No Man's Sky players massively demand a refund
The project No Man's Sky expected a lot of players around the world. The debut trailer for E3 2014 fascinated, and the developers promised a huge galaxy with unique worlds and complete freedom of action. However, the release was a failure. It is not known what caused this - the inability to complete the development on time, just a reassessment of one’s own capabilities, and, perhaps, a blatant lie of the managers of the developer company. The fact remains that No Man's Sky turned out to be the most notorious failure of the past few years.
Instead of an open and diverse world, players received, as many argue, a resource gathering simulator. The whole essence of the game is reduced to a boring grind: flights between planets and systems, collecting minerals, selling them, refueling the ship and continuing the flight. The ultimate goal - the center of the galaxy - is achievable, but for this achievement the player will receive an analogue of spitting in the face. There is nothing in the center. There is an animation for a couple of minutes, the player is thrown into a new galaxy, and the game is offered to start over. Construction a la Minecraft (well, or at worst Rust) in the game is missing.
In addition, instead of billions of diverse, randomly generated planets, the player has less than a dozen dull worlds with stones moved from place to place. Well, about the fauna and, in part, the gameplay, everything says a very popular video in recent days:
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The noticeable downgrade of graphics and the generation of ugly creatures, not far from Impossible Creatures of 2003, are not the biggest problems. The most amazing thing is that in the game, in fact, there is no multiplayer. After the release of the game, two players decided to meet on a certain planet in No Man's Sky and continue the journey together. But what was their surprise when, having arrived at the same system on a particular planet at a specific point, they simply did not see each other — even the local planetary time was different. All of this they broadcast on Twitch:
Before the release, the developers claimed that the game would be multiplayer, and after the release of the project, all references to the multiplayer were removed, and on the boxes with physical disks the corresponding line was sealed.
One of the deceived players made a whole compilation of various interviews with Sean Murray - the director of the developer company - where he called the game multiplayer:
Reddit compiled a list of missing features, which according to the promises of the developers should have been in the release version.
The absence of the game was noticed:
Based on all of the above, players began to massively return money for digital copies of No Man's Sky, and online in the game, according to SteamDB , began to plummet:
The peak value of simultaneously playing 212 613 people falls on the day after the release. After that, the popularity just fell. There were small bursts of activity on the weekend, but they did not save the situation.
The game turned out to be so bad that rumors spread over the network that Steam was returning money even when the deadline of 14 days and 2 hours of gameplay was set aside for the legal return of a digital copy. However, this information is very controversial, and Valve itself even added an alert on the game page on Steam that the refund is made on general conditions and no exceptions are made:
Perhaps Steam actually went to meet a number of players, but after the start of mass appeals to the support service for the return, the company had to return to the standard policy in this matter.
Amazon and PlayStation Network trading platforms also report massive failures.
In addition to the lack of deep game mechanics that delay a player for hundreds of hours, bugs spoil the game. As players complain about the PlayStation 4, the target platform, the game crashes several times an hour. On the PC, the situation is even worse: the ported version not only slows down even on modern hardware, but it hardly starts up at all.
The game could be forgiven for incompleteness, lack of depth and general incompleteness, if it were a developing project on Steam Early Access with a price tag of $ 20 (500-700 rubles for the CIS). But No Man's Sky positions itself as a finished product for $ 60 and is sold on Steam at a price of $ 2000.
Some blame the developers that they have swung at the “too big piece” in the form of the size of the world and, accordingly, the use of procedural (automatic) generation of worlds. Initially, the idea of ​​randomly generated worlds stirred up, but in fact the players got a whole set of minimally differing gloomy planets that are critically short of a human hand.
Opinions of critics and other developers about the game differ, just as the user reviews differ. Someone talks about a bold experiment with procedural generation, noting the subtleties and oppressive atmosphere of search and loneliness, someone points out that the game is more like a locust simulator that devastates world after world for its own benefit, rather than an adventure game and exploration of space and planets. In the professional sphere, in the same way as in the community of players, there is no consensus regarding No Man's Sky.
At the same time, developers are already talking about the release of DLC, which will correct a number of shortcomings, but given the original cost of No Man's Sky, it is unlikely that people will lay out another $ 10-20 per package of content against the background of the total “emptyness” of the original game.
Sony and Hello Games have not commented on the current situation. A former Sony employee in a personal Twitter account called demanding compensation after 50 hours of play "thieves."
No Man's Sky and the reaction of consumers raise a new question about the nature of games. What is a game? Experience, gaming experience? Then the dozens of hours of play got it, and they have no moral right to demand money back. On the other hand, Hello Games frankly misled its audience. The scale of deception is teetering on the brink of unfair advertising, it is surprising even how the studio was not sued. If we consider the product from this point of view, the desire of players to take back the spent is fully justified.
