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Is Sony Eager to Blame Hello Games?

Is Sony Eager to Blame Hello Games?

No Man’s Sky has been a disappointing game, to say the least. A lot of promises were made that were never followed through on. However, trying to look at it outside of the context of all the hype – I can’t rightly say its a bad game. There are definitely some elements missing, like a conclusion to the vague storyline told by the monoliths. I mean, it’s fairly obvious Hello Games was forming a very similar (if not the same) narrative to 2001: A Space Odyssey , so I know what the developers were getting at. But not everyone has read the story or watched the movie. Never mind that if they had just been upfront about the inspiration, I would be thrilled with the conversion.

With all the complaints about missing elements and false promises, it seems like even Sony is leaving Hello Games in the dust. Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, has recently extended his understanding to the disappointed No Man’s Sky fans: “I had the opportunity to play the game right before launch – and I restarted playing the game on launch day with the Day One patch – so I could see the struggle for the developers to get the game out in the state that they wanted”. In the next breath, he promptly blames Hello Games: “I understand some of the criticisms especially Sean Murray is getting, because he sounded like he was promising more features in the game from day one. It wasn’t a great PR strategy, because he didn’t have a PR person helping him, and in the end he is an indie developer. But he says their plan is to continue to develop No Man’s Sky features and such, and I’m looking forward to continuing to play the game”.

As a side note, Eurogamer also inquired if Yoshida believed the incident with No Man’s Sky had harmed the PlayStation brand. His response was quite indignant, clearly furious that Eurogamer dared imply that such a small indie game could harm the obviously superior PlayStation. It seems like Sony has absolutely no problem dumping all the blame on Hello Games as though they had nothing to do with the game at all.

Though I believe Yoshida is correct regarding the lack of PR skills on Murray’s end, the situation is definitely more complicated than that. No Man’s Sky was released way before it was ready and it’s rather clear Sean Murray was buckling under pressure both from his fans and Sony. As mentioned above, there are several elements missing from the game that even without the many promises by Murray, would be apparent. The narrative, as mentioned above, was not something mentioned during the interviews in very much detail. Yet the ending was incongruent when it didn’t entirely follow the implications from the monoliths. This left a lot of players deeply unsatisfied, even those that understood the often vague and artsy depths of indie games. With such important elements missing in No Man’s Sky , the only reason can be that it was released before it was ready – a conclusion quite a few players came to.

Is Sony Eager to Blame Hello Games?

In addition, the pressure from fans must have been insane. Without a community or PR manager, indie developers have to deal with fans themselves. It is far too easy at that point to take what fans are saying personally too. This isn’t always a bad thing, but sometimes fans can demand a little too much of you and your creativity. The demand, needless to say, was quite high for No Man’s Sky . The best example is the bootleg copy of No Man’s Sky debacle, wherein someone at Hello Games was (probably) badgered into sending it out to the fan (for a tempting exorbitant fee). I can only imagine on the other side of that, was Sony continually asking after progress and wondering if a bootleg copy meant the game was done. Furthermore, from a publisher as important and big as Sony even the most benign exchange probably felt like Sony wanted the game done yesterday. It’s not difficult to see why Hello Games buckled under the pressure from both fans and Sony.

Thus, despite Yoshida turning his nose up at Hello Games, Sony is definitely not blameless. The fault with No Man’s Sky is a great deal more complicated than the president stated. The missing elements in the game make it clear that it was released too early. A personal connection with fans can sometimes turn into an additional pressure to finish the game and get it out there, and surely Sony was putting pressure on PlayStation’s indie darling to release ASAP, as well.

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