then.
Turns out, the problem is that you cannot market fully open ended games to the average gamer, no matter how hard you try or how much hype you spin.
If No Man’s Sky is also open-ended, then I’m willing to bet that it’ll appear to have the same problems as Spore or Black and White. After release, people will start finding the game “boring”, “lacking depth”, “repetitive”, etc.
E.g. http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/11/12441124/no-mans-sky-problem-strip…
I recall the times while Spore was being developed as well and it sounded awesome, then was basically released as an RTS where you could create your own units… which is why it was boring.
I don’t care what haters say, to me is a great game. I played it for about 8 hours and It’s a beautiful and fun experience. My PS4 was getting dust and NMS put it back into life, that’s the truth.
I know it’s not the best game ever created but We are not living the best console generation neither… there are very few new IPs and games… in this bleak context NMS is a breath of fresh air.
Edited 2016-08-12 22:35 UTC
Good for you but, since you started it, I’ll act as if I’m ten too:
That’s… like… your opinion, man!
RT.
Never cared about No Man’s Sky, but very much looking forward to Mass Effect: Andromeda. Granted, that’s a different type of game but at least they share the world exploration aspect, and that’s one of the things I’m looking forward to.