Instead of an open and diverse world, players received, as many argue, a resource gathering simulator. The whole essence of the game is reduced to a boring grind: flights between planets and systems, collecting minerals, selling them, refueling the ship and continuing the flight. The ultimate goal - the center of the galaxy - is achievable, but for this achievement the player will receive an analogue of spitting in the face. There is nothing in the center. There is an animation for a couple of minutes, the player is thrown into a new galaxy, and the game is offered to start over. Construction a la Minecraft (well, or at worst Rust) in the game is missing.
In addition, instead of billions of diverse, randomly generated planets, the player has less than a dozen dull worlds with stones moved from place to place. Well, about the fauna and, in part, the gameplay, everything says a very popular video in recent days:
')
The noticeable downgrade of graphics and the generation of ugly creatures, not far from Impossible Creatures of 2003, are not the biggest problems. The most amazing thing is that in the game, in fact, there is no multiplayer. After the release of the game, two players decided to meet on a certain planet in No Man's Sky and continue the journey together. But what was their surprise when, having arrived at the same system on a particular planet at a specific point, they simply did not see each other — even the local planetary time was different. All of this they broadcast on Twitch:
Before the release, the developers claimed that the game would be multiplayer, and after the release of the project, all references to the multiplayer were removed, and on the boxes with physical disks the corresponding line was sealed.
One of the deceived players made a whole compilation of various interviews with Sean Murray - the director of the developer company - where he called the game multiplayer:
Reddit compiled a list of missing features, which according to the promises of the developers should have been in the release version.
The absence of the game was noticed:
- planetary physics;
- classes of ships with significant variability;
- reputations and factions that would influence the gameplay;
- different availability of resources;
- opportunities to land on an asteroid;
- space stations and the possibility of destruction of the fleet;
- large space fleets;
- space freight;
- full-scale space battles in which a player can take part;
- battles within the planet and its atmosphere;
- NPC outside retail outlets and other docks;
- planets with rings;
- sandy planets;
- interstellar travel (except for transitions through the Galactic map);
- complex behavior of creatures, including interaction with the environment;
- rivers;
- points of interest in the form of large buildings and fallen cargo ships;
- the possibility of breaking the closed doors;
- radio broadcast;
- interactions with other players.
Based on all of the above, players began to massively return money for digital copies of No Man's Sky, and online in the game, according to SteamDB , began to plummet:
The peak value of simultaneously playing 212 613 people falls on the day after the release. After that, the popularity just fell. There were small bursts of activity on the weekend, but they did not save the situation.
The game turned out to be so bad that rumors spread over the network that Steam was returning money even when the deadline of 14 days and 2 hours of gameplay was set aside for the legal return of a digital copy. However, this information is very controversial, and Valve itself even added an alert on the game page on Steam that the refund is made on general conditions and no exceptions are made:
Perhaps Steam actually went to meet a number of players, but after the start of mass appeals to the support service for the return, the company had to return to the standard policy in this matter.
Amazon and PlayStation Network trading platforms also report massive failures.
In addition to the lack of deep game mechanics that delay a player for hundreds of hours, bugs spoil the game. As players complain about the PlayStation 4, the target platform, the game crashes several times an hour. On the PC, the situation is even worse: the ported version not only slows down even on modern hardware, but it hardly starts up at all.
The game could be forgiven for incompleteness, lack of depth and general incompleteness, if it were a developing project on Steam Early Access with a price tag of $ 20 (500-700 rubles for the CIS). But No Man's Sky positions itself as a finished product for $ 60 and is sold on Steam at a price of $ 2000.
Some blame the developers that they have swung at the “too big piece” in the form of the size of the world and, accordingly, the use of procedural (automatic) generation of worlds. Initially, the idea of ​​randomly generated worlds stirred up, but in fact the players got a whole set of minimally differing gloomy planets that are critically short of a human hand.
Opinions of critics and other developers about the game differ, just as the user reviews differ. Someone talks about a bold experiment with procedural generation, noting the subtleties and oppressive atmosphere of search and loneliness, someone points out that the game is more like a locust simulator that devastates world after world for its own benefit, rather than an adventure game and exploration of space and planets. In the professional sphere, in the same way as in the community of players, there is no consensus regarding No Man's Sky.
At the same time, developers are already talking about the release of DLC, which will correct a number of shortcomings, but given the original cost of No Man's Sky, it is unlikely that people will lay out another $ 10-20 per package of content against the background of the total “emptyness” of the original game.
Sony and Hello Games have not commented on the current situation. A former Sony employee in a personal Twitter account called demanding compensation after 50 hours of play "thieves."
No Man's Sky and the reaction of consumers raise a new question about the nature of games. What is a game? Experience, gaming experience? Then the dozens of hours of play got it, and they have no moral right to demand money back. On the other hand, Hello Games frankly misled its audience. The scale of deception is teetering on the brink of unfair advertising, it is surprising even how the studio was not sued. If we consider the product from this point of view, the desire of players to take back the spent is fully justified.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/397211/
